Back when I played youth tournament baseball, we didn’t have sponsors, and if we did, they were a local company trying to help gain promotion while also using their donation as a tax write-off. Now entire teams and organizations have local sponsors as well as some big name sponsors as well. For my old tournament baseball team, Twelve Baseball, they now have various sponsors supporting their team as well as the organization as a whole. The sponsors for Twelve Baseball are called the Twelve Pillars, because of their support. Twelve Baseball states they “have initiated a partnership program with companies that share our values and commitment to positively impact our community. These Pillar Partnerships help us to achieve the goals outlined in our mission statement by helping with program operational expenses and easing some of the financial burdens typically faced by families that participate in youth sport. The Twelve is a family oriented organization and we welcome each of our partners to our family. To that end we will seek to support and facilitate the growth and business endeavors of our Pillar Partners, who provide the best services, goods, and opportunities for our members” (Twelvebaseball.com). As well as these pillars Twelve Baseball and the larger organization they are apart of, Texas Premier Baseball, have a partnership with Easton and New Balance. Easton has hosted several of what they call “Hit Labs” at Texas Premier events, former Major leaguer Kevin Millar even got in on the action on father’s day weekend, and even though Andy Pettitte was there we couldn’t convince him to swing a bat (pitchers usually jump at the chance to swing a bat). Back when I played when the Twelve was just growing, we had none of these sponsors, we may have had a local print shop donating some printing for free on promotional things we were doing.
How has youth sponsorship varied for whatever sport you used to play? Did you have youth sponsors for a team you were apart of?
Sources:
Stuart Hennigar SPMT 617 Blog 