Old School SA’s Stellenbosch brothers riding Bafana Bafana fever sweeping the country

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Stef and Daneel Steinmann couldn’t buy the vintage Springbok jerseys they kept seeing around Stellenbosch in 2019, a Rugby World Cup year when green and gold were everywhere,  so after roughly 100 emails they found a supplier and started their own brand, Old School SA. Six years on, Old School holds official partnerships and licences with the Springboks, Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs, Manchester City and the NBA, and operates branded stores across the country. With Bafana Bafana back at the Football World Cup for the first time in 16 years, Old School is now the official supporters’ brand, and their Bafana kit has become so popular that, as Stef Steinmann puts it, “people are sleeping in their jerseys.” In an interview with BizNews, he reflects on their journey and the brother dynamic, how Daneel knocks on doors “making promises” while Stef makes sure those promises are kept, a balance that works. Daneel is already on the ground with Bafana Bafana in Mexico, where they played their first match, while Stef, delayed by a visa issue, is holding the fort in South Africa. What does he attribute their meteoric success to? Uniting people behind the teams they love, because people tend to remember who they were with during the big sporting moments more than the match itself. - Linda van Tilburg

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Edited transcript of the interview

Linda van Tilburg (00:00)

South African football, or soccer, as we call it, fans are on a high this week with Bafana Bafana’s return to the World Cup, and supporters are keenly following every move. And right in the middle of that global moment is a South African brand that started in Stellenbosch and is now being worn around the world. Two brothers, Stef and Daneel Steinmann, are the force behind Old School SA, a fast-growing supporter brand in global sport. Their collections now carry the colours of the Springbok, Orlando Pirates and Premier League giants like Manchester City, and the NBA in the US, to name but a few. 

Linda van Tilburg (01:00):

Well, can we start with the moment we’re in? Bafana Bafana has just played their first World Cup match, and social media is full of the Old School kit that you’re wearing right now as well for Bafana Bafana. So, what exactly is your involvement around this World Cup?

Stef Steinmann (01:18):

Firstly, we’re so excited for this World Cup. Everyone has Bafana fever - it’s full-on Bafana Fridays at this point. For us it’s just such a massive privilege. SAFA brought this ’96 heritage range back to life with Old School as the partner and for us during this period, it’s just such a big occasion to make sure we tell the story of that ’96 era correctly, jointly with SAFA. We’ve also included a local artist called Steven Langa in the campaign. We just realised that that era of football can’t be captured by product alone. So, we’ve sort of included him in this campaign to, in his own artistic lens, bring this product to life in a pastel work. And we’ve made 25 prints that are showcased in our stores alongside this ’96 Bafana range. It’s for sale exclusively in our stores, and Steven Langa is obviously benefiting from those proceeds. So, it’s a very exciting initiative for us and our creative director is currently in Mexico getting content of the 2010 legends who just played their match against Mexico earlier this week. We did a 2010 legends send-off at our Sandton store. So, it’s just full-on Bafana fever, like I said, and we’re so excited to be involved and be part of it.

Linda van Tilburg (02:55):

I’ve looked at some of your social media coverage of it and I see big names like Siphiwe Tshabalala wearing one of your shirts. So what’s the feedback from fans?

Stef Steinmann (03:13):

No, fans are loving it. I think at this point, as South Africans, I think we’re some of the most passionate sports people in the whole world. Everyone just wants to get their hands on a Bafana jersey and wear it, and I think that’s what makes this moment so beautiful. You see people who wouldn’t normally watch soccer, but because South Africa is representing us as a country on the global stage, everyone is uniting and coming together. So no, it’s just special to see how everyone is grabbing jerseys, putting them on and wearing them. I think people are sleeping in their jerseys at this point.

Linda van Tilburg (03:54):

We know Old School from rugby jerseys and what you did with the Springbok. So, can we go back? What sparked this whole idea starting this collection of amazing supporters’ gear?

Stef Steinmann (04:10):

No, I love that. I love that question. So… I’m going to take it back to 2019 in Stellenbosch. It was a Rugby World Cup year, and both my brother and I were studying at Stellenbosch, and we were always sort of keen entrepreneurs. I’d almost say because we were forced to. We never just got a free handout. We always had to for something or explain to our dad how we were going to afford this. So, I think it was sort of engraved into our mindset. And at that point we were walking to class, and we saw a lot of people walking around with these vintage green and gold jerseys. I think one night when we were having a beer together, I was telling him, “Have you also seen this? Everyone is wearing these vintage jerseys.” And we were actually quite sad, because we assumed these jerseys obviously got passed down by dads or parents from back in the day.

