WHERE’S WALDO: Touching both sides of the double-edged sponsorship sword

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By Aaron Waldron
LiveRC.com 

Much of the discussion regarding the evolving sales tactics of sponsoring drivers — on this site and in general — has centered around the potential impact on the retail sector of the industry. While we hear about hobby stores losing business to contracted direct sales, and tracks increasingly reliant on attracting those sponsored drivers to trophy races in order to generate revenue, there hasn’t been much focus on what this culture shift has done to the drivers or the teams they’re a part of.

There’s no question that sponsorship has its upside for individual racers: many RC hobbyists report their racing budget going further with a discount on equipment. The increase in spending power often enables them to race more often, and have newer and nicer gear, than they would otherwise. Unsurprisingly, I often hear from these budget-minded that they don’t end up saving any money because they feel compelled to do more and buy more. Perhaps that is not from sales pressure on behalf of their sponsors, but out of excitement to get as much out of the opportunity as possible. For some, signing a contract is the impetus to take racing more seriously. There are other benefits as well: greater access to information, the prestige of representing a company which often brings the adoration of others, and the sense of accomplishment — particularly in a hobby with such shallow feedback of progress. The ones who respect their position and do their best stand out from the wanna-bes, and for good reason.

Sometimes, though, taking the hobby too seriously becomes a downside. The classic RC tragedy is that of the young man who the locals thought showed a lot of promise to become something on the regional or national level, only to get frustrated by falling short of expectations and sell off everything to pursue another hobby. Social media connections and even real-life friendships are often bridged or broken along manufacturer loyalty lines. And by some accounts, tempers (and fists) have been quicker to rise over the last couple of years.

For those on the business end, and the racing teams which they operate, the pros and cons are similar.

As long as enough tracks stay open, the concept of getting potential customers to sign a contract is quite a hard bargain to beat for every manufacturer in the industry — and the benefits go much further than just revenue. These companies get more data about their target audience’s spending habits than ever before, they can directly disseminate information to its customer base (both on and off the team), and they can utilize these representatives for a myriad different marketing and development tasks without spending a dime. Corporate conglomerates like Coca-Cola could only dream of not only being able to lure Pepsi drinkers, but contractually obligate them to become walking billboards and social media brand evangelists while still turning a profit.

For the company as a whole, it seems to stop there; there’s relatively little downside, because even if the hobby does eventually implode those that chose to ride the ship into the iceberg will likely be proud to claim their complicity.

Instead, it’s the team managers who bear the brunt of the bad stuff. Especially for the largest manufacturers, many of them are seasoned RC racers who take the job with the goal of running a tight ship like what they remember from ten years ago, rather than being salesmen and babysitters. And I don’t mean babysitters to make fun of infants and children, nor the patient caregivers who nurture them.

It’s at least once a month that I get a message from one of these team managers (“can you please write a column scolding racers for breaking their contracts or not living up to their end of the deal?), or see a Facebook status one of them wrote, or hear a couple of them in the pit area of some major race complaining about how today’s crop of compensated customers “doesn’t get it.” If they’re not blowing out on completing race reports, or screaming at fellow racers or track owners, they’re asking for permission to run the hot motor-of-the-month even though they’re sponsored by an electronics company — or they absent-mindedly posted a picture of their car with a competing company’s tires mounted. With more and more companies scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill their rosters, it’s a guarantee that not all of the fish they catch will be keepers, and once you've signed a couple of bad apples, how can you possibly penalize the rest of the basket? With how often these transgressions are overlooked and ignored, you know the company’s bean counters really don’t care.

The team managers hate it when a driver cuts his 12-month contract short by six months, but most understand it’s in their own employer’s best interests to do the same thing if presented with the opportunity. And while armchair lawyers can talk all they want about companies suing drivers for breach of contract or charging their credit cards for full price upon premature departure, no profit-seeking business on the planet is going to bother risking financial and political blowback to intimidate someone over a couple thousand dollars. That’s just ridiculous. If a company does try to protect its image and cut a driver loose, there will be five companies waiting to take his credit card number.

Of course, not all sponsored drivers are bad, not all companies are cutthroat, and not all team managers are burnt out on an unruly squad of squids. But it happens - more often than I think most want to admit.

If this is truly the way that RC manufacturers market their products in 2017 and beyond, RC racing at all but the highest levels will resemble less of a factory motocross effort and more an adult rec softball league - which is totally okay. In fact, perhaps the best course of action for all involved is to take a step back, stop taking everything so seriously, and focus on having fun - no matter if you’ve signed on the dotted line or not. Only a few that ever grab the sponsorship sword will know how best to use it; so while you may not be King Arthur, just be happy you’re sitting at the table.