A guide on how and when to change or leave sponsors without burning bridges

The hard thing is knowing when this time is right, and how to go about it without burning bridges. There are plenty of stories of riders not telling their Team Manager and just suddenly using another brand, and vice versa where the Brand doesn’t communicate with the rider and just stops sending cheques. It sucks, it happens, but let’s look at how to avoid it.

A guide to keeping sponsors happy - What is the job of a sponsored skater, surfer, snowboarder or other action sports athlete? What does your team manager expect of you? And how can you get to the next level.

Social media is one of the main ways your athlete brand is shown. There is also how you carry yourself, interact with people, and perform in person, the video and audio content you put out, as well as interviews, but social media tends to be the biggest struggle, and the key that informs the others.

In this article, we’re showing you a simple way to create a content strategy that’s authentic for your athlete brand.

To help create more clarity, we’re going to be looking into a few ways to help you define your athlete brand so it can grow your opportunities.

“We sponsor the person more than we sponsor the athlete” – Davey Smidt - Head of Athlete Management at GoPro

It can be easy to look at the top athletes in our sport and see them as superheroes. People born with superhuman talent and skill, unmatchable by us mere mortals. This sort of idolising is a sign of the fixed mindset creeping in. We need to believe that our idols were once like us and what got them to the level they are is hard work and grit. We must be able to believe we can get there, we can achieve greatness.

Daily routine in Action Sports is hard. There’s rarely a team and coach behind you 24/7 to give structure to your days and the daily routine can be far more directed by filming missions, weather , opportunities, and motivation. The life of an action sport athlete is less structured than traditional athletes. For this reason, I’m teaching you my 7 steps of goal setting to help bring in useful structure. Read now to take the first step to achieving your athletic goals.

At ESM Australia, we are focussed on the more holistic style of athlete management. One that blends coaching, mentorship, representation, management, and support for the long term growth of the athlete.

In this article, I want to break down a bit of this process to help you understand what management means when we talk about it, and how it can help your career.