Sponsorship in Sailing

From Peter Harken:

Michael Borga put it best regards "Sponsorship" (in Scuttlebutt 2846). I have found in my many years of regatta experience throughout the World, the French are by far the best at understanding the word "sponsorship" and how to use it and deliver to the sponsor so they keep coming back and back and creating fantastic events with huge public spectatorship. We in the US sailing community, in general, still don't seem to really know the difference between "sponsorship" and a "gift".

Sponsorship is simply a business transaction - you ask a company for a dollar and in return you need to give a dollar's worth back. Fair is fair! If you ask for a dollar and give nothing back, you simply are asking for a "gift". So, if a yacht club is asking a company like mine to be a sponsor for so much money or like kind, we need a like's worth return or we are stupid and deserve to go broke!

In such cases in our sponsored sailing world, a company's return is in advertizing or exposure - like 99% of all sponsored sporting events. If you don't want to so call "clutter" your yacht clubs with advertising banners and such, then pay for the event with your own monies, but don't ask a company for Sponsorship and offer bad value return. I "gift" to charities and ask for no return. Yacht clubs and regatta events are not charities! Good sponsorship is okay, and if not pay your own way. The Corinthian spirit with good club volunteerism plus some sponsorship makes regattas very affordable so both are A-OK!
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