WHY SPONSOR MTB?

There is more to sponsorship than just moving product, especially when a sponsor doesn’t have a product to sell.

Mountain bike sponsorship isn’t just about bikes – we speak to two companies who aim to help out for their own reasons.

Quite often brands and riders alike simplify sponsor agreements in mountain biking into becoming the ‘face’ of a product to help sell more units. But there is so much more to sponsor agreements than just hawking a product, and every party involved is trying to get something different out of a relationship.

Don’t get me wrong; some sponsorships are about selling bikes, why do you think Canyon sponsors Troy Brosnan or Trek Jolanda Neff? Because by supporting these athletes, in turn, these brands are associated with extremely marketable athletes who can feature in global advertising campaigns.

However there is value in mountain biking

beyond selling, and the vast majority of sponsorship doesn’t involve globally recognisable athletes, contracts with massive dollar amounts or even companies that sell bikes.

Field Engineers, as the name implies is an engineering consulting firm based in Mackay Queensland and has been a partner of the Mad (Mackay and District) Mountain Bike climb since it was formed in 2009.

“No we don’t expect to sell anything, we don’t expect to sell our services through supporting mountain biking, we are after the people that are involved in mountain biking,” says Field Engineers General Manager David Hartigan. “In the immediate term we are looking to build brand awareness as an employer, and in the longer term we want to promote engineering. We just want to get engineering in front of teenagers and the adolescent and youth element of mountain biking to hopefully get them interested in the field.”

Hartigan and the other directors of Field Engineers—who all happen to be mountain bikers—noticed that in the engineering world,

a lot of people gravitated towards bikes, and he thinks it might have something to do with the tech element of the sport.

“You know dropper seat posts, suspension, the arrival of electronic shifting, the material science that goes into frame manufacturing, the pneumatics that goes into tyres all that sort of stuff appeals to engineers.”

“We reckon there is probably the connection between people who have some trade or technical background; they seem to gravitate toward mountain biking in their young adult life because they find it easy to understand. From that, there could also be a flow of people who are into mountain biking and come to enjoy all those technical and engineer type elements, and then they drift into studying engineering,” he says.

With nothing to sell, Field Engineers is using its sponsorship of the Mad Mountain Bike club in some ways like a hyper-targeted Seek.com advertisement because they see value trying to attract young engineers as an employer. They are so keen to get their brand out to technically minded riders the company has upped its investment and is now the title sponsor of the Mad MTB Field Engineers Mackay Cup which is part of the MTBA National Round and run UCI XCO races this year. “A key thing we are wanting is further reach, and we could just take out standard advertising in other cities, but there is no emotional connection there,” he says. “But, when people have a sport, they are interested in, and are passionate about, if they know that a company is also interested and passionate and supports that same activity, there is a degree of common cause. That is what we are trying to make use of.”

On the other side of the coin, when a brand that has something to sell enters into a sponsorship agreement, for some it’s not all about monetising the relationship. Owen Matthews is the man behind Ride Mechanic, a range of products mostly for bike maintenance and servicing. As a smaller local brand, he doesn’t have duffel bags full of cash to dole out willy nilly but still prioritises sponsorship.

“I’ve actually got a business which generates revenue within the (bike) industry and that is very unique in Australia. There are not many brands in Australia that generate revenue through retail channels which give them a couple of pennies they can reinvest. I suppose that I have a privileged position and feel there is a responsibility to return some of that revenue into the industry,” he explained.

Matthews is calculated in his sponsorship decisions, and for him, it’s not so much about plastering logos all over a riders kit, social media promotion, or riders making affiliate sales. Instead, he’s more concerned with offering a helping hand to exceptional athletes where he can.“I’ve been sponsoring national level juniors for six or seven years and every time they get that phone call, ‘you’ve been selected to ride for worlds, but it’s going to cost $8,000’ the rider is over the moon and the parents are like ‘how am I gonna fund this?’,” he says.

“This is not just mountain bike it applies to road too, the families suddenly face this huge bill, and they are already footing bills to get to events in Mackay or Pemberton or wherever, and then there are ongoing costs with bikes and so on. It’s almost like a poison chalice, do you say no once you get that phone call? It is very rare for an athlete to go ‘thanks but no thanks’ when they’ve been selected to represent their country,” Matthews continues.

With this in mind, Matthews is hands-on in his sponsor relationships making sure that he’s actually offering his athletes the support they need to ride at the highest level.

“There are athletes in regional Australia or riders from Perth that have to hop in the car and drive eight hours or hop on a plane and fly every single time they compete. The costs they are facing versus somebody that lives in Canberra are much higher. To me, the genuine need is where that decision is made, and somebody needs to race at that level to prove that they can be as good as they can be then I will support them at a higher level than if I don’t think they need it.”

Brands and companies that are working with riders and clubs at any level of support are in it for its own reasons, but no matter why, it’s because they see value in mountain biking. And that value isn’t necessarily just for the sake of selling this or that; the value comes in the form of the people, the relationships and achievements to which this support paves the way.