Back when I started my first football website, when I was looking at ways to expand it, I looked into how to get a football boot sponsorship.
At the time, I was really interested in the idea of testing out football boots and reviewing them on a website so that I could share my thoughts on them.
However, what I found is that to get a football boot sponsorship, you need to fit the criteria of many different things.
That is because popular sporting brands don’t hand out sponsorships to everyone. However, it doesn’t mean that someone like you reading this post can’t get one.
Today, I am going to discuss what s football boot sponsorship, who had them and how to go about getting one.
Table of Contents
What Is A Football Boot Sponsorship?
A football sponsorship is a partnership most commonly involving footballers, where brands pay or give you football boots in return for exposure.
That’s right, when companies like Nike, Adidas and Puma, set out to sponsor someone, they look at it from an investment point of view.
With football being watched by millions of people, sponsoring most players in the top leagues works out great value for brands such as the ones listed above.
You will often see what a player is wearing on the pitch, which is great advertising. Also incorporated in sponsorships, the player will tag and promote the brand on their social media.
What Is The Incentive To Sponsor A Footballer?
Simply put, companies want to expand and compete against others. So by sponsoring players, they become more popular because people notice them wearing the brand.
This, in turn, will lead to more people wanting to buy the same products as their favourite footballers.
A great example of a player who has been sponsored is Cristiano Ronaldo. Now he is someone who is regarded as not only a fantastic player but a role model to the younger generations.
Because he is such a big player with a huge following, Nike has integrated his branding into their boots to help sell them.
This is why there are so many Nike CR7 football boots out there now, and because of that, loads of people who look up to him purchase his boots.
Now sponsoring established professional footballers is just a no brainer for brands, especially in this day and age of social media.
They get access to their followers, so anybody who follows these footballers is then shown the brand and the products they sell.
How Can You Get A Football Sponsorship?
Becoming a professional footballer who plays at a high level is achievable but not a guarantee.
If you want to become a footballer just to have brands chasing you and offering you money for you to wear their boots, then your probably chasing the wrong goal.
A football boot sponsorship is just a perk that comes with being a top-level player.
However, if you do want to get one and aren’t a footballer, it is, like I said at the start, still achievable.
The best way to go about it is to build some kind of audience interested in football.
An audience that is targeted is what brands look for when looking for potential suitors.
Ideally, you will need to create a platform for yourself that will either naturally attract the attention of brands or allow you to reach out to them.
There are three main platforms in 2021 that you could work on to go about getting a football boot sponsorship.
With each of them, you will likely need to work hard, but is what is good is you can start from scratch.
Youtuber
While YouTube has become tougher over the last few years with increasing creators turning to the platform, it remains a top place to build a following.
Now, as a YouTuber, you control the content you make, so if you want to get potential football boot sponsorships in the future, you are ideally going to need to build an audience around that.
Good examples of YouTubers include Manny and the F2Freestylers.
Manny is mainly a football gaming YouTuber who makes videos of him either playing football or football-based video games, like FMM, Fifa and PES.
Now since he has built an audience around football, he has been able to draw the interest of Puma, who sponsor him and his semi-pro football team.
He is a good example of someone who is not a professional footballer but started from scratch, building a platform that has attracted numerous brands.
The second example is F2Freestylers, which have become quite mainstream over the years, making numerous videos with footballers and even featuring several times in the charity event Soccer Aid.
They have built their brand around football by creating videos showcasing skills and goals. As a result of millions watching them, Adidas decided to sponsor them.
In their videos, they exclusively wear Adidas kit and boots and make videos based on their gear.
Instagram and TikTok
Instagram and the recent emergence of TikTok offer two social media platforms where you could potentially get a football boot sponsorship.
With it being a platform where influencers can grow their brand, this makes room for any people who want to grow an audience interested in football.
Now what I have seen that works well on this platform is the football gear niche.
There are plenty of Instagrammers who have acquired footballing brands’ deals by growing the Instagram page around football boots and equipment.
As you grow your audience and as long as it is targeted then, companies will naturally reach out to you.
If you have, let’s say, 50k followers and up, then it also wouldn’t hurt to contact brands like Nike and Adidas to pitch an offer.
For example, if you are a football boot photographer, someone who takes pictures of football boots, new and old and uploads them on Instagram.
You could suggest the idea of promoting their brand of football boots, with free pairs in return sent out to you.
How Much Money Can You Earn?
Firstly you have different types of sponsorships, some of which don’t involve money but instead has brands sending you out free pairs and gear in return for promoting them.
So how much you could earn all depends on what deal you make with the brand.
But if we are talking about professional footballers, most are getting paid a lot of money through brand deals such as boot ones.
If you are to get paid, how much they are willing to give you will depend on how big and how targeted your audience is.
When it comes to professional footballers, things are slightly different because they are the sport’s focal point.
Having the big players on board with your brand is quite important, so this is why we will hear and see big deals going on within the sport.
The most recent deal, which was a big deal, saw the Neymar Jr swap Nike for Puma two years before his contract’s end in a reported $30 million a year deal.
It is an awful lot of money, but for a player who everyone in brazil knows and anyone who pays attention to football, it is smart business.
Conclusion
If getting a football boot sponsorship is one of your goals, I hope this post shed light on how it works and how you could get it.
As I touched upon throughout, getting sponsorships as a non-professional footballer isn’t easy, and in general, it isn’t an overnight thing.
Brands want to work with people who have an engaged audience, where they know if they work with you, it will bring more business to them.
If you are trying to get one, then maybe look at the existing platforms like listed above and come up with a niche that would attract footballing brands.
If you have any questions on sponsorships or anything in general, do let me know below 🙂
Zaihid
Im zaidy just wanted a sposor of soccer
Boots for me no money to buy a new pair