European Pro Racing Sponsorship

[HRTV]

Just wondering how do the European Pro teams manage to secure such big name sponsors for the teams while most US based drivers in the USTS seem to carry the whole load alone with no sposorship ?

Take a look at the different sponsors this team has signed on.

Sponsorship

[HRTV]

Bump Bump

[sam]

True.It is easier to get sponsorship in Europe because boat racing is considered a major spectator sport. In North America its bascially unknown. Crowds are often in the tens of thousands. Draw the same crowd and sponsors will line up to have their names on our boats. Until then, its apples and oranges.

[kws]

Any suggestions on how to draw that kind of volume of spectators here?

[sam]

The USTS plan sounds good to me.

Very often our race sites are out of the way, too hard to find and lack a good view of the race course. This is in no way bad, it is just one of the things that make our racing different from the big money racing. And truely, if you could make money racing boats, we'd be washed away with a flood of cut throat newcomers. It wouldn't be the same.

In the 1930's and 40's boat racing was lucky because William Randolph Hearst was a huge fan of boat racing and insisted that it be covered in all of the newspapers he owned (which was a lot of papers with major circulation). When he passed off management of the papers to others (who weren't interested in boat racing) it was a major blow to boat racing from which it has never recovered in North America.