[1][2][3] Founded in 1902, the company produced team uniforms for a wide range of sports, such as American football, basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball.

[6][7] Today, Russell Athletic primarily focuses on casual wear, producing t-shirts, hoodies, jackets, sweatpants, shorts and underwear.

Later in 1938, Russell began making woven athletic garments, including basketball, baseball, and football pants and jackets.

The contract also stipulated that the company held the exclusive right to manufacture and market replicas of major league uniforms, T-shirts, and shorts.

Russell Athletic has had a team of brand ambassadors representing the brand in their local markets, ranging from Olympic swimmers Stephanie Rice and Ellie Faulkner to number of professional rugby union and rugby league players in England and South Africa such as Sailosi Tagicakibau, Cheslin Kolbe, Shaun Lunt, Ryan Atkins, and Stevie Ward and professional health ambassadors and Yoga ambassadors such as Samantha Laura Kaye.

[13] On September 28, 2017, Russell Athletic said it would be exiting the team uniform manufacturing business after 115 years, and the company would be refocused on activewear for the consumer apparel market.

[14] The company cited that companies like Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour (which all started making athletic footwear) starting their own team uniform units, and as a result eating away at Russell's market share in that department was a contributing factor in discontinuing Russell's team uniform manufacturing business.

[6] Many teams of the NFL wore uniforms (in addition to jerseys for retail from the league starting in the 1980s) provided by Russell Athletic during the 1980s to the 1990s:[16] [21]