We actually looked at one another and said, surely, we can find it somewhere. We tried looking if someone was selling it, and we said, well, if we feel this way, surely other people feel this way and it can’t be found anywhere. And I’d say almost 100 emails later, we found a supplier that fit all our needs. And that was the start of Old School, but we didn’t know it back then.

Linda van Tilburg (05:39):

Initially you ran into a problem with the SA Rugby Board, but you guys then so cleverly negotiated a deal.

Stef Steinmann (05:51):

That was such a pivotal moment for us, I think in 2023. Well, to take you back to 2019 to 2023, it was almost a very quiet period for us. Daneel went to do his articles, and I ran a marketing agency, which was sort of sitting in-house being the marketing agency for Old School. And we were just reinvesting all of the profits back into the business, which wasn’t a lot back then. Like I said, between 2019 and the start of ’23 it was actually quite slow. And then in 2023 we had a great year, and then as you mentioned, in 2024 we had this incident, and we sort of said to the Springboks, look at the story we’re telling, look what we can do, imagine what we can do with a Springbok brand.

And we actually reached a deal, which was monumental for us. That was a great tipping point. We now operate the stores for the Springboks, we’ve opened up in Sandton, in Canal Walk, in Menlyn, and there’s a pop-up in Gateway. So, it’s just been strength to strength since then on the rugby front, which was very, very cool.

Linda van Tilburg (07:15):

Well, that’s the rugby side, but you’ve landed partnerships most South African brands can only dream of - Orlando Pirates, but then Manchester City, the NBA in the US. How did those conversations start?

Stef Steinmann (07:29):

Yeah, it’s such a question we actually look back on. I think what happened is there was a pivotal moment after we signed the Springbok deal, or just before that, where we looked at our mission statement, which has always been to unite people with product, to create a belonging where people can really… it’s not just wearing something because it looks cool, but when you wear it, you actually belong, you can feel that story, and it unites people. That has been our mission statement. And we looked at ourselves and said, cool, I feel like we’re doing a great job, but we’re doing it for a select group in South Africa. And that’s not our mission statement; we want to unite the whole of South Africa with product. And that’s when we went knocking on the likes of Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.

“Orlando Pirates was actually the first club we started working with, and it wasn’t an overnight success, I must tell you. We launched and we did a very cool campaign, but we had confidence, because we actually sat with them and asked: what story should we tell? How do we connect? Because for us it’s not just about putting product into the market, it’s telling a story people relate to, something that creates a sense of belonging.

That was the moment we realised this wasn’t going to be an overnight thing. But because we were telling the story in that way, we knew that in the long run it would work out. And the proof was in the pudding, after a few months of hard work, continuing to tell the narrative they’d helped shape, it started paying off.

We then started working with Doctor Khumalo from Kaizer Chiefs. And I think what we’ve done in South Africa is tell an authentic story, because we work directly with these partners. We’re not naïve enough to think we can tell the story better than the rights holders themselves.

That opened global doors. We realised there’s a Man City, Liverpool or NBA fan in South Africa who feels the same way you and I feel about Kaizer Chiefs, the Springboks and Bafana Bafana. And again, it was such a beautiful extension of our mission: uniting people behind the products and teams they love.

Linda van Tilburg (10:07):

The Premier League is so huge - what a coup to get that. And you, two brothers building a business: how does that dynamic work? And is Daneel in the US, Mexico or Canada?

Stef Steinmann (10:21):

Yeah, Daneel - I love him. We’ve always been best friends. We’re just a year apart. Even when we were at school, we played some sports together and had the same friend group. So, it’s actually just been the biggest blessing doing this with him. But, as you can probably tell, we’re complete opposites. Daneel is an extreme extrovert and I’m more introverted, a little more calculated in the way I go about things. But I think it’s a very good balance. Like you said, Daneel would be flying around doing deals, knocking on doors the whole time, making a lot of promises, and I’d be on this side trying to make sure those promises are kept. So it’s a very good balance - I do think we balance each other out quite well. And we can be honest with each other in all circumstances, so that’s great.

Linda van Tilburg (11:21):

You said earlier that you guys had to sort of work for things in your life. And your dad, Neil, dad wrote a book, Fundamentals for Effective Mentoring: Raising Giant Killers. So, did his thinking shape any of how you lead or make decisions?

