Zastolye

Sorry, long post but bear with me..

Say you have a road cycling club or a team with your friends, let's say 15-20 racers, some of them juniors and another 20-30 active non-racing cyclists. You are in the process of finding sponsors to fund for example bike clothes and race fees. You notice it is possible but get the feeling you really don't want to do sponsor searching because you feel/know you are not really giving much else in return than a spot in a jersey.

My question is, what could local cycling clubs give to their sponsors in terms of visibility to the public? i want to talk about visibility, because that not only benefits the sponsor but also the cycling club. Sure they can do some stuff "behind the scenes" working for a company to get money but that is often real work, not a benefit for the visibility of the club plus not a lot of cyclists are ready to do any actual work for the club.

Businesses today give less and less money to small sports clubs. Why? They feel they really don't get anything back.

Road cycling is a very transparent sport where its participants are on the road for everyone to see every day. Newspaper articles every now and then is also almost essential for the club. But could we give our future sponsors something concretic and get them excited about something? What has excited you or your friend about cycling? What could be so "cool" about cycling that would attract anyone's attention? How could we use that to get close to public and show our sponsors in a way that gets sure attention?

One idea just for an example: Rent a place in a local festival etc. anywhere where there's people, build a big tent for your club, get a few rollers there and try maximum speed with your friends every 10 minutes. when you hit 100kmh/60mph, there are guaranteed looks from people who have never seen rollers!! You can build a sign: the bicycle speed record attempts today!

Machka 

When I raced in Manitoba, the government, the local casinos, and sports clubs of various sorts had a deal where if members of the sports clubs volunteered in the casino selling bingo cards etc. for an evening, a certain amount of money would be given to the sports club. My club decided to use that money for jerseys made a deal with the members that if we would volunteer, we would get "points" toward a jersey ... 2 or 3 nights and we'd have a jersey. So I did, and I still have that jersey.

Does the government in your area have something similar to support local sports clubs? It might be worth looking into that sort of thing as well as other grants and funding available.

But if a business is going to be convinced to put money into your club, they will likely want something back, and that something might be that your jersey is designed with their logo promenently displayed ... or that you agree to do a flyer drop for the company ... or that if you do a newspaper article or radio spot promoting your club, you will acknowledge your sponsor. Businesses want customers ... so whatever you decide to do should in some way bring more customers in for that business.