Amy Gillett and Carolynn Hayman love tennis, but they also love having a laugh. As the co-founders of CourtMerch, a lifestyle brand based out of Ann Arbor, they have been able to merge their sense of humor with their passion for racket sports through charming designs.
Meeting on the tennis court in 2023, both Gillett and Hayman couldn’t have anticipated how much they’d have in common besides their love of the game. Both women were originally from Connecticut and had been brought to Ann Arbor by job opportunities at the University of Michigan — for Gillett, the opportunity was her own, and for Hayman, it was her husband’s work that brought the family to the area.
“We moved out here in 1996 for my husband’s job at the University of Michigan,” Hayman said. “We thought we’d try it for a couple years, see what we thought, but then we found it’s almost an impossible place to leave, because it’s so easy to live here. “The tennis community has really been a great asset.”
The women had more than a love for their community and a similar history in common. They were also both business owners. Gillett has worked for decades in international management education and running an ESL materials business, while Hayman has run her own small business as a balloon artist. It was no surprise that one of their early conversations revolved around putting their skills together to sell t-shirts on Etsy, a platform for independent sellers to peddle creative goods.
“And then we thought, yeah, we could do, like, a shirt or two, but why not try to go big and create our own website, really build a brand?” Gillett said.
From there, the first seeds of CourtMerch were planted, with the women deciding the brand would center around their mascot, Courtney, a tennis ball in a bucket hat who set the tone for the brand’s designs.
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“When we first started, we were throwing a lot of different ideas around, but we definitely landed on some humor,” said Hayman, “and then when we came up with the idea of having Courtney as our mascot, we were like, ‘Oh, that’s so cute, and then just think of all the little puns that we can have.’”
CourtMerch offers a wide range of punny performance wear products, all featuring their unique designs. In addition to individual orders, CourtMerch also offers custom designs for teams — even if they end up playing against them at some point.
“Someone saw the “Allez” shirt, actually, she was playing against us, and she’s like, ‘Oh, I love your shirt,’” said Gillett, “and that became her team shirt. She put her team name on the back, and had “Allez” on the front. They ordered it in a pink, V-neck performance shirt. I ended up playing against that team like three times this summer.”
Gillett and Hayman are looking ahead with CourtMerch and see the opportunities for future designs as almost endless, since direct printing allows them to react quickly to trends, viral moments in the tennis world and even holidays.
“We have a lot of ideas for Valentine’s Day, because we actually started thinking about different ideas around Valentine’s Day last year, but realized that we were a little too late to the party,” Hayman said. “Tennis and the word ‘love’ is very ingrained in the game. So, that’s something that we’ll have coming out a lot sooner.”
