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.

One of the hard things about building a career in action sports is juggling the professionalism required for a stable career with the spontaneity and unstructured fun which led us to fall in love with our pursuits in the first place. If we focus too much on the professionalism and loose sight of why we started, our personal brand can loose it’s authenticity. In this article, we help you stay authentic whilst building a strong personal brand.

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

The concept of an Athlete Brand can be strange, but we all recognise them when we see them. Think of Michael Jordan, Nyjah Houston, Ken Block, David Beckham, Michael Phelps, LeBron, Gabriel Medina, John John Florence or Serena Williams. Sure they’re top level athletes, but they also have recognition around personality, fashion, hobbies, mentality, investments and legacy.