It's a sales job approaching sponsors. Get your best sales people out there asking for sponsor support. Local and small is more likely than national and big unless you have existing relationships. Good luck.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Most of the clubs I know who have actual sponsors (i.e. ones who hand over money as opposed to just providing free or discounted kit, clothing or other services) there's a very strong personal link in there somewhere. E.g. one of the club riders is also the owner or CXO of the sponsor, or their parent/sibling/best friend is. So start with your close contacts, and if you're not getting anywhere then look out for a local business owner or CXO who's into cycling, recruit them onto the team and then tap them up for some money later ;-)

If you go and ask for money you’ll come away with advice. If you go and ask for advice you’ll come away with money.

As others have mentioned, most sponsorship comes from close relationships.

It’s apples to oranges but our car club years ago had some limited success.

It seemed to be about connections and visibility. You needed connections within the group to sponsors and sponsors who had a vested interest in your hobbies.

For cycling, I’d kick tires at all the local group rides and form some relationships with riders. Ask what they do for a living. See if one has a connection to a fitness product, gym, box, brewery, a restaurant the rides could start from, etc.

Lots of sponsorships for little local stuff for our car group (amd observing the bike folks on teams) the teams often have a group ride out of the primary sponsor location during business hours. Folks showing up to ride then drink beer or eat food. Or get some bike parts before a ride.

A reciprocal relationship.

Some isn’t handouts either, could be access or discounts.

Our car group had huge discounts on expensive dyno time when we wanted it. Local bike teams get shop discounts sometimes.

Good luck!

As above mentioned, it's all about getting the connections with the right, wealthy people willing to put a little money on a cause they believe in.
So, try to find the guys with the connections with wealthy people in your team first, THEN go for "relationship agreements" with your team.

If you're looking for bike stuff sponsorship, here, read this piece. It's excellent:
https://www.kogel.cc/pages/sponsorship
https://www.kogel.cc/.../will-you-sponsor-me
Louis :-)

You either need: A- a rich person that loves the sport, B- a rich person or well to do firm that wants tax write off or C- proof that you can provide a positive ROI.

It seems like the master’s cat 3 teams typically have great setups because sponsors know if they give them discounts, they will buy lots of products.

What do you want to accomplish with your club in terms of Rider development and contributing to the sport? Having a sense of your purpose would help focus your efforts.

Thanks for all the feedback. Very much appreciated. I will post back with any successful or failed attempts.

Don' limit yourself by approaching sport related stores only. They are bored beyond their wits by requests for sponsorships in exchange for some dubious something. Anybody can be a sponsor. I was sponsored by a restaurant, a car audio dealership and a sticker/decal making company.

Honest advice? Don't go after sponsorship.
If things are working for your team now, why intentionally add the potentially divisive element of money and schwag - and distribution of same - into the mix?

I've seen more teams break apart over sponsorship squabbles than any other factor, and even when this isn't the case, the return is very rarely worth the investment in time and effort.

The team I ride for recently severed essentially all sponsorship ties, and we now not only don't receive race reimbursement from sponsorship dollars, we pay dues in to the team. This has been nothing but positive in terms of group cohesion and morale, and hasn't put even a slight dent into the number of people asking to be considered for membership. We followed the lead of another local team that did the same, and I recommend this to essentially all teams these days, especially master's teams.

If your team needs sponsorship to be successful, you're doing something wrong. If it doesn't, don't bother with it.

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

Bingo. Why do middle age professional men need external sponsorship to do recreation?

I run a junior program, we just get equipment donations and use grant money to buy the kids licenses and stuff. Some of them race in t-shirts, or they can buy our kit.

I run a cycling club with 40-50 members depending on the year, and we don’t have any sponsors. We do have a couple of companies that we have relationships with that give us a discount, but that relationship exists because we really dig their stuff and have mutual support. As Fredly mentioned, going after sponsorship really isn’t worth the effort. The vast majority of my club members are adults with careers and kids - getting free stuff is silly at this level. Being on a club is about sharing riding experiences with similar like minded people for the long term.

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