Q and A : April 2009

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I’m sure you get this a lot but I’ve been playing on Div 4 and Div 5 teams for about 5 years now and they were all poorly organized so I’ve decided to start my own team with a lot of young talent and hungry hearts. We practice two days a week and work out 5 days a week. I was wondering about getting sponsors, do you have any advice?
Lance aka Hollywood

Getting sponsors is very tricky, and a question we get asked alot. Yes, normally Div 4 and 5 teams aren’t well organized. Unfortunately that is reality a lot of times, that’s why those teams are playing in the lower divisions. I’m glad to see you have the tenacity to keep competing and to start your own team. Now the organization is up to you; tend it well. However, how organized your team is only puts the players in a well-oiled groove where they should be able to focus on playing. Possible sponsorship opportunities can be helped out by having your act in order, but it’s not the determining factor of whether or not a company will sponsor you.

The grim reality, even for the best teams and players in the world, is that sponsorship dollars have dried up in the wake of the economic mess. So now, more than ever, there is absolutely positively no free lunch.

Getting sponsors isn’t really a factor of how well you are organized, or how much your team loves paintball, or how much you team practices/works out, though all those attributes are important to your eventual success– it’s a factor of how much money you are worth to the person giving you money. Companies sponsor teams because two reasons:

1. You own a store or a field or both, and you can sell X amount of product to get Y amount for free.

2. You are winning everything in sight, or are so paintball famous, that the company thinks by giving you money or product, they will get a greater amount of marketing value out of you or your team than the actual amount of dollars.

This isn’t about current hard work or your talent level, this is about the bottom line and your resume. Another thing, unless you are pro or semi pro, maybe div 1, even if you are winning everything, you still won’t be able to get decent sponsorship. There just aren’t enough dollars in the companies marketing budgets to give out to the lower div teams. I would focus you efforts on trying to get local stores and fields to sponsor you, so your bottom line on paint and field entry fees is lower. Another way to get funding for the team is to throw local tournaments. Also, hitting up emerging companies who are trying to make a name for themselves might go better than approaching big companies who already have their budgets locked in for the year. Also, some companies do have deals set up where you can buy a package of gear for a discount, it’s not really sponsorship, more a glorified group discount, but in this economic climate, it’s better than nothing. Good luck bro.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 7:30 pm and is filed under Q and A. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Q and A : April 2009

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