Sponsorship Tips
New paintball teams all over the world are looking for an easy “in” for free gear, and a successful tournament team. Though many teams have plenty of skill and dedication, the hard truth is that your team wont make it far without deals from sponsors. PBMansion would like to help every team out there get started, and take advantage of deals to help the teams chances of success, but this is an expensive task. That is why I will give you all the Information you need to get your first sponsorship, and any sponsorship after that.
Sponsors can be a great help to a beginner team, amateur teams, and even professional teams, but be careful which sponsors you choose for your team as they may end up being a demoralizing choice, or a wasted effort. From experience, I can say you will want to avoid hand out sponsorships that offer nothing but insignificant discount percentages. You may be excited to land your first deal, but you don’t want to get caught up in a contract deal for discounts that will not help you at all. One sponsorship I would recommend for your team’s first year is Redz Comfort where your team can purchase matching gear at cheap prices. Never accept a hand out sponsorship just for the sake of collecting as many companies as possible as “Sponsors.” If you did not have to create a sponsorship resume to gain sponsorship, chances are your sponsor is a wasted effort.
Below are requirements a lot of companies consider a necessity in order to earn a sponsorship.
- Team must have at least one team consisting of at least five players.
- Team must compete either locally or nationally, and must have tournament experience.
- Team must provide a full length, in depth sponsorship resume.
- Team must regularly provide in depth team updates to their sponsorship representative.
- Team must have a Website.
When you are a beginner team, try not to stress over getting sponsors, you should try to work out deals with local fields where you can get entry or paint discounted or free so you can practice cheap. Aside from practice, tournaments should be your number one priority. Try to place high in as many tournaments as possible. You should start with rookie tournaments so you have better chances. Once you get some tournament experience, and some 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place wins, you will be more likely to land a good sponsorship deal.
When you finish your first season with some successful wins, and you have picked up some decent sponsors, you will want to try to talk to your sponsor representative to get better deals for the new season. You should offer your opinion on what you think is fair, and ask the representative what he thinks. From there, you should be able to agree upon a reasonable deal. In addition to working out better deals with current sponsors, you may want to sign new sponsors, and drop some old ones. By this time you should have some basic knowledge down on how to approach a sponsor, and what kind of information to put on a resume. You will get better and better at working out deals as you get more experience with it, but dropping a sponsor will always be an awkward task. You should always think of the best way to express how the company is not meeting your needs, and can no longer offer you the assistance you need. remember though to do this in a mature and respectful manner because each and every sponsor should have been an important milestone in your paintball career, and you may run into this company as a sponsor later down the line.
When you send a sponsorship resume, companies will look for all of this information inside.
Top of page:
- Team Logo
- Team Name
- Team Website
- Team Owner
- Team Owner E-Mail Address
- Team Owner Address
- Team Captain(s)
- Date (mm/dd/yyyy)
Body of resume
- Team Summary with action pictures, and off field pictures. (2-3 Paragraphs)
- Team Goals (2-3 Paragraphs)
- Team Roster, include following information:
Picture:
Name:
Age:
Years of Experience:
Marker:
Hopper:
Mask:
Pants:
Pack:
Body (continued)
- Previous tournaments and standings
- Current sponsors
- Any important Information about your team
- Background information on team members (not relevant to paintball)
- What can you offer your sponsors in return.
- What do you look for in a sponsor
End of Resume.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the basics of a paintball sponsorship resume, try submitting your teams resume to these recommended sites:
PBMansion-Paintball Mansion
Redz-http://redzcomfort.com/sponsors.asp
Dye-http://www.dyeprecision.com/sponsorship.htmlÂ
Karnage Paintballs-http://www.karnagepaintballs.com/custompages.php?id=16
Good Luck,
Nick Marmol