Students investigate the game-day button market, design a product people will buy, and sell it in public.
Middle School PBL Idea
Project Summary: Middle school students launch a real button-making business built around game-day and school-spirit pins. They study why fans pay five to fourteen dollars for a three-inch button, design products people actually want, price for profit, and sell to a live audience. A practical entrepreneurship project that makes math, design, marketing, and civic purpose feel immediate.
Business PBL Idea
Game-day buttons look small. The market is not.
Walk any Friday-night stadium, homecoming, or college tailgate and you will see oversized team buttons selling for five, seven, even fourteen dollars. Materials cost pennies. The markup is the lesson. Students already understand spirit culture. This project asks them to turn that instinct into a business that can actually make money for a school, booster club, or community cause.
Project Title
Pressed for Profit: Launching a Game-Day Button Business
Enduring Understanding
A product only becomes a business when students can name a real customer, design something that customer will actually buy, price it so costs and profit are honest, and put the work in front of a public audience.
Driving Question
How can we design, price, and sell game-day buttons that people actually want to buy, and still make a real profit for our school or community?
Suggested Grade Band & Duration
Grades 6–8 (adaptable to grade 5 or a high school intro-business class)
3–5 weeks (can compress to two weeks with a single selling event, or expand if students manufacture in-house)
Project Overview
Middle school students step into the roles of product designers, marketers, and small-business owners. They investigate a real market: custom game-day and school-spirit buttons. Fans pay a premium for identity, belonging, and a wearable souvenir. Students have to figure out why.
Teams design a button line for a real client (the school, a sports team, a club, or a community partner), calculate unit cost and selling price, build a simple business plan, and sell at a public event. The work stays grounded in constraints that matter: material cost, time, school branding rules, copyright, customer taste, and whether the math actually works.
Core Content Connections
- Mathematics: unit rate, percent, profit/loss, multi-step budgeting, rounding money, break-even
- ELA: persuasive writing, technical writing, oral presentation, audience awareness
- Visual arts / media: composition, color, hierarchy, branding, print-ready design
- Social studies / civics (optional): local economy, fundraising ethics, school as a community
- Career / entrepreneurship: customer research, pricing strategy, marketing mix, reflection on results
Durable Skills, Threads
- Empathy: design for a real fan, not for the designer’s taste
- Decision-making under constraint: what to charge when materials, time, and pride all compete
- Collaboration: roles that mimic a tiny company (design, finance, marketing, operations)
- Ethical production: school marks, mascot use, copyright, honest claims about profit
Entry Event Options
1. Show a photo or short clip of game-day buttons at a real stadium or tailgate. Reveal typical selling prices ($5–$14) next to a materials list that totals well under a dollar. Ask: “Who is making the money, and why would anyone pay that?”
2. Bring a bag of actual spirit buttons (school-made and commercially sold). Have students sort them into “I would buy this” and “I would walk past this,” then defend the sort.
3. Invite a booster parent, student-store manager, or local maker who already sells buttons. Let students hear what actually sells and what sits in a box.
Final Product
Working in teams, students create and deliver:
- A small product line of 2–4 button designs (digital files plus at least one physical prototype per design)
- A one-page business plan: customer, price, cost, profit target, and sales pitch
- A live sales booth or pop-up with pricing, display, and a short pitch
The business plan must include:
1. A named customer and evidence they would buy
2. Unit cost, selling price, and projected profit
3. A rationale for design choices (color, text, size, humor vs. tradition)
4. A plan for where profit goes (team, club, classroom fund, community partner)
Public Exhibition
Friday Night Pop-Up (or the school equivalent)
Teams set up a booth at a home game, pep rally, open house, or community night and sell to a real audience. Guests give feedback on design, price, and pitch. After the event, teams reconcile sales against their plan and report what they would change for the next game.
If a live sale is not possible, run a school marketplace with staff and families as buyers, or partner with the student store for a two-day consignment window. The audience still has to be public, and money or mock-money still has to move.
Project Phases & Formative Benchmarks
Phase 1 – Investigate the Market
Students research real game-day button prices, sizes, and styles. They interview or survey potential buyers (students, parents, athletes, staff). They identify who pays, what they pay for, and what they ignore.
Benchmark / deliverable: Market snapshot—three competitor examples with prices, a short customer profile, and 5–8 survey or interview findings.
Look-fors: Evidence from real buyers, not guesses. Clear distinction between “we like this” and “someone will pay for this.”
