https://www.kickstarter.com/

talk to your LBS.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

You're talented but what else do you have to offer a sponsor? Talent alone doesn't bring people in the door of their shop/vendor.

you need to sell yourself to a sponsor- your "i believe i can do it" won't cut it. Bike sponsors are hard to come by, but as mentioned above, see your local bike stores, maybe they can get you a deal. But really you need to go and race and prove you have something to offer. Talk is cheap, and from experience, sponsors primarily care about A) social media (ie. lots of posts from you and lots of followers) and B) racing, (with pretty good results). In that order.

...or just say you're doing 50 IM's in 50 days. That should get you a lot of SM attention.

What race did you hit that time and what where your splits? What is your current bike? Many pros have non optimal bike set ups, in tri. I feel this could be a troll thread

Wow, yes clearly you have talent, well done in the race. Start small. LBS. Say you'll wear their logo kit at X amount of races, during all your training, do some clinics for them with other customers in the shop, do X amounts of social media posts highlighting their shop since you have X followers, etc.

Speed alone isn't what garners sponsorship. It's potential value and marketability. Speed can be a major factor in that equation, but it's not the only one. Someone who came here and said "I went 13:30 at my first IM but I have 8000 IG followers" is likely a more interesting sponsorship prospect than you.

Don't assume someone's gunna throw you a 6000+ dollar bike on a whim. You gotta give back and prove you're a worthy investment.

Good luck!

PBT_2009 wrote:

"I went 13:30 at my first IM but I have 8000 IG followers"

Only 7649 followers missing. Here I go!!!

What kind of sponsorship do you guys think I could get if I did an Ironman on a City bike?

Gotta be a rideshare though. Like a Limebike. No swapping pedals to clipless allowed, must be in the platforms.

And run the marathon backwards.

how about in flip flops and a Hawaiian shirt but forwards so I don't trip in the dark? I'm probably going to need all 17 hours.

Thanks guys for the answers.
But do you guys know is there any good teams for age-groupers who provide some equipment or just for the pros ?

I remembered and found this article jesse thomas wrote on the subject a while back. Whole article found here https://www.triathlete.com/...nal-triathlete_75953, but based on your posts I copy pasted what I think is the part you probably should wrap your head around if you wanna be successful here:

"It’s not about you
The most important, and hardest thing for an aspiring pro or high-level age-grouper to understand (myself included) is that just because you ride a bike fast doesn’t mean a company wants to give you one. And if you start a relationship with “I’m fast, can you give me a bike?” you’ll go nowhere fast—literally, because you won’t even have a bike. Whether someone is giving you wads of cash or wads of stretchy shoelaces, there has to be some identifiable, quantifiable and appealing value in it for them in return. Your first job is to look through their lens and understand their needs to best identify how you can help them reach their goals. Most companies want much more than just racing fast with a logo on your kit. They want exposure, influence on a specific market, product development feedback and alignment with a specific personality and/or brand. When you start thinking about what a sponsor wants, you’ve taken your first step to developing a constructive relationship."

Start a Go Fund Me Page and put it on here. Slowtwitchers have a good history of getting behind athletes in these situations...

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/GoFundMe_to_Become_a_Pro%3F_P6491874/

I'm not sure what team EMJ offers, might want to reach out to them as I believe they are always looking for fast guys

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

There are a number of age-group teams out there and now is the time that most of them start taking applications. Just Google or search the forums for elite triathlon teams. Team Every Man Jack, Dimond, Snapple, Timex, etc.

In terms of equipment, I would say very few will provide you with a good bike at no cost. Most are going to do discounts which might be ~40% off. The Zwift Triathlon Academy is the one exception as the individuals they chose got a bike and wind tunnel time I think

As mentioned by other posters, most of these teams/sponsors value marketability. They’ll want to know how many Twitter or Instagram followers you have and how often you post. Do you have a YouTube channel and how many views do you get. Giving products to an athlete is going to be from their advertising budget so they’d like some sort of return on their investment. As such, someone like Triathlon Taren who is pretty good but not great will get more stuff than a front of the pack age grouper who just goes about their business. The want as many eyes on their product as possible

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Matt

I already contacted with many bike manufactures also and shared my story with them. Many of them can provide me around 40 to 50% discount from retail price which is not bad but its still around 3500-4000.
Im not looking for high end bike i would be over the moon with little bit ´´secod´´ division bike. I know that I can do the job just with good frame and Ultegra DI2 and wheels I can borrow for example.

Already done. A guy did this at IM France in 2013. On one of the Nice blue city bikes. Picture in the paper. Lots of social media from spectators. Don't think he knapped a sponsorship. Sub 17 hours but he didn't run backwards. That's the opportunity.

https://www.palmtreesahead.com/feed
https://www.palmtreesahead.com/today-s-tip-tomorrow-s-workout

What's your social media reach? Depending on where you are companies sponsor even Age Groupers because of reach.

I know someone that is sponsored by New Wave and Gatorade Endurance, but they have 11k instagram followers. So the individual provides values to both New Wave and Gatorade.

We're very far past the time where being fast matters, you gotta have reach first and also be fast.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I don't know your financial status, but if you don't find a bike sponsor spend some time on the classifieds here. You can more than likely get a great deal on a great bike, top of the line or otherwise. Same with a groupset.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Like mentioned, companies care more about what you can do for them and less about your time. While sub 9 is fast, depending on the course, there's quite a few people than can do it and most (pretty much all) don't have bike sponsors. As far as teams like EMJ are concerned, I highly doubt a team is going to take a person that puts "in this for free shit" on their resume for the reason they want to join. 40-50% off is really good, and probably best you're going to get

Did you go sub 9 on a road bike?

Check out the new Dimond team, they seem to be a pretty legit team that is offering more than the traditional tri team.

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Team Zoot 2023

 
You should stop chasing sponsorship and focus on training around your work schedule. Sponsorship at the level you are at may be some discounts or free products. You can go and buy a used tri bike like a Cervelo p3 older model pretty cheap and that is fast, you can go and buy your own shoes, ones you like and you only need one tri kit to race in. To get any worthwhile sponsorship, that is cash, you need to firstly get some results and some outright wins and make yourself marketable. You are putting the horse before the cart here. A sub 9 hour ironman is a great result and sounds like you have a lot of potential, but its not amazing, lots of people go sub 9, so now just focus on your own performance and training and see how good you can get. The other problem with sponsorship is that it adds extra pressure on you from external forces and this isn't needed.

I raced elite from 2010-2013 with several top 10s at 70.3s, I had a few product sponsors, but to get anything worthwhile you need to be winning. So you need to just work out a job/training balance or move home, train hard and have a proper crack at it.

Good luck

Sponsorship dollars coming out of corporations usually come out of the advertising budget. You have a couple things working against you now:

1) Those budgets for 2019 are already earmarked and, in book terms, spent.
2) Sponsorship is advertising, so what is the return to that sponsor for their advertising dollars?

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
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