Fishing Sponsorship Feedback

To all professional anglers, As part of my Sports Marketing Graduate studies, I am conducting a research project about the fishing community, fishing demographics, and sponsorship. What I would like from each of you is your opinion on sponsorship in the fishing industry. Is it easy to get? Is there a lot of sponsorship money to be had? What are some positives and negatives about getting sponsorship from the fishing industry? Personal opinion. This is an informal survey, so please keep your posts short, or email me separately at [email protected]. Thanks to all. Will be checking regularly for your answers. Have a great Thanksgiving! -Erica Kalkofen

So, no one has anything to say about this post? Everyone is an expert and there is plenty of money pouring in to everyone’s bank account? I am just looking for some type of good or bad response. What do you think? Make sure your quotes are ones I can quote in a presentation.
Thanks! -Erica K.

Erica –

I understand your questioning and even your impulses toward frustration but I think you might be a bit challenged in any sport or public forum. to find anyone willing to openly expose sponsorhip deals and dealings. Exposing opinions doesn’t always lead to favorable working relationships either. Any sport I’ve ever ventured into has kept sponsorships a real tight lipped issue and for good reason……………it’s a business reltaionship and not open for public discussion. Contracts and endorsements are different so don’t confuse them. But sponsorship, you may find info but it’s going to be like pulling hen’s teeth to find the details of that arrangement.

What I might suggest is to focus this subject toward those who do the sponsoring. They’ll disclose what they may or may not do and from there just throw out a ton of continuous string of, “Oh really? Why’s that?”. You’ll get a pretty good idea of the fisherman’s side of things by what the company’s who sponsor will tell you.

Also, another thing may be that this is a faceless forum. You might need to be discussing these things face-to-face with those involved if you’re going to win any trust. Go to some fishing shows or events. I’m not sure what your research timeline is but the ice fishing show this last weekend would’ve been a great place to drum up some conversation!

I’m not some smarty know-it-all, but these are my analogies toward your effort and results here. I do hope this helps!

Good Luck!

i can’t talk for everyone else but i’m just an everyday run of the mill fish nut. i’ve never been approached by anyone to sponser me for fishing. although that would be really cool if they did.

Hey I know of a bass fisherman who does not want to get sponsored at all because he doesn’t want to have to put up with all of the nonsense that goes with it. He is a Bass fishermen and fishes all the big bass tourneys and he doesn’t believe in being sponsored. He buys everyhting on his own including his brand new ranger and numurous amnounts of gear. It isn’t that fact that he doesn’t have the chances to get sponsorship, but it is just that he doesn’t want to be sponsored by anyone, also i don’t think that these guys are going to put their info across the web jus tdue to the fact that like someone stated before they don’t want to have bad relationships or scare off more sponsorships to come, but if you want to sponsor me just let me know and i will tell you where to send the check.

I sent this e-mail to Erica, I thought I would post it here , too.

Erica,
At first I wrote a book to you about my experiences in seeking sponsors,(the unbelievable successes in Racing and the equally disappointing lack of success in Fishing), and then said to myself that it really seems to boil down to just a couple of things: Most of the fishing companies and most of the fisherman requesting sponsorship really have no clue about what the others part of the picture is and should be. One has to be generating advertising impressions(the fisherman) and the other has to be using those impressions to sell products(the company).
The fisherpersons think they should get something with no responsibility to benefit the company, and the most fishing companies have seemly no clue how to utilize sports sponsorship advertising profitably. The fisherperson just wants to be left alone to fish, and the company wants a 50 hour a week,(even though they don’t know what to have him doing during that time), commitment for trinkets. Go figure a company will spend $350 or more to sponsor a local bowling or little league to reach a tiny but targeted audience….. a good investment by the way, and a nationwide company refuses to give the same sponsorship to fisherpersons with serious national targeted exposure. I had nearly 14,000 requests for information last year with regards to recomending techniques and products and I’m nobody,(yes I did keep track). I did it just posting on 10-15 internet sites, having an internet homepage, and doing very little advertising. I’m sure James and others if they had kept track had that or more. Imagine the contacts and impressions the national tournament pros make!!!! Yes some of them are sponsored, but many have very little. Bass a little more than Walleye but still grossly under utilized as a advertising impression tool, and then a product sale tool. Lawrence