Phase 2 – Design the Product Line
Teams sketch and refine 2–4 button concepts for a specific team, event, or cause. They test designs with peers and at least one adult buyer. They check school branding and copyright rules before falling in love with a mascot.
Benchmark / deliverable: Design board with drafts, one revised favorite per concept, and notes from critique.
Look-fors: Readable text at button size, strong contrast, a single clear idea per button, and revisions based on feedback.
Phase 3 – Do the Math
Students calculate materials, labor time, packaging, and any machine or printing fees. They set a selling price and defend it. They forecast how many they need to sell to break even and to hit a profit goal.
Benchmark / deliverable: Cost sheet + pricing rationale (unit cost, price, margin, break-even quantity).
Look-fors: Accurate arithmetic, honest labor estimates, and a price that is both profitable and believable for the crowd they named.
Phase 4 – Build the Business Plan and Pitch
Teams write the one-page plan and practice a 60–90 second booth pitch. They design a simple display (price cards, sample board, cash or payment plan).
Benchmark / deliverable: One-page plan + pitch rehearsal with peer feedback.
Look-fors: Customer, product, price, and purpose all line up. Pitch is spoken for a busy hallway or stadium, not a classroom recitation.
Phase 5 – Sell, Reconcile, Reflect
Teams run the public exhibition, track inventory and cash, and write a short after-action report: what sold, what sat, what the math predicted vs. what happened, and what they would change.
Benchmark / deliverable: Sales log + reflection (what worked, what they would price or design differently).
Look-fors: Numbers that match the booth, specific evidence, and a revision idea that is operational, not vague.
How Students Will Be Assessed
Work is evaluated on:
- Quality of customer research and use of that evidence in design and price
- Mathematical accuracy in cost, price, margin, and break-even
- Craft and clarity of the button designs
- Professionalism of the plan, booth, and pitch
- Collaboration and process across phases
- Honesty and insight in the post-sale reflection
Students get feedback at each benchmark so they can revise before the public sale. The sale is the test of the idea, not a surprise ending.
Differentiation & Supports
- Provide a cost template and a sample one-page plan for teams that need structure.
- Offer choice of analog sketching or digital tools (Canva, Google Drawings, Adobe Express).
- Let some teams design only and partner with a maker lab or teacher for production.
- Challenge advanced teams with constraints: a $0.75 cost cap, a bilingual design, a bundle strategy, or a second product (magnet, sticker) using the same art.
- Sentence frames for pitch and reflection support multilingual learners.
- Roles (designer, CFO, marketer, operations) keep mixed-readiness groups productive without hiding individual accountability.
Why This Project Works for Middle School
The product is concrete, cheap to prototype, and already part of students’ social world. The surprise is the economics. Once students see the gap between material cost and game-day price, they have a reason to care about unit rate, percent, audience, and craft. The public booth keeps the work honest. A button that looks clever in class still has to survive a parent with five dollars and ten seconds.
Additional Resources Teachers Will Need
Production options (pick one on purpose)
– Classroom button maker (2.25″ or 3″ die) plus shells, pins, and mylar
– Outsourced printing through a school vendor or a site such as Pure Buttons, Buttonworks, or a local print shop
– Prototype-only version: printed circles, laminated, with pin backs, if a press is not available
Starter materials list
– Button press or print vendor access
– Card stock or design paper, scissors or circle cutter, pin backs
– Devices for design and simple spreadsheets
– Cash box or school-approved digital payment method
– Poster board or crate for the booth display
– Permission pathway for school colors, mascot, and student photos
Helpful texts and tools
– Sample competitor listings (search “game day buttons” on Etsy or school spirit catalogs) so students see real prices, not imaginary ones
– A one-page business plan template and a cost-sheet template
– Critique protocol (I like / I wish / I wonder works well at this age)
– Photo permission and branding checklist from your athletic director or principal
– Optional guest: booster treasurer, student-store advisor, local maker, or DECA / FBLA teacher
Logistics to settle before launch
– Where profit goes, and who handles money
– Whether students may use the official mascot
– The exact public event date (work backward from that night)
– How unsold inventory will be handled
Teacher note on scope
You do not need a perfect manufacturing setup. You need one real customer, one honest cost sheet, and one public moment where the product meets a buyer. That is the project.
*This post was developed in collaboration with AI as a thought partner. All ideas, framing, and insights are grounded in my own classroom experience and the CraftED project-planning methodology.*
About the Author: Jenny
