If you have a strong passion for sports and the athletic spectrum, there are numerous ways to make some use of your knowledge or skills.
If you intend to be an athlete in most professional sports, the road is rather straightforward to achieve the very top. You have to start young, train rigorously, and progress in skill with everything you can.
However, playing in the pro league isn’t the end all be all. For some sports, people who started later in life isn’t unheard of. Mixed martial arts, golf, weightlifting, Ironman, and several others have had notable champions who started later in life.
Even with all this in mind, there are numerous avenues one can take, and achieve a career and even recognition either in a sport of the person’s choice or in a field that is related to but doesn’t necessarily involve playing sports yourself (think about becoming a sports blogger, for example).
Socially sponsored
An excellent method of gaining a footing in your genre of sports is to start building a brand for yourself through social media platforms.
As an athlete or a person who simply loves sports and wants to do more of it, you will want to work on gaining a sponsorship. By the way, running a fundraiser on SPONSOR.ME and sharing it with your followers on social media could be a good idea. That would show that you are being serious, plus sports-related social sites like SPONSOR.ME will help you find likeminded individuals to hang out with.
By chronicling your progress on a social media platform, you create a clear picture of your goals, interests, and expectations. This establishes a characterization of yourself that helps attract sponsorships. Since many smaller companies or organizations are willing to take chances on less known individuals, gaining their attention is key.
Sponsorship is important to any path towards competitive sport, or even just content creation regarding sports. Sponsorships help fund your ambitionsn and cover the costs of training, equipment, and various fees, like registering participation into an event to shoot videos for your sports YouTube channel.
Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter are great methods of profile building, and making videos or building a channel on sites like YouTube allows for a stronger representation, which is a stronger method of gaining a following.
All this is only valuable if your integrity allows it, there is plenty of competition attempting to do the same thing. Consistency and an open attitude are essential for maintaining recognition.
Reach out to people
Reaching out to people (some of which may be future sponsors) creates a feeling of inclusivity, even if it’s just a simple response. This is important, as it gives them the feeling of taking that journey with you.
A personal example is Grayson Boucher, who is most known as ProfessorLive. He’s a freestyle basketball player who would play one on one by just showing up to basketball courts (sometime dressed as Spiderman). He fosters a personal relationship with his followers and even a few replied to comments I’d made on his YouTube channel. I felt inspired to donate to him. A regular guy, whose passion and ability to show that to the world gets him sponsorships.
Content creation for sports
One of the most popular methods of building a career in the sports world, be in general or a specific sport, is becoming a content creator, or a sports blogger.
With the numerous formats like YouTube, media sharing sites, or even making your own website, creating a brand of your passion is highly accessible, and in many cases takes effort over cost.
If you feel you have the knowledge and understanding in a variety of sports or one specific sport, a lot can be achieved with some time investment.
When approaching content creation, it is important to know that there are many others out there who get washed away in the noise because maybe they don’t properly invest into the right set up for what they want to do. Or (and this is why passion is vital, and where you’ll succeed) they try to present content that they barely know anything about.
I’ll give a few examples of where many people go wrong and a general base of where to start in content creation. There is also work for those wanting to build a following for their athletic career as well.
Vlogger, sportscaster, video commentator
This is a huge field, and there are some basic concepts and equipment to get you ahead that many neglect causing a jarring experience for the viewer/listener.
Video editing:
This will allow you to create simple to advanced videos of your recordings or slice clips together and understand live streaming as well. It’s a very easy skill to acquire, and there are numerous software solutions that range from free to under $100. Some great options are Movavi, Corel VideoStudio (what I personally use), and PowerDirector.
Microphone:
There are many ways to approach a mic. Although, there is one style that helps with voice recording specifically, and is what is used by sports casters, news reporters or anyone that needs their voice to be strong without ambient sound. This would be a shotgun microphone.
There is a wide range here from the very expensive to $50. Many YouTubers make the mistake of overpaying for mics that won’t project their voice like a shotgun mic.
Recording:
If you don’t intend to show yourself and just work through commentary, a recording device is unnecessary.
Depending on what you want to do, a cellphone, tablet, or any recording device will suffice, as most creators use picture-in-picture (PIP) which displays you in a small resolution, where a cell phone can do that without a problem.
Athletes creating content of their training or events they may participate in will probably need to invest in an actual handheld camera, which can pick up a proper frame rate.
Sports websites
Blogging and in-depth websites are lucrative and popular when it comes to sports, as people like to be kept up-to-date and entertained by a like-minded passion.
The quickest and most accessible method of creating a site is through WordPress. This easy-to-learn platform is the perfect way to start sports blogs, stores, clubs, web magazines, fantasy leagues, or pretty much anything under the sun related to sports.
You can learn the in-and-outs of WordPress within a few hours, and make a site in about the same time.
WordPress is modular. Prebuilt themes can enhance your site further, making it even more streamlined, allowing you to focus your passion and ideas to express it. There are numerous theme sites like Elegant Themes, Envato, and so forth and sports themes are abundant. You can literally have a sports site up in a few hours.
Why go beyond basic social media platforms?
Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and other social sites allow you to create an identity which can lead to many lucrative opportunities for a career. These platforms synergize with both vlogging and website creation.
This takes the least monetary investment, but it may limit some of your potential if this is all you use. As mentioned earlier, building an identity is pretty easily done. However expanding beyond that will be harder without concepts like vlogging or even a simple website. So, go beyond the traditional. Start by building your identity on a sports-dedicated website, like e.g., SPONSOR.ME or reach out to SPONSOR.ME blog editorial team to get published. In any case, never give up on your dreams!
Together we build the world of sports!
