A message for all you guys & girls out there asking for sponsorship, please keep this in mind I read an article not long ago by a guy I have the upmost respect for Ryan Upchurch. Ryan is always one of the 1st riders to come up and say hello and ask how things are going. In my opinion Ryan is a sponsors dream . He is good on and off the scooter. I would like to add a few details that Ryan may not understand, coming from a brands point of view. The problem we have found with the riders we have sponsored over the years is simple, the minute they don’t get their own way, We the brand are the bad guys. Most start out ok and then think they are bigger than the brand. Rule 1 Don’t become one of these people. Ryan made a point that some of the brands make hundreds of thousands of dollars some brands millions. This may be true to a point, however I will only speak for my brand Sacrifice. We are an Australian own brand, we had 8 riders at the world titles in Deeside (UK). To take riders over there and give them the chance to compete in most cases a once in a life time opportunity doing something they love riding scooters. This in its self is a massive expense to a company. Think about this, we send a rider from Australia to the UK, then travel through Europe for 2 weeks will cost around $6000 minimum ! Who earns that about of money in 2 weeks? I can tell you not too many people. Rule 2 Be grateful Being sponsored is a great thing and should never be taken for granted, treat scootering as something you love to do. If you are good enough it won’t take long for a sponsor to find you. Every chance you get to travel and see new places around the world is a bonus. We encourage all our rides to find work, find apprenticeships some type of employment that fits your life style, I think it’s important you kids understand there is only a handful of riders that can make a full time living out of scootering in the world so when it ends you need something to fall back on. Some riders just don’t understand this and think they are owed more than what they a worth. Rule 3 Listen to the advice given. If you get the opportunity to be sponsored by a brand, it is true we do expect a lot from you. The money it cost to send a rider around the world is not cheap, we need to sell a lot of scooters to recover the cost of these trips. This is something we tell our riders, you are not going for a holiday, you are going there to work. Most of the time we allow a few days to treat the riders to a bit of fun, Dream world for example after the Australian Championships, We took all our rider to enjoy a day away from scootering and to reward them for the hard work they all done helping out promoting Sacrifice over that weekend. We sponsor riders all around the world, not only do we pay for their parts we also pay for them to travel. This means somewhere nice to stay. We never give our riders $10 for McDonalds they eat where we do in good restaurants as they have work hard for the day and should eat good food not rubbish. All these things add up but we feel it’s worth every cent. We sponsor events all over the world, again to give not just our riders a comp to ride in but you as well. Without the support of the brands there would be no sport. The same goes for you the riders, without you we would have no sport. Rule 4 We all must work together not against one another. It disappoints me that I hear some riders say they were treated bad, the facts are without us you never would have been given the opportunity to travel and make a name for yourself. Where is the 10s of 1000s of $$$ we have invested into you? We don’t get that back, so all that time and effort was simply to promote a rider who at the end is ungrateful for what has been done for him. If you get the opportunity to become a sponsored rider don’t let this be you. Take it in your stride treat it as a hobby and if you become a world champion I will be the 1st to congratulate you and shake your hand. Rule 5 Make the most of the time you get being sponsored nothing lasts forever. Just because you’re a sponsored rider doesn’t mean the scooter is going to sell, this is a proven fact. The amount of time we spend on designing and prototyping new products is endless. Not to add the amount of money and time this takes to get the product right, then you need to find colours to make the scooter look complete. Trying to find an edge over other brands is a full time job in its self. All these hours we spend on trying to make a better product for you to ride, goes un noticed most of the time. For example the AK decks took over 18 months from the time we started designing them to the time they were available to buy. My advice to you all is, if you do get sponsored by a brand make the most of it and do the right thing by them and you will find they will do the right thing by you. Enjoy riding at the end of the day that is the single most important thing you should never lose focus on. Don’t be driven by money be driven by passion and the love of the sport, it has to go both ways we all need each other to make our sport bigger and better. Rule 6 Most important rule of all HAVE FUN AND ENJOY WHAT YOU DO!!!!!! I may cop a bit of slack over this, but such is life. Daniel Mills Director Sacrifice Scooters.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:43:25 +0000
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