Any ideas on how to get a team sponsor?

[sds 0]

Does anyone have a successful method in landing an adult team sponsor? What organizations make the best sponsors? We have 3 teams across 3 divisions that could use a little financial help and we are willing to consider every avenue.

[DamnLocust 0]

The easiest way would be to solicit local businesses for help. It's a tax write-off for them, and they can supply you with funding for jerseys or icetime, or both. Usually all they ask for in return is a patch or their business name on the jersey.

[ramensandwich 1]

beer companies

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

Legal firms or construction companies

[Chadd 916]

Bars and restaurants work well, as do any other type of business that the players can support. We had a beer distributor (I live in PA, don't ask) sponsor us this season and all of the guys bought beer and soda from him when we needed it. In the end, he got some of his investment back and we got a nice chunk of money up front.

[sds 0]

Bars and restaurants work well, as do any other type of business that the players can support. We had a beer distributor (I live in PA, don't ask) sponsor us this season and all of the guys bought beer and soda from him when we needed it. In the end, he got some of his investment back and we got a nice chunk of money up front.

if you don't mind me asking, what type of percentage of the total bill is reasonable to ask for?

[Chadd 916]

Bars and restaurants work well, as do any other type of business that the players can support. We had a beer distributor (I live in PA, don't ask) sponsor us this season and all of the guys bought beer and soda from him when we needed it. In the end, he got some of his investment back and we got a nice chunk of money up front.

if you don't mind me asking, what type of percentage of the total bill is reasonable to ask for?

To me, it's not the percentage that's important but the actual amount. You have to justify what you are asking. Our sponsor is a small businessman and gave us $750. Our total costs for the season were around $4k. While it wasn't a big %, it did allow us to save nearly $50 per man when combined with a couple other things that we did.

[sds 0]

To me, it's not the percentage that's important but the actual amount. You have to justify what you are asking. Our sponsor is a small businessman and gave us $750. Our total costs for the season were around $4k. While it wasn't a big %, it did allow us to save nearly $50 per man when combined with a couple other things that we did.

sure, I just didn't want to ask you for exact $ amounts. :)

We have 3 teams with costs around $19.5k for the fall and $15k for the summer. :(

[thorpedo26 0]

bail bonds :D

[sds 0]

Our total team costs for the winter are $20k for three teams. We have an 800 person league. At what point do you think a sponsor deserves naming rights? $5k? $10k? more?

[kovalchuk71 212]

Do you own a rink? That is a lot of people

[sds 0]

Do you own a rink? That is a lot of people

800 is the number of people in the league. We have 50+ on our 3 teams.

[Doctor Hook 0]

Back in my beer league softball days, we were sponsored by a bar and that basically paid for our season (can't remember how much, but definitely cheaper than hockey). We had to rock jerseys and hats with the bar name, and after games, we had to drink at the bar. SO basically support the sponsor to the fullest and make sure he sees some return on investment. It'll help if you actually call your team the name of the sponsor as well.

[precursor 0]

I am a partner in a small business, and we get quite a few sponsorship requests (for other stuff, not for hockey), and sadly, most of them are terrible.

For a small business (many of whom often struggle) marketing dollars can be few and far between, so you need to really make the deal beneficial for them. I would recommend putting a proposal together with some of the following information:

- league / level of play

- players on the team

- # teams and players in the league

- length of season and dates

- how long the team has been together

- past league performance

At its most basic, you want the sponsor to have some basic numbers so they can estimate how many potential customers your team is going to reach.

And please please please, make sure that it is well written, and if you can, include some pictures and bring a personable player with you.

If its a bar or restaurant that your going after, make sure that you and your players frequent it. There is no bigger slap in the face then giving a team money, and not getting any support back.

Sorry for the dbl post - but there was one final point that I had.

Most sponsors don't always care about "how great" your team is. They would much rather have a bunch of guys who practice good sportsmanship. If a team is full of cocky pricks, how does that reflect on their business?

[Apes44 7]

What worked for us was a local bar, i hung out there for almost 2 years. Id walk in and i was like Norm from Cheers. Basically got to know managers and owners, asked them for 90% of our league fees they said it was too much, asked what they "could contribute" and accepted their offer

[goosedennis 0]

Bo Peeps' Gentleman's Club

[shotty 7]

Our total team costs for the winter are $20k for three teams. We have an 800 person league. At what point do you think a sponsor deserves naming rights? $5k? $10k? more?

do you think a business is interested in spending thousands and thousands of dollars to have the exclusive naming rights on a rec. team? it's not exactly a lucrative offer. they'd be better off registering their own team and having employees play on it. it would boost morale, promote team building and create an outlet.

as soon as you start speaking of dollars in the thousands, you better be rolling out some kind of regional ad campaign. you can put a two page ad in a high traffic, heavily distributed free magazine for $5,000.

when i was putting together a sponsorship package for my mens league team, i tiered it. i had a handful of clearly stated options at a variety of different investment levels. if you come out looking for thousands, you're going to dissuade a ton of businesses right away who may have been willing to give a little. this also gives you the opportunity to have more than one sponsor. i had a jersey sponsor option, equipment sponsor, puck and water bottle sponsor, social sponsor, team sponsor, partner sponsor etc. each covered the cost of a specific category plus a bit more. so the jersey sponsor paid for the jerseys (three different price options) plus, say $500 towards the registration. equipment sponsor got a sticker of their logo on the helmet which they covered, plus cash, same with pucks and water bottles. social sponsor was targeted toward a bar or restaurant (we would go there a predetermined amount of times throughout the season, depending on the investment), team sponsor was if they wanted to do it all, they could pick the categories they wanted to support along with cash (we would also give them a jersey to display). partner sponsor was simply to pay for their logo somewhere on our jersey... they would cover the cost of the logo and a portion of the cost of the jersey.

i detailed the demographic of the league and its players, the location of the rinks, where our team name would be displayed and for how long, along with the details of our stats system. we used pointstreak, which is SEO so if the business wanted to be the team sponsor, their name and affiliation would appear in the results of a web search. I also stated that all sponsorships were for two complete cycles (two winter seasons, two spring seasons), to add more value if by chance we weren't the only team to approach the business.

i got all sorts of action from that because it was different and created simple options, which people like. the trick is to be creative and appeal to as many businesses as possible.

[iceNsteel 0]

It depends a lot on what you can offer. For example, I play rugby. Our club isn't elite by any stretch, but we do have a fair number of people that turn up to watch matches (beyond friends and family of players, actual fans) so there really is some actual advertising potential there. If you had something like that you can play to a wide variety of businesses. As for rec league hockey, I've never seen more than a handful of people at a rec league hockey game and all those were friends and family of players. In those terms you have to think of the sponsorship in terms of an investment for the business. Getting a local bar to pony up five or six hundred bucks when they know they'll get 10-20 customers after each game works. Asking for thousands just doesn't work because you can't offer any real advertising, nor is business generated from sales to your team going to make that a worth while investment for a business.

[Harv 86]

The majority of teams I see in adult leagues around here are sports bars.

The team is named after them as well as the bar logo on the jersey. Usually if the team wins it all a team picture is taken and it's hung on the wall at the bar.

It works out well for both parties.