Psimet2001 

Yup.... and there's absolutely zero market value to anyone who bothers to ask a remotely probing question about what they are getting in return for sponsorship. I can't even ask for it anymore unless it's done as, "hey we like bikes. you like bikes. you like us. your money will help us like bikes more. you in?"

I sent around a team sponsorship form for people and got a ton of questions back from one who is trying to secure a sponsorship.

"Do you have a file or link to race and podium pictures you can share with me to show examples of the possible exposure a sponsor including any statistics of how many podiums, 1st place finishes, state or other championships Psimet has won in the last 3-5 years. I would also appreciate more information regarding what events Psimet will be hosting or participating in around the chicagoland area (The closer to Chicago the better). Also is there any cross promoting to Psimet Master team, jersey, etc? How is that working this year? Are you open to taking a bike shop on as a sponsor like ____ as well?"

These would be normal questions and a seemingly fun endeavor when I thought there was return. Instead it's "don't have photos. I am busy working on bikes and moving trainers and working pits, etc when podiums are done. You can look for podium shots but then you're going to have to secure permission from every person who shot them before you can use them. Most will want to be paid for their effort. That makes sense but when the $ spent starts to approach the $ we are trying to get I start to question the value of a bunch of podium shots of local people doing amateur races. We have 69 licensed racers across like 8 disciplines. I don't know who finished in the top 10 of cat 4 field in the backwater crit 8 months ago. I also don't have a patience to cull all the data for every one of the 69 racers from USA Cycling or Crossresults and Roadresults. State championships - in order to figure that out I have to pull up flyers and figure out which category championship was awarded in which race then cull the results and figure out who was what category at the time and where they live to see if they qualify. What events we're hositng? Good question. Which ones are we participating in? All of them. How many is that? Who knows we on't have a good calendar and the ones we do have list races that I know are going to fold this year. As for the bike shop - I am a bike shop. You've been on the team for 2 years. I'm obviously doing a great job of letting that be known."

.......all of that for $1k that will disappear on portapotties and lunch for volunteers in less than half a day.

Well time to go program in a ride for people to ride inside....