Race Sponsorship

well you know what kind of bogus garbage puma put out.. like that fake zine. seriously, do you want a fake zine?

i work for one of the huge cell phone corporations - not stinkular. when some talk was made of using RFID to do the scoring and the need for WIFI hotspots, i thought i would volunteer a couple of my EVDO Broadband cards and service rather than seeking out hotspots for checkpoints. i can still do this if the need is there. but i also briefly wondered about asking for sponsorship.

they keep us network geeks hidden away, so i really have no idea how the sales and marketing groups opperate. i do know we've sponsored dumber and less relevant events in the past.

i sent an e-mail to our PR people to test the sponsorship waters. they proved to be a corporate beast which we may not be able to wake in time. they probably would not take me seriously until a date is defined and i would also try to give them a rough estimate of people involved (exposure). any ideas? from the initial response, sponsorship from the huge cellular company i'm know best does not sound super likely - which may be a good thing. if you think this is something you would like to do i can continue to push and practice my weak networking skills.

this is my attempt and then the beast rolls over and goes back to sleep with a canned answer:

Caran,

I am participating in a 24 hour urban bicycle relay in downtown Atlanta (http://24.fastermustache.org/ - more to come). The date of the event has not been nailed down but should be between mid Sept and mid Oct from noon – noon on a Saturday into Sunday. This may be an interesting opportunity to provide sponsorship to an important demographic. There will likely be ~100 participants including friends and family. Riders are typically between 18 and 35 years old. Most of the participants are tech savvy college graduates (mostly Georgia Tech and Georgia State) and bicycle messengers who rely on their phones 24/7. From what I gather the group is fairly Cingular heavy.

This is in a similar spirit as the Urban Challenge which Verizon Wireless was the main corporate sponsor in the past.

There are a lot of specifics to be ironed out, but I wanted to get the idea out there and possibly discuss with the appropriate people if there is an interest.

This is the Second annual relay and in an attempt to make this year even better than last they are putting together an RFID real time scoring application. We are looking at putting each of the race checkpoints near WIFI hotspots so the laptop at that location can provide real time updates to the master scoring database and real time updates to the laptop at the home base. I threw out the idea of rather than planning our route around WIFI hotspots, why don’t we just use Verizon’s EVDO Broadband footprint? Everyone was immediately interested in learning more about the product. These are students and young professionals who weren’t aware or did not fully understand the capabilities of our local EVDO Broadband.

Some ideas:

Provide the EVDO capability for the real time scoring at checkpoints.
--There will be four or five checkpoints around the city which each cyclist must pass through during each lap. Laptops at these locations would be locked and secure. We would likely be able to come up with the laptops but would need EVDO cards and service to pull off the real time scoring. I’m a performance engineer and familiar with how to setup the card, etc.
--Opportunity to show off the EVDO product.

Provide the home base, 97 Estoria (727 Wylie St, Atlanta) with laptops and EVDO service.
--Participants, friends and family would be able to check the real time scoring, e-mail, upload photos and general web browsing while waiting and relaxing.
--Opportunity to show off the EVDO product and give people an opportunity to experience the product hands-on.

Setup a tent/table during peak hours on route for water/bananas/etc.
--Could be at a busy walking area for more publicity (High Museum, Piedmont Park, Buckhead, Centennial Park, Underground Atlanta – depending on final route).
--Publicity from participants and pedestrians.
--Potential opportunity to show off products to pedestrians at table.

Branded materials could include T-shirts, Frisbees, Sunglasses, Carabineers, Water Bottles, Mini Flashlights, Mints, etc… I’m just trying to think of the things I’ve seen at other events that this crowd would appreciate

We have a lot of work to do to make the real time RFID scoring a reality. I can get more information as it is made available. Please let me know who the appropriate party would be to bounce this idea off of.

Attached is a picture from last year’s event at home base (97 Estoria) just to give a feel of what the event will look like.

Thanks,

Austin,

Thank you for sending the information.

Once you have the details, please submit a sponsorship application online at www.verizonwireless.com/sponsorship. This is a site we use to organize and manage the numerous requests we receive weekly.

I will share with you that it is a challenge to add events this late in the year due to limited budget. Typically we secure all sponsorships/events in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

If you have any further questions, please let me know.

Best,

Caran

sopo is doing a thing on oct 13.. hope that does not conflict date-wise.

So turns out the wireless guys where i work (Georgia Tech - Office of Information Technology - Research Network Operations Center) may be interested in working with some of the technology aspects of this. They have EDGE/EVDO/RFID/etc stuff to go around and there might be some people interested in putting some time into this. This would probably be much easier to deal with than trying to do the same thing through a cellular provider.

while free shit is always nice - i did not necesarily want to be the guy who brought the big corporate monster with him. i already drink these guys' koolaid forty hours a week and that's plenty.

Octane Coffee has offered to help sponsor the race and be a wireless hot spot (we can keep the internet plugged in all night and then access it in the parking lot if need be). I need some kind of info to give my boss about what we would like and what we can offer him.

1.) what prizes would we like? I'm thinking $5 and $10 gift certificates or maybe morning coffee for all the riders?

2.) what can we give him?

• I think that if the race went by the store, he could promote it as a good location to see the race and maybe draw in more business. Especially if spectators can track riders in real time via the web. "come to Octane and get real time stats of the race via our free wireless."

• advertisement? can we include their logo on our flyers and on the banner at home base?
• all riders that participate will now be aware that the shop exists and where its located. maybe creating some more customers.