Stef Steinmann (11:51):

Yeah, I think definitely. I’d say not just the book, but like you said, the way it’s been ingrained into our upbringing. We always made the joke that we understood purpose and were asking the “why” question before we could even say goo-goo-gaga, just because that was what my dad drilled into us. And it was such a valuable skill. I think at the time we were sort of hoping he could teach us more about entrepreneurship and business, but he actually equipped us with probably one of the most important skills for running a business, which is people. And like I said, understanding your purpose, your why; understanding that there’s a difference between being good at something and a true strength, understanding that, and then being able to build a culture-first business. I’d definitely owe it to my dad.

Linda van Tilburg (12:48):

Well, sometimes when you rise like you guys did, there comes a lot of noise. So, has anything been misunderstood about Old School that you’d like to correct?

Stef Steinmann (13:15):

Yeah, I’d say probably, like you said, just because people see all this new stuff, we bring out the whole time, we see comments of people saying, “Why aren’t you doing Sundowns?” or “Why aren’t you doing Manchester United?”, for example. I think that just shows me a lot of people don’t really understand the relationship between Old School and the institutions we work with. In most cases, either we’re partners or we’re working with them as a direct licensee, always working with them in an official, authentic capacity. And what that means is that we don’t just go and take a product and chuck their logo on it. No, not at all. We go and sit with them and make sure we create a range together.

We sit with them and understand their audience, their story, their background as a club or as a brand, to make sure that the story they’re telling is how we bring that product to market. So, I think that’s one of the most important things, because people sometimes see the stuff we do and say, well, how does this happen? It’s because we really sit with them, and they’re part of the approval process and shaping the whole narrative and the product. So, I think that’s something that’s definitely been misunderstood. People think it’s just us chucking a logo on and having free rein. And with that — sorry, Linda — with that, it also means that these institutions, apart from us sitting with them and ensuring their story lives and is told correctly… we pay for those rights, and the revenue actually goes back and benefits those clubs directly. And I don’t think a lot of people understand that either.

Linda van Tilburg (15:12):

Well, the World Cup is such a massive stage. So, beyond that, what do you hope this will unlock for Old School?

Stef Steinmann (15:20):

Well, I think for us, as I’ve said, and I sound like a tape recorder, just being true to our mission statement, so people can really see what it’s about for us. It’s really about bringing people together and uniting people, and the World Cup is the perfect example. For us it’s full-on World Cup focus at this moment, because we really want to honour the team that’s playing and make sure we can be part of these memorable moments people have. Because at the end of the day, people don’t always remember the game, but they do remember how they watched it and who they watched it with. And we want to be part of those conversations, making sure we amplify those experiences and memories for people, so that when they look back, they can look at some of these jerseys and products and have a story to tell for generations to come.

Linda van Tilburg (16:17):

Well, you’re so young, and so is your brother. So, if you look ahead, where do you guys want to grow to?

Stef Steinmann (16:23):

Well, that’s a question I always struggle to answer, because that’s something Daneel drives — one week it can be this, and the next week it’s that. He’s used to moving quite fast. But no, I’m more joking. I think for us, the focus for now, obviously we have big ambitions, and we’ve been growing very quickly, but the focus for now is really the customer, and ensuring we always stay true to what I’m telling you here. Which is to say, we always look back and ask: are we really doing the clubs justice in the way we’re creating a belonging and telling the story in the right, authentic way? Not just launching a product and telling the story but making sure that golden thread is told and they show up in the right way. And I think by focusing on how we tell that story to the customer, the rest follows naturally. Yes, we do have ambitions, and we do want to continue growing, but I think if we do that right, the rest follows. That’s always been our philosophy: we as a business focus on that, and Daneel focuses on knocking on doors. If we’ve set this up correctly, we can service all the new promises he goes out and makes.

Linda van Tilburg (17:46):

So are you also jetting out there?

Stef Steinmann (17:49):

Unfortunately, not. I left my visa a little late. But I think it’s going to be an exceptional tournament from what I’ve seen in the videos going around in Mexico. I’m very jealous, let me just tell you that.

Linda van Tilburg (18:05):

Are there sports you haven’t tapped into yet that you’d like to?

Stef Steinmann (18:10):

I think a big realisation for now is that it’s more a team-sport thing. I think Dricus (du Plessis) is sort of the exception to the rule, it’s an individual sport, and we’ve just seen that people have more of a diehard fan mentality towards a team. So, I’d say where there’s team sport in South Africa that has big audiences, we want to service those people and create products they can feel proud to wear.