New team, need help starting

[Ayd0n]

Ok first off, i know your all really sick of new teams asking for sponsorship freebies etc...
Well, we're exactly the same,
We're a team of 7 based in the northeast ( Newcastle ) who train regulary at Top Gun and Delta Force, Basically we are pretty poorly equiped at the moment and really could do with some help, first off our jerseys are in deperate need of replacing, we always run outta paint on practices and our masks make us run into trees,

However, we are a very good team who hope to make it far, and sponsors who help us along will have their logo on our jerseys ( done by florida print ) and will always get a mention when we win our tornys :)

With that in mind i hope some of your could support us, any contribution would be amazingly appreiciated, and some day we will be able to repay the favours ( when we're all Pro paintballers ) and you will gain publicity ( hopefully )
Thanks guys

[robtattoo]

I hate to piss on your chips here, mate, but trying to get sponsorship before you've ever played an event is like trying to nail fog to a wall. Believe me, after playing for a whole year, 2 tournaments a month, progressing from div4 to div1, finishing 5th over all in the 2k4 series & paying out countless thousands of pounds over the year between us, trying to pick up a sponsor is really, really hard. You mentioned that your jerseys all need replacing, well my friend, that would immediately put off most sponsors, if you can't afford to replace a playing top, how are you going to commit to paying for a whole year's worth of events?

The average tornament entry fee is roughly £35 per player, paint is usually around £40 a box, and you'll go through at least 7 boxes per event (£75 a head so far...) If you & your team all hail from Newcastle, you're going to have some serious mileage to do before you even start to play. Elsham would be the nearest venue & that's a good two & a half hours drive. Most events are held around the midlands, so factor in a 6hr drive as a rough average & that means either staying in a hotel (£45 per night) or setting off at 2 in the morning (we'll take the hotel as an eg. & you've spent £120 each, up to now.....) factor in at least £50 per car for petrol (2 cars =£100 divided 7 ways is around £15......running total = £135 per player, per event)

Then you'll have to account for practices (if you choose to, I'd recommend it) ,again, 5 boxes of paint + green fees of around £10 a head (now you've spent £180 each as a rough figure, based on our teams monthly costs) Oh, & you'll need to kit yourselves out with good masks, trousers, packs, possibly markers & air systems, sundries such as squeegies, pots, tool kits, kit bags, bottle covers etc...etc...etc....

Some of these things you may have, some you will need to get, many you'll have to replace as the year rolls on, so budget £30 a month for kit, cos it does wear out, go wrong, break or get nicked at an alarming rate (£210 & counting!!!)

There's only 7 of you so you'll probably have to find at least 1 guest player during your first year. Now I can only speak from experience of how we've run the team this year, here. But if we're asking a player to guest for us, we're basically asking them to do us a VERY expensive favour, so we've always picked up their paint bill for them (another £15!)

Now you can see roughly how much tourney paintball costs, per person, per month. Every month. (not including team subs)

£225 !!!!

Paintball, at tournament level, is, has & always will be, an expensive hobby. The people who work in the industry, do not, like many people believe, make a huge amount of money due to the fact that paintball in the UK is still a minority pastime. Offering to put the name of a paintball shop on your top, at a paintball event, where everyone knows about the shop anyway & has probably bought most of their kit there, is not a huge incentive.
If you could get people who were unaware of paintball (& it'd have to be a lot of them...) to come to every single tourney & then take up the sport, it would pursuade shops to give you a small reward. Maybe.

So to sum up,
1) You're going to have to do a hell of a lot more than tell people how good you think you are before they'll give you anything. Get onto the field & damn well prove it.
2) stop referring to bunkers as "trees," woodsball tournaments are dead & gone, accept it & get over it. If you want to play in the woods, cool, more power to you, but it aint tourney, nor will it ever be.
3) If you're not prepared to spend your own money, why should anyone else spend theirs for you? Tournament paintball is expensive, get used to it. If you can't afford to throw a hell of a lot of money away, every month, you shouldn't even be considering playing tourneys.

I'm sorry if this all sounds a bit harsh & god only knows, I don't want you to not play, in fact nothing would make me happier than to trounce you in next years series finals ;) but this is the harsh reality af what it's all about. We've lost players, this year, due to financial difficulties, hell, I had to work 6 days & 7 nights a week (no, I ain't exaggerating) just to play as much as we have.
I really do hope that this all works out for you & I wish you and your team the best luck in the world, but if you accept the fact that you're probably on your own, at least for a while, then that's when you'll discover who your team really is & you'll be all the better for it.

[Joey]

There just is no money left in the industry to sponsor new teams. . .

. . .you will need to "Think outside the box"

How about your local pub? car dealership? grocery merchant?

Joey

[Parksy]

Originally posted by robtattoo
£225 !!!!

Yes lots of money to play tournaments... :( this year doing the Series and PA, as well as a training day every month I've been doing about £450 a month...

£225 is a good figure to work from though if you include all the travel etc. Like Rob said it was the hotels, additional food costs etc that shoots the bill up some what...

I love paintball, but it is bloody expensive. People tend to give you incentive based discounts (discount on kit etc) rather than full on sponsorship. I know of less than half a dozen teams in the country who you could class as actually being sponsored. Even then the players for these teams still don't get a free ride sadly.

Like Joey said try and think out the box to gain cash for your team. Try and get your team marshalling at a local site to raise funds. You could try to speak to businesses outside paintball but to be honest they have little interest in what they see as 'army games', or it gives them little or no viable ROI.

Work on the basis you have no sponsorship... the harsh reality is you will be picking up the vast majority of your playing bill for the known future :(

[herrreeesjonny]

As a member of a new team looking for sponsorship, it is reallllly hard!! Go out and play a few tourneys, send the results off (if they are any good) to the people you want to be sponsored, and say what you will do in the future.
Give them more of an incentive to sponsor you!!!