Girouard is the founder of Brunt, a workwear label he started in 2020. As a fast-growing, New England-based brand, Brunt had popped up on the Patriots’ back-office radar. The recent skybox invite was part of the team’s efforts to sign Brunt as a corporate sponsor—or, as he termed it, “to get us to give them money.”
But despite Brunt’s reported 2024 revenue of $146 million, a cautious Girouard wasn’t really looking for a traditional sponsorship deal. It was then that he happened to glance out the window at the gridiron below.
“[The Patriots] have this crew that takes care of the field, and they were out there painting lines,” Girouard told ADWEEK. “Those guys get this place ready every week. They’re exactly our customer. They wear the type of product we produce.”
And most importantly: “They’ve never been sponsored by a brand before.”
At that moment, Girouard stumbled on what might be an evolutionary step in professional sports sponsorships. Not every brand can afford (or even wants to) pay for star-athlete talent and, in this case, there was value in signing the other guys on the field—even if they’re just mowing it.
Granted, that sort of deal might not make much sense for a luxury brand, and it wouldn’t be a logical choice for athletic megaliths like Nike or Adidas, either. But it felt tailor-made for Brunt.
Workwear for workers
Though labels like Dickies, Carhartt and Timberland dominate the world’s $19 billion workwear segment, their longevity has also led to an inevitable embrace by high-school hipsters, hip-hop fans, and millions of guys who’ve never picked up a hammer.
Girouard prefers to keep Brunt’s focus on the blue-collar workforce, and he hopes to accomplish that by showing a real, hardworking grounds crew wearing and using his brand.
“The Patriots were like, ‘nobody’s ever asked us to sponsor the field crew,’” Girouard said, but “they got behind it.” (Privately held, Brunt does not reveal dollar figures, including marketing costs.)
Grounds crews are a tight fraternity, and word got around.
Shortly after inking the Patriots deal, Brunt signed on as the official outfitter to the TD Garden Bull Gang, the 90-person crew that can turn the arena from a hockey rink for the Bruins to a basketball court for the Celtics in as little as two hours. (The crew’s name dates back to the old days of the Boston Garden, when the workmen—with no machinery to assist—needed the strength of bulls to lay the floor down.)
One obstacle to a deal like this: while the maintenance guys might be fully kitted out in Brunt gear, few fans are around when they do their work. Girouard’s own crew shoots stills and videos of them for social media, where more potential customers can see it.
That said, Brunt may eventually have to take a more traditional sponsorship route as it broadens its customer base, at least according to Ian Baer, founder and CEO of marketing intelligence firm Sooth.
“It’s completely on-brand and authentic for them to sponsor hard-working grounds crews,” Baer said, “but that alone will not push them into fashion-forward credibility. The brand needs to find a balance between engaging with those who are into the current blue-collar social content and those who will help them pivot into urban fashion. Until they start to complete that equation, the collaboration is more interesting than a big win.”
But for a new brand like Brunt, a win for now seems to be enough.
“If you look at the data, there’s 32 million people that fall into the blue-collar category,” Girouard said. And with AI threatening to undermine the foundations of the knowledge-worker economy, Metastat data shows that 42% of Gen-Z Americans are now pursuing blue-collar careers—37% of which have a college diploma.
Girouard has his work cut out for him just to get traction with that crowd, so he’s looking to sign more ground-crew endorsers. Just not too many.
“We want to see how these go, because two is enough for now,” he said, “Then we’ll look at other markets or other teams.”
They may not even have to invite him to their skyboxes.