So you own your own company, boards / clothes or whatever, you see this hot sh*t surfer out blowing up, you want to sponsor him, what the hell does that mean? Just free boards, or products? Money? Paycheck? A contract? For example, say a guy is well known on the local scene and has had his picture in a mag once or twice, what would sponsorship cover? He isn’t a Rob Machado, just a local ripper who does conests occasionally and is “on the radar”. I don’t own my own company yet, but want the inside scoop on these sort of occurances.
Curious, I am going to respond as a ‘normal’ (age 50+) surfer. My question is why bother to sponser someone(?)-Unless they are surfing on your equipment already. I see guys ripping out there, or doing classic moves with style…I figure they can do it on any equipment. I believe if you put out a quality product, that’s what will get people to purchase your boards. If you are going to build boards to sell, you should say to yourself: Curious boards are going to be the absolute best board made.
yea… that sounds fine… like that old motivational speach from mom. But while you may be wise enough to see that it doesn’t matter, the kids (i.e. 95% of the market) are not. Few kids out there will really compare the performance of their boards without a strong bias on how ‘cool’ the board was. I guarranty that if you could get Kelly Slater to start riding retro Fish designs… Herb would be a busy guy. Sad but true - it matters who rides your boards if you want to “go big” …whatever that means.
Rook, I suppose you are right…But, I just believe that if Curious did build the best board, Slater would come to him. And I checked with my mom- she confirms it was speech number 42.
I remember reading an interview way back when Kelly had hair and he reckons the first 3 Merricks he had were dogs ! I think the communication that Kelly has with Merrick is why he’s stayed.At that time Kelly was kelley, not “the Man” he is now - and Merrick was “the Man” in board building.Luck had it that he’d go on to bigger and better stuff and i guess when this really became obvious Merrick signed him to a 30 year contract, probably !!! You just got to find that hot kid before the rest of us, Curious, and talk nice to him even if he tells you ya Pipe boards are $hit !
They are right. Find a few kids who rip and hook them up with free boards. Ya gots to spend money to make money. If you pay eight grand for a full page color ad in Surfer, Surfing or Transworld (yep thats the price-or more) then people will call you. Oh, and if you give a known pro a hundred grand to ride em, and put him in the ad, then you are gold. Seriously, scrape together about two hundred grand (rob a bank) and you can hire two or three B-rated pros (like Matt Archbold, Gavin Beshen, etc), get lots of pics and ads out and start making money. But if you are really into making surfboards, you better get used to the fact that you probably will never get rich. You most likely won’t ever get paid much more than a cop or teacher after all the bills are paid at the shop. If you want to get rich, go into the clothing industry. But again, it’s all about advertising, and at about ten grand per month per magazine, you could easily spend 360 grand in one year advertising using one full color page in each of the three big mags. Heck the the back cover of Surfer Magazine is 20 grand per month, and Rip Curl seems to have that locked up. Big name companies like Quicksilver can afford to spend half a million a year or more (per magazine). Can you? Oh, and don’t forget payolla. That’s where you pay the editor of the magazine to run the shot of your team rider getting barreled at Pipe. Every magazine picture is picked based on advertising. The more money you spend, the more likely they will show pictures of your team riders. That’s why you never see “unidentified” surfers anymore. Believe me, if all photographers decided to stop shooting pros, there would still be awesome surfers riding perfect waves with precision and style. But that wouldn’t get anyone rich, would it? If you want to be with the big boys, get a business plan and a big fat loan, and then dive in head first and drag down anyone that gets in your way. THAT’s how the big boys did it.
It’s pretty sad, aint it guys! And the pricks have got the hide to put all this propoganda in the mags forn the groms to read about how “core” they all are - yeah, mainstream-accountant-led-global-business-transnational “core” ! They’re just like any ol’ Nike, Nestle or Nikon ! I don’t know why i keep buying their $hit labels ?
Wear Levis and shirts that say Penzoil, but don’t buy surf clothing. You only feed the beast when you do that. Just buy surfboards (or make em, or get a local shaper to make em), buy a leash, and buy a wetsuit (preferabbly an American made one like Aleeda, cheap and homegrown but with better quality than Oniel and Rip Curl which are both expensive and made in Thailand). that’s all you need, oh and wax. But the surf trunks are 4.99 at Wal Mart and, truth be told, will last as long as a sixty dollar pair of Billabongs. And the t-shirts that say Hurley are really sold by Nike and are twenty-five bucks. But Hanes and Fruit of the Loom sell 3-packs of t-shirts that are 100% cotton for 6.99 and if you still want it to say Hurley, you can buy a 4 pack of permanent markers in assorted colors for 4 bucks and write Hurley on each t-shirt. Then you can even draw a wave on it or a picture of a kid holding up a middle finger, or whatever is popular these days. And it will only cost you ten bucks for three Hurley shirts. Man, that’s a deal you can’t pass up. Me, I’ll stick with the Penzoil shirt, the golf club hat, and shoes from Payless. I’d rather spend the money on surfboards and travel, and a few cases of Tecate (or whatever’s on sale).
amvets thrift store.
Truth be told, if you really want cheap clothes, go to Ebay. That’s about the last thing that is cheap anymore on Ebay.