Many teams have extremely low chances of getting financial sponsorship, while those who have the potential fail, because of the lack of knowledge in the business industry. We have a brief 10-step process on helping teams to get the sponsorship they need to continue their endeavor as professional franchises.


1. Understanding

First, you need to know what sponsorships and/or partnerships are all about. The purpose of sponsorship is simple: marketing and branding; there’s no other reason. Even if corporations seem like they are doing a good deed by sponsoring cancer foundations and events; their primary goal is to get their name out – Branding. Likewise, in eSports, companies choose to financially support teams, provide goodies and give out prizes because they are marketing their name out for the future. So as our generation matures, we unconsciously remember those company names like they’ve always existed – Age Branding.
And mathematically, this marketing/branding can generate revenue in the long-run, it has to. Marketing is an expense, expenses must generate revenue. Remember the matching principle from your high school accounting class?

Remember this: when you’re looking for sponsorship, always ask your team, what can YOU provide to your sponsors?


2. Requirements

Civil laws differ in different countries, but most of them are pretty much identical when it comes to sponsorship handling. We’re talking about real sponsorships here, monetary units or expensive gadgets… NOT our usual server sponsorship. So, to be entitled to become sponsored, the team must become a legal entity. Your team must be incorporated and legal to take money from another organization. It doesn’t cost much to register a franchise/company, in America it only takes about $90 USD.


3. Self-Analyzing

Now you ask your team, what is realistic and what is not? Maybe you’re a new team, everyone living in a different time zone – little tournament attendance and even fewer achievements. Is it realistic to ask for a $30,000 annual support from a huge corporation? Most likely not.
Self-Analyzation is vital. You must be able to let your sponsor know what situation the team is at currently, what prospects it can realistically obtain in the near future and what marketing it can provide to the sponsors. All in all, it comes down to what ground you’re standing on, and what can be interpolated from it.


4. Web development

Build a website. No choice here. The purpose of the website is to amplify the relationship between you and your sponsor; obviously to provide the marketing they intended to get from your organization.
It is important to keep the website interactive and updated. Sponsors like to know how many viewers and unique users that visit your website. They can then equate that to how many viewers are looking at their advertisements. The key to web development is to keep developing that web site to attract viewers.

Remember, “Eye balls = money” in terms of marketing.


5. Research

Do thorough research on the organization you wish to obtain sponsorship from. This is what we call “professionalism”. What’s more intriguing than to have someone asking for sponsorship and knowing the goals the marketing department is trying to reach? Know what the company is all about, their mission statements, their marketing schemes, their sales forecasts. What’s their market, what are their market’s demographics?