The above is an old sponsor me video made by a friend of mine. You’ll see why it’s relevant at the end of this blog 😉
Every so often, I get an email asking ‘How to get sponsored’ or ‘How to become a pro’, so here’s a blog to answer that question.
The super secret trick to getting sponsored: Aim to become a better rider and put yourself out there.
There’s no special secret that’s going to make you sponsored. Companies will sponsor you for 2 reasons:
- You’re getting visibility and will help get their product name out there
- They like you
So how do you get meet either of the above requirements?
A) Stop riding just to get sponsored
Aim to get sponsored, but don’t ride just to be sponsored. Ride to get better and ride because you love pushing yourself. Riding just to get sponsored won’t get you anywhere and it’ll probably make you into one of those guys that sits on every chairlift asking “You sponsored bro?” Please don’t be that guy. Everyone hates that guy.
Sponsorship should be a bonus on top of doing what you love to do, it shouldn’t be the reason you snowboard/ski. Even if you do manage to get a low level sponsorship, chances are you’ll never make enough to live off it, so don’t make money, sponsorship or fame your sole reason for wanting to ‘go pro’.
It’s a long path that involves lots of second jobs and poor pay in order to be a low level pro, so make sure you’re in this for the right reasons or you may find that being ‘pro’ isn’t as cool and awesome as you thought.
B) Get your riding up to standard
You don’t have to be spinning double cork 1080s all day like Sebastian Toutant, but you do need a certain level of ability. Are you able to hit big jumps and/or large rails? Do you have a nice style and some decently large spins in your bag of tricks?
There are plenty of people sponsored who aren’t X-Games competitors or near that level, but you should at least be able to enter local competitions and do okay. There’s no secret to this step. It involves a lot of riding, many crashes, lots of scars and many days on the mountain to get to this level.
C) Get yourself out there
Get in there and meet as many industry people as you can. Go to parties, industry nights, shops and anything else you can get yourself to. Make sure you introduce yourself to local team reps and managers. Get your face out there and make sure they know who you are. You want them to recognize your name whenever they look at the results for local competitions or when they look over ‘sponsor me’ videos.
And do make sure you’re entering all the contests you can. They’re a great way to get recognized and get yourself into the scene.
Don’t forget to make videos of yourself too. Get footage of your best tricks over each season and make montages. Don’t be one of those guys that shoves their ‘sponsor me’ video into the face of any industry person he sees, but rather just send it in via mail/email or pass it to the reps after getting to know them a little. Be a genuinely nice, cool person who just wants to talk to them and get into the industry.
Use websites like Hookit.com to send in sponsor me videos and put your videos on all the standard action sports video sharing sites as well. You never know who will stumble onto it.
Remember, be genuine and nice. You’re out there to make friends and connections in the industry, not to force them to see your sponsor me footage.
It all comes together in the end
That’s it. Just keep riding and keep putting yourself out there. When your riding is at a decent level and you’ve been putting yourself out there, the sponsorship will find you.
Want proof that it happens?
I have a riding buddy named Charlie Idda. Mr. Idda has been aiming to be sponsored for long time. He loves snowboarding and he’s been pushing himself and making montages and getting himself out there for the past few seasons that I’ve ridden with him. He’s a good example of doing it because he loves snowboarding and loves pushing himself, he’d keep doing it even if he never got sponsored.
How did he get sponsored? One of his random montages from Whistler was found by an editor of Whitelines Magazine and put on on the front page with the title “You should probably know about Charlie Idda“. Yep, his sponsor me video made it to the front page of one of the biggest online snowboard websites. He woke up the next morning with multiple sponsorship offers.
One of them was YES Snowboards, a snowboard company founded by his heroes, who were actually able to recognize Charlie as the same guy they’d seen shredding around Whistler. That’s what I call putting yourself out there.
You could say that it was luck, but I say he was prepared and was available when the opportunity presented itself. I’m reminded of a quote: “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”