We've never properly sponsored a team before, but we're now committed to the idea to the point where we've reached out to a few target teams. The place where we'd like to be is NRC/NCC-level women's teams. There's another discussion about how sponsorship squares with our fundamental philosophy, but that's not for now.
Supporting women's cycling offers a lot of advantages: the top levels of the domestic game are more accessible than they are with men's cycling, the teams are a bit smaller so it's not quite such a big bite of the apple, and there's the general tailwind that supporting women's cycling makes a good story. And it does. It's a developing sport that's got a lot going for it, with some significant obstacles. It's at a level where alleviating some of those obstacles is within our reach. Plus, while there are some really big and strong teams out there (Tibco, Optum, Pepper Palace, etc), there are also a bunch of teams that are going to be racing in top-tier events where support on the order of what we can offer would make an enormous difference.
The problem to date? We can't get a call back. We've contacted a fairly limited number of teams, and immediately excluded ones that we knew were too big for us, or had already announced a wheel sponsor for 2015, or had other conflicting sponsorship in place. But of the ones we've contacted, we haven't gotten a single response. I know we're late to the game, and maybe a week isn't enough time to give someone a chance to respond to an offer like this, but as a willing sponsor to the game I'll admit it's a bit of a turnoff.
So, here's the deal: if you've got a women's team that competes at the NRC/NCC level, that has its act together, doesn't have conflicting sponsors in place, and wants to ride awesome wheels in 2015, get in touch.
Thanks
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I will give you a cynical "good luck with that". I've been involved with running cycling teams, acquiring equipment sponsors and racing as a "sponsored" athlete on multiple teams. I was on one men's elite amateur team before I got less serious about racing and more serious about grad school where it all turned pro right after I left. With the exception of that one team, which is now a healthy D3 team (or whatever it's called now) , every other experience I've had would make me run like hell from wanting to sponsor a team. There is no more whiny, entitled phenotype than the low-on-the-food-chain-trying-to-make-it-on-the-NRC-circuit US amateur team. Your proof is in the pudding: You contacted teams to be a frickin' WHEEL SPONSOR and they don't even have the courtesy to reply. It's just a massive s—- show. I don't care particularly if it adds a few bucks to your wheels, but you'll find there is a reason sponsors don't stay in racing…also why amateur teams don't last for a long time. End of rant. Good luck.
JJ, Dave and I have both been on teams where sponsorship was a truncated value proposition – both for the riders and for the sponsoring companies. They've been unsavory enough to keep us away from sponsorship until now. Whether from hubris or naiveté, we think we've learned quite a bit from those experiences and can make a very narrow form of sponsorship work both for us and a group of athletes. Of course with us, it all starts with economics and mission – can we (do some thing – which in this case is sponsorship) in a way that boosts visibility, brand desire and sales, while still staying true to our mission of delivering the highest quality equipment at prices well under what our customers would pay in shops. Ultimately we've come to realize we need to spend more on marketing as a percentage of sales than the major brands, because we don't get the visibility and credibility that comes from the shop distribution channel. But we can be an irrational competitor in marketing because even if we double our spend to about 10% of sales, the expense still pales in comparison to the 40% of a product's cost that is the shop's margin. Technically we probably could sponsor a pro tour team and line the pockets of the sales reps at Bicycling and Velo News, and still sell Rails for about half of what you'd pay for Zipp or Mavic. But that puts us in a scale game we just don't want to play. We're engineered to be small and want to stay that way, which colors our sponsorship model as well as the metrics we use to evaluate its success.
In my opinion the 'we don't sponsor anyone so we can give the best prices to everyone' approach differentiates you far more than sponsoring a women's (or any) team does. The former makes me want to buy your product and support your company. The latter does not.
A couple of questions on your new "Just the Tip" dabble into the team sponsorship.Since you guys build up every wheel by hand, who will get preference at the beginning of the season? Will it be the sponsored athlete or the paying customer? I have experienced a bottleneck when it comes to availability of products at certain times of the season due to the companies having to fulfill their sponsorship obligations in time for the season.Will you make public feedback a requirement to all cyclists whom you sponsor? It is always nice to hear from those who actually race on the products.
Hi Joe -Team wheels will be built and delivered before the season crush hits. Not an issue. We're going to be thin on 52s for a little while but that's got nothing to do with anything other than our forecasting and mold maintenance. We won't make feedback a requirement per se. If we make it a requirement, then it quickly becomes a "you compensated otherwise credible racers to say nice things about your products." That's just as bad as the card I got in a product I bought recently that said "we love reviews – leave a 4/5 or 5/5 start review on our site and get a 20% off coupon for your next purchase" (coincidentally this made me realize why I've never trusted on-site reviews. AC – That's certainly a risk we runDave