Becoming a professional kayaker is pretty easy. In this short piece, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about how to get in with the biggest companies in this industry and what it means to be a full-time sponsored professional athlete.
Being sponsored comes with great responsibility. It means that you are rich and famous and therefore better than everyone else around you. It’s tough at first to get the respect you deserve, but hopefully I can help you on the path to fame, riches, and glory.
Walk the walk:
Before becoming a pro, you should begin by acting as a pro would act in social situations. Try to ignore people who may also be good at kayaking and act like the king of your local river. There is NOBODY better than you (if you ignore everyone else). The more you look down your nose at people, the more likely you’ll be to get sponsored.
Introduce yourself to pro athletes with this handy phrase:
“Hello *insert pro kayaker’s name*, I can’t believe you’re a pro kayaker, I’m so much better than you.”
Go to events:
It’s important to go to community events so they can support your journey to stardom. Try not to partake in any silly events such as inflatable races or mass starts. Ensure that you try hard in any events that are cool (rolling competitions or beer-related events).
Be sure to hang around the tents of the brands you’d like to be sponsored by and make suggestions about new boat/kit designs. Good examples include “Why don’t you make a full slice?” or “I think the ReactR is outdated, what about something similar to the design of *insert obnoxious sports car model* ”
Win the party- need I say more.
Put yourself out there:
It goes without saying that you’ll need a banging social media page. Get Instagram and tag all of your favourite brands on your bio. Post a minimum of 3 times a day with as much trending audio as possible.
Nobody wants to hear about your tailees. Only posting stouts is the correct way to become famous. Feel free to comment on other people’s posts telling them how much better at kayaking you are.
Handy Insta comment ideas:
“I’ve seen logs run it higher than that.”
“You should quit while you are ahead.”
“I dislike your pogie choice.”
Why be sponsored?
If you want to get a sponsorship deal, make sure that you are doing it for the right reasons.
You will undoubtedly become rich. The average paycheck of a sponsored kayaker is around 20million Yen per year. This sort of money will buy you a big house or quite a lot of cheese. This is why so many pro kayakers seem poor yet eat a lot of mozzarella.
You’ll likely get a lot of attention from young people, so be a good inspiration. Promote dangerously low safety standards on the river. Be loose, be fast, never carry a throw bag (it makes you look like a wuss).
Get in contact with brands:
Write a lengthy email with many grammatikal errors to all of the kayaking/energy drink brands and cheese factories you know, explaining how useful it would be for you to be sponsored and why you don’t really need them, but they will need you.
Very important to consider their current team members. Allude to your skill set and prowess over any current team members, and be sure to mention your personal highest waterfall descent/most coffee consumed in a 12-hour period.
The truth hurts:
As you can see, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Full-time sponsored pro athletes have to deal with paparazzi, having too much money and too much attention on the daily. If I were you, I’d probably stop trying.
