THere is much talk on the forums about getting more sponsors into the competitions instead of record attempts. Whilst it is a good idea I have not heard anyone come up with any ideas on how to do it. Anyone have an opionion or ideas??
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How do we get more and better sponsors into competitions?
- Thread starterMr. Streeter
- Start date
Thread Status: Hello
, There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Unfortunately, for the moment freediving competitions are absolutely not interesting, except for freedivers.
A first step to make them more popular, and so try to have more public and medias, should be to increase the animation and ambiance during these kind of events, to make real "shows" : Music, speaker, good and attractive comments, a lots of fun, etc.
Then, with more puplic and medias, sponsors could start to be a little more interested about freediving competitions.
Same for deep disciplines, with even more underwater pictures of the performances "live".
Just some thought
A first step to make them more popular, and so try to have more public and medias, should be to increase the animation and ambiance during these kind of events, to make real "shows" : Music, speaker, good and attractive comments, a lots of fun, etc.
Then, with more puplic and medias, sponsors could start to be a little more interested about freediving competitions.
Same for deep disciplines, with even more underwater pictures of the performances "live".
Just some thought
Paul,
Great idea for a thread, from your experience what is that spikes the interest of sponsors to get involved? If there are a couple of key criteria that hooks them then that would help us formulate how to provide that for them while meeting the intents of having freediving comps (ie for the competitors)?
Andy
Great idea for a thread, from your experience what is that spikes the interest of sponsors to get involved? If there are a couple of key criteria that hooks them then that would help us formulate how to provide that for them while meeting the intents of having freediving comps (ie for the competitors)?
Andy
From my experience, when we approach a potential sponsor the only thing they want to know is what media coverage we are likely to get. I think there are two issues to cover. One is how can we make the sport more interesting to the general public and then how can we make it more attractive to sponsors. It is possible to make a competition public friendly and I beleive that we could make a competition a spectator sport, in all disciplines. I have talked with a number of TV production companies & networks about filming an event with live feeds on an international basis, the sort of thing that we see on ESPN or NBC here in the USA. So instead of watching golf 4 afternoons running we could see a freediving competition. I got a fair way down the discussion path but when I sent out emails to the freedivers we wanted to take part the response I received was very poor, so I put it on the back burner for now. It can be done, and would cost a great deal of money we just need to find the right person to run it. As I said I had interest from TV and major sponsors so interest is out there. I have also seen from the outside looking in, that the current competition organisers do not treat the media to well. I have had great success with the media and that is done by spoon feeding them with everything. Supply images, video, all free of charge. Let them have good access ot comp areas and athletes. We can tap into the AP and Reuters for international coverage. When ever we do a world record video footage along with a story is sent to a company that feeds the TV stations internationally. Its very similar to the AP which we also tap into. Thats why Tanya gets good coverage because I spend a great deal of time making sure that when the days comes, and she breaks a record a quick cell phone call is amde and then the news goes out to every country in the world. Tanya's last record was covered in almost every country in the world and I have press cuttings from places like India, Brazil, China, Russia, Pakistan etc etc and the normal places you would expect. This is not acheived by luck, but by careful preperation. It can be done by anyone. Thats what the sponsors want to hear when we approach them initially. Its like going to a bank for a loan. If you go prepared witha business plan you stand a good cahance of geeting a loan. Its the same with sponsors. Sort out the print, TV and internet coverage first and the talk with sponsors.
Records sell. But why sponsor a whole big competition, if you can have a record by sponsoring a (relatively!) small individual record attempt? Big plus: the probability to see a record happen is bigger (several attempts, if necessary / no pressure from team...)
First step, that is necessary (in my eyes): no records outside a competition (with the exception of no limits).
Really big problem: to many federations (AIDA, Free, IAFD, CMAS...). Very difficult for the media to understand who is the "real" one.
Resulting form that: Medai interest is splitted: Italy (with relatively big media interest in freediving!) is not interested in AIDA, most contries are not interested in CMAS...
Next problem: you get all the results, everybody goes home, the sponsors cheer the winners (mabe they make some ads) and 3 months later someone tells us, that there was a slight involuntary movement of the left eyebrow during about 1/100 of a second and the results have to be rewritten. There is a big need for reliable results handed out just at the end of each disciplines. Can you imagine the 100 meter final at the Olympics and at the end of the race the message: results will be available end of next sunday. Nothing is more boring for the media but old results. Even if they are the newest available.
There must be a sign. If you make it, you pass, if you don't make it, you are disqualified. Maybe that is not 100% reliable. But so aren't the decisions of a judge in about every other sport.
Then we need more, much more small competitions. These are the ones, that will make a sport growing. For that we need regulations, that allow us to organize a competition without a 6 digit budget, but still with the opportunity to see records. (no need to have about 100 cameras in every single corner and several judges flight in from the other side of the world).
Less disciplines. CW, Dynamic, static. That's it. Neither the media nor the public understands the differences between all these different disciplines. And they don't want to. With fins, without fins, with one fin (?), free immmersion, not so free immersion, constant weight, weight watchers weight, constant depht (?). Nobody can sell someting that nobody understands.
Some nice, good looking athletes (Hi Paul, at least that one shouldn't be a problem).
Individual championships. People like individual championships or real team events (like soccer, basketball and the likes). "False" team events, where only results of individuals are counted together are not interesting to watch. When the last athlete surfaces, I want to know wheter he has won or not. Don't like to do mathematics before that.
...
...
Swissi
First step, that is necessary (in my eyes): no records outside a competition (with the exception of no limits).
Really big problem: to many federations (AIDA, Free, IAFD, CMAS...). Very difficult for the media to understand who is the "real" one.
Resulting form that: Medai interest is splitted: Italy (with relatively big media interest in freediving!) is not interested in AIDA, most contries are not interested in CMAS...
Next problem: you get all the results, everybody goes home, the sponsors cheer the winners (mabe they make some ads) and 3 months later someone tells us, that there was a slight involuntary movement of the left eyebrow during about 1/100 of a second and the results have to be rewritten. There is a big need for reliable results handed out just at the end of each disciplines. Can you imagine the 100 meter final at the Olympics and at the end of the race the message: results will be available end of next sunday. Nothing is more boring for the media but old results. Even if they are the newest available.
There must be a sign. If you make it, you pass, if you don't make it, you are disqualified. Maybe that is not 100% reliable. But so aren't the decisions of a judge in about every other sport.
Then we need more, much more small competitions. These are the ones, that will make a sport growing. For that we need regulations, that allow us to organize a competition without a 6 digit budget, but still with the opportunity to see records. (no need to have about 100 cameras in every single corner and several judges flight in from the other side of the world).
Less disciplines. CW, Dynamic, static. That's it. Neither the media nor the public understands the differences between all these different disciplines. And they don't want to. With fins, without fins, with one fin (?), free immmersion, not so free immersion, constant weight, weight watchers weight, constant depht (?). Nobody can sell someting that nobody understands.
Some nice, good looking athletes (Hi Paul, at least that one shouldn't be a problem).
Individual championships. People like individual championships or real team events (like soccer, basketball and the likes). "False" team events, where only results of individuals are counted together are not interesting to watch. When the last athlete surfaces, I want to know wheter he has won or not. Don't like to do mathematics before that.
...
...
Swissi