http://www.facebook.com/#!/footbagsg
An event that happened recently in Singapore was sponsored by Adidas. I also remember seeing one other event also sponsored by Adidas, but i cannot remember the name or where it was held.
My question is: Why cant the events that all the top players go to like euros, USO, and world get some sort of help from Adidas. Seeing that practically all of us use Adidas shoes, and every world champion going way back won wearing Adidas. What makes Singapore so special?
major sponsership
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landon palmer
- Shredalicious
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- Location: arlington texas
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landon palmer
- Shredalicious
- Posts: 81
- Joined: 21 Mar 2010 09:11
- Location: arlington texas
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landon palmer
- Shredalicious
- Posts: 81
- Joined: 21 Mar 2010 09:11
- Location: arlington texas
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boyle
- Post Master General
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The key way to getting sponsorship, is to spell sponsor right in the beginning. Anyhow, aside from that, I was involved in the Malaysian side of this concept, and it was a really positive experience for me.
You ask why Singapore is so special..it's more about the region (South East Asia), and the way things are marketed there. There is a huge mall culture, and they are always giving away things in the centre courts, having displays, as this is their main way to reach the target audiences they are after.
So anyway, there was a marketing company behind the idea of having footbag as the "gimmick", and the idea was to sell perfume: Adidas Pure Game. Unfortunately not Adidas Rod Laver shoes.
Anyhow, they had a contest (run differently in each place). In Malaysia they had me come over to judge and to give some demonstrations. Most of the other countries, the players just had to figure out things for themselves and from what I saw on video, weren't very good.
After these comps, they had an online vote to get a "regional winner". Of course that went to whoever got there friends to vote the most times...it would have been much better to have a regional competition.
I am hoping to follow up with Adidas in the future on something similar, but I am trying to plan the best way. Of course because it was all through a marketing company, I didn't get to meet any Adidas head honchos.
The reason why we haven't had the "Adidas World Championships" would most likely be one of the following:
- Nobody applied for sponsorship because they though Adidas was "too big for footbag"
- People did apply and Adidas still had no interest
- people applied and it wasn't very good, so the Adidas people threw the application in the bin.
It would be awesome to have a big sponsor come along and help footbag out. Let's see what happens in the next few years...
You ask why Singapore is so special..it's more about the region (South East Asia), and the way things are marketed there. There is a huge mall culture, and they are always giving away things in the centre courts, having displays, as this is their main way to reach the target audiences they are after.
So anyway, there was a marketing company behind the idea of having footbag as the "gimmick", and the idea was to sell perfume: Adidas Pure Game. Unfortunately not Adidas Rod Laver shoes.
Anyhow, they had a contest (run differently in each place). In Malaysia they had me come over to judge and to give some demonstrations. Most of the other countries, the players just had to figure out things for themselves and from what I saw on video, weren't very good.
After these comps, they had an online vote to get a "regional winner". Of course that went to whoever got there friends to vote the most times...it would have been much better to have a regional competition.
I am hoping to follow up with Adidas in the future on something similar, but I am trying to plan the best way. Of course because it was all through a marketing company, I didn't get to meet any Adidas head honchos.
The reason why we haven't had the "Adidas World Championships" would most likely be one of the following:
- Nobody applied for sponsorship because they though Adidas was "too big for footbag"
- People did apply and Adidas still had no interest
- people applied and it wasn't very good, so the Adidas people threw the application in the bin.
It would be awesome to have a big sponsor come along and help footbag out. Let's see what happens in the next few years...
I seem to remember asking about this years ago, and the answer I got from Goldberg or some other experienced vet, was that Adidas was fully aware of footbag and footbaggers, and that they didn't care about us at all. Even if that's the case, I wouldn't give up completely either, since things do change.
The biggest sponsorship I was involved with, was when Pepsi Japan did a footbag promo for a summer. We really kind of stumbled into that one.
The way it all began, was through one of our recruiting efforts in Tokyo. Members of the NFA (Japanese Footbag Association) went to hip shoe stores and athletic stores, and lent them copies of footbag videos to play on their in-store tv screens. This was meant to attract interest from young, potential players. Instead, it caught the eye of some VP at Pepsi Japan, who then searched for footbag on the internet. Luckily, Kim had set up a Japanese footbag website, which is how Pepsi contacted us. The promotional tour was pretty extensive. Footbags were given away with bottles of pepsis across Japan for that summer promotion, a team of Japanese footbaggers was assembled to do footbag demos at pepsi events (team twist), and at the end of the summer Pepsi helped sponsor a footbag tournament. That was the first Japanese Champs, which is also the first footbag tournament ever held in Asia. They paid to fly in Sunil from the US, paid me to judge and organize the event and do a workship, and paid out a ton of prize money. And by a ton, I mean that 1st place in routines got $1000, and second and third got generous amounts, even though there was no entry fee.
It was pretty exciting to be a part of the whole thing, and Japanese footbag got a big boost from it. Several current players discovered footbag through this promo, including Takumi. Japanese footbag hasn't had sponsorship from Pepsi since then, but they've hosted two tournies a year since then, so the scene benefited.
I guess the takeaway from this is that major corporate sponsorship is possible, and has happened. In this instance, it really helped the NFA that we had a professional looking website, and that we were well-prepared for our meetings. Similar to Dan's post, it's also incredibly important to emphasize to the sponsor what value they are receiving by sponsoring you. Usually with footbag, that value is bringing their brand in front of a young hip target demographic. For example, if you tell Red Bull (a company whose target consumers are young men) that you are going to host a tournament with an expected attendance of 100 young players, you might be able to get products or money from them in exchange for letting them put up banners at your event.
The biggest sponsorship I was involved with, was when Pepsi Japan did a footbag promo for a summer. We really kind of stumbled into that one.
The way it all began, was through one of our recruiting efforts in Tokyo. Members of the NFA (Japanese Footbag Association) went to hip shoe stores and athletic stores, and lent them copies of footbag videos to play on their in-store tv screens. This was meant to attract interest from young, potential players. Instead, it caught the eye of some VP at Pepsi Japan, who then searched for footbag on the internet. Luckily, Kim had set up a Japanese footbag website, which is how Pepsi contacted us. The promotional tour was pretty extensive. Footbags were given away with bottles of pepsis across Japan for that summer promotion, a team of Japanese footbaggers was assembled to do footbag demos at pepsi events (team twist), and at the end of the summer Pepsi helped sponsor a footbag tournament. That was the first Japanese Champs, which is also the first footbag tournament ever held in Asia. They paid to fly in Sunil from the US, paid me to judge and organize the event and do a workship, and paid out a ton of prize money. And by a ton, I mean that 1st place in routines got $1000, and second and third got generous amounts, even though there was no entry fee.
It was pretty exciting to be a part of the whole thing, and Japanese footbag got a big boost from it. Several current players discovered footbag through this promo, including Takumi. Japanese footbag hasn't had sponsorship from Pepsi since then, but they've hosted two tournies a year since then, so the scene benefited.
I guess the takeaway from this is that major corporate sponsorship is possible, and has happened. In this instance, it really helped the NFA that we had a professional looking website, and that we were well-prepared for our meetings. Similar to Dan's post, it's also incredibly important to emphasize to the sponsor what value they are receiving by sponsoring you. Usually with footbag, that value is bringing their brand in front of a young hip target demographic. For example, if you tell Red Bull (a company whose target consumers are young men) that you are going to host a tournament with an expected attendance of 100 young players, you might be able to get products or money from them in exchange for letting them put up banners at your event.