6. Networking

Everything becomes much easier with references. Try getting an entry-level job at a world-renowned law firm without references; you’ll never get the job. Meet potential sponsors at events; they are possibly your best bet. This is your chance to let potential sponsors know who you are and what your team aims to be. Talk to those representatives and learn about their company, what are their goals in terms of eSports marketing? What are they looking for if they intend to sponsor a team? Write down numbers and e-mail addresses, they’ll become useful in the near future.


7. Planning

The planning part is really just that. Plan your strategy, write-up and formal introduction. I always believe that if teams want to get sponsorships, the best way is to go local. Local businesses have a tendency to sponsor local teams because their market is within such perimeters. Canada, for example, we have a place known as Tim Horton’s that sells coffee and donuts. This company sponsors many hockey and local teams because their market is within those regions. The chances of them sponsoring a local eSports team are relatively high. Why? Because I asked :)


8. Write up

Writing up a sponsorship proposal is pretty much the same as writing up a business plan. You state your organization’s mission, followed by an introduction of the eSports scene, the potentiality of making money from this community, and the forecast of where it would all end up for the company that decides to sponsor you.

State clearly what you want from the company, whether it is an annual income or five tickets to CPL events twice a year and then state clearly what you can offer.

Then comes the forecast, what would the company get out of all this in the future? Is your organization the door way for them to get involved into the eSports scene? Is your team the future franchise that would revolutionize the meaning of eSports with the company logo on your back? Let your sponsors know what you forecasted.


9. Formal Introduction

Many company websites have a sponsorship form for you to fill in or an e-mail for you can contact. It’s bureaucracy and I strongly not suggest you to take that route because it’ll get you nowhere.

This is where step six comes in handy, by now you should have a few numbers/e-mails to directly contact because of your hard work in building that network. You need to talk to the big guy up top, the one in charge of sponsorships or the like. If you don’t have the e-mail/number, you’ll have to work through a pile of bureaucracy to get up there. My suggestion is to get back to step six and work on the marketing part first.


10. Follow-up

Understand that nothing comes immediately. There’s a screening process with all sponsorship deals. You need to follow-up and pester them to get into more serious talks and discussions. Each time they will ask for more information and more details so be prepared. If it doesn’t work out in the end, then it really comes down to two things: first, they don’t think they will benefit from what you offer or second, they just don’t trust you.