Sponsorship - Part 1

So, you want sponsors huh… Ok, I will sponsor you… wear my logo and promote my brand. Deal done right? Wrong! I take it you want something too?

Sponsorship is a two way street and it will always start with the person looking to get sponsored. The first obligation to your sponsors is to make them look good. Make sure that when you are away from the field you are talking up paintball, your home field, and their products. Paintball fields crave new players. The more new players you can get to the field, the better. When you are at the field, utilize the products they want you to and be on your best behavior. I would encourage you to help everyone that is there, weather it be cleaning their barrel or mask, or giving them advise. You never know, the barrel you clean may belong to the next Ollie Lang, and they may end up helping you. You will find that your time at the field is not only more enjoyable, or that you will have more friends, but that you will get better at paintball much faster. You are not a master of a subject until you can teach it. As you try to teach it you will find the flaws in your way, not only helping your students, but also assisting you to perfect what you are teaching.

This year the DBS KIDZ are out looking for sponsorship… and money is tight in the sponsorship world. As much as our team is trying to separate itself from our home field/store (Doodlebug Sportz) in terms of sponsorship with other companies, the two will always be tied. Teams get deals for one reason, companies’ feel that whomever they sponsor will produce sales (or benefit them in some other way). If they put $100 into your team, they are expecting to make enough sales to cover that and then some. As much as the rest of the DBS KIDZ want to believe that companies sponsor us because we win events and represent them well, the bottom line is they do it because they feel it will lead to further sales because we add that personal, local touch to the product…

If your team competes at the highest level and wins with great sportsmanship then great… but will it produce sales for your sponsor? You can make them look awesome, but if you are not at a bare minimum getting more people in their door for them to have a chance to sell to, then they probably won’t sponsor you. On a side note, I would love to sponsor more players, but from a business perspective, it doesn’t make sense… Would you spend $100 on a magazine ad, or radio ad, or tv ad if you did not feel it would produce that same $100 and then some? I would love to dump money into teams if every dollar I poured into them produced me $2… Paintball is a business, and as much as these companies want to help everyone, if they gave everyone everything for free or for below cost they wouldn’t survive…

That is a simple break down on sponsorship and provides a basic business outlook on the topic. I hope this assist you and/or your team in getting sponsored. If you decide you want to wear the DBS logo because of what you have found in this article, email danny@doodlebugsportz.com and I will get you the logo.