The New Era Cap Company is an American headwear company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. It was founded in 1920. New Era has over 500 different licenses in its portfolio. Since 1993 they have been the exclusive baseball cap supplier for Major League Baseball (MLB).
German immigrant Ehrhardt Koch, 37 and a skilled craftsman saw an opportunity to redesign the process used and the quality of “fashion” headwear. In 1920, his dream came true and he started New Era Cap Co. In the 1930's they expanded on fashion to the growing popularity of professional Baseball. In 1934 the first New Era® professional baseball cap was produced the Cleveland Indians.
By 1950 New Era was the only independent cap maker supplying caps to big league baseball teams. Its impressive roster of clients included many of the 16 teams at the time like the Brooklyn Dodgers®, Cincinnati Reds®, Cleveland Indians® and Detroit Tigers®. In 1954, Harold designed New Era’s fitted 59FIFTY style cap, giving it a more contemporary look.
The 1980s became a decade of consistent growth. The company was producing headwear for college sports, AAA and International Baseball leagues and started selling caps to sports fans.
New Era had become Major League Baseball's (MLB) exclusive supplier and experienced its first brush with custom, fashion headwear in 1996 with Spike Lee, New Era was shaping a future of creativity and collaboration.
The vision that marked New Era’s growth in the 1920s and 1930s proved to be alive and well in the early part of the new millennium. The company’s globalization efforts continued with offices opening up in Europe, Japan and Australia within a two-year period. New Era started to cement its position as the number one headwear brand in the world and one that spans the worlds of sport, fashion, music and entertainment.
After decades as the official on-field cap of MLB, New Era set its sights on rounding out its exclusivity with largest sports leagues in the United States. In 2012, New Era became the official sideline cap of the NFL, and, in 2016, became the official on court cap of the NBA; making New Era the only brand in sports history to have exclusive on-field, sideline and on court headwear rights for all three major U.S. leagues at the same time.