Professional Magic Teams/Securing a Sponsor

It is no surprise that professional Magic teams have come under great scrutiny recently. Issues such as qualified players competing in QT’s, collusion problems, and scouting horror stories have fostered a raging debate over the legitimacy and impact of teams in the professional environment. As well, Magic pundit Robert Hahn recently presented compelling arguments solidifying the concept of "teams" and coupled his pieces with well-conceived and intelligent tournament structures. Since the DCI is close to allowing sanctioned team events, the importance that teams will play in the professional Magic scene should greatly increase in the future. As well, winners and high place finishers in the Pro Tours are far more likely to be from a formal play team than not.

It would be silly and rather redundant to enumerate the reasons why a team tends to do better in a tournament than an individual and why, if you are serious about competing, you should form your own professional team. Instead, I’ll. use the experience I’ve gathered from promoting heavy metal bands in Hollywood (my misspent youth) and knowledge gleaned from my degree and career in business marketing to give you informal guidelines on how to develop, promote, and (hopefully) gain yourself a sponsor. Your mileage may vary depending on location.

The Sponsor’s Role

Pro player Rudy Edwards once stated that a team is "more than a bunch of guys with cool shirts." I couldn’t agree with him more. 95% of obtaining a sponsorship is making yourself attractive to a sponsor - try to find as many ways as you can to answer the question, "Why would a company spend money on my transportation, hotel, and expenses to attend various tournaments around the world, as well as pay me a lump sum to do so, and even let me keep the prize money I win at the tournaments?" Every answer you give should eventually fall under the category, "Because I make more money for them by encouraging people to buy their products."

It is important to remember that a corporate sponsor doesn’t really care if you are a good person, blazingly stupid, illiterate, or even a moron - as long as you can sell their products. The service a sponsor is paying you for, in marketing terms, is a "testimonial." Your sponsor wants you to wear their logo, appear in their advertising, and entice, cajole, or impress a certain group of individuals (known as a target market/audience) into buying their products. Your team, to the sponsor, acts as a shining beacon in the Magic world that says, "Buy from my sponsor - they have products that helped me to become the professional Magic tournament winner that I am today and can do the same for you!" It is important to remember that advertising in this form isn’t bad - it’s a mutually reciprocal relationship that helps you, benefits the corporate sponsor, and helps legitimize Magic as a real sport.

With that information in mind, consider the individuals who will comprise your professional Magic team carefully. Are they all either extremely strong players or talented deck builders - or do you have individuals who are on your team by virtue of their being related to, or a friend of, a team member? Although you may feel obligated to keep certain individuals on your team, just remember that that person may hamper your chances of obtaining a sponsor. You need a team of "stars" to attract a sponsor - and companies do not look well on spending money on individuals who do not contribute to the team’s productivity. Team members need to take a hard look at their team and solidify it into one "fighting unit." It is tough, sure, but you have to remember that allowing one or two people to ruin the team’s chances for obtaining a sponsorship is not worth the price of not having to confront them. Something to keep in mind, as well, is that you can always allow the weaker individuals who don’t make the team cut to play and practice with you. This keeps your team fresh by preventing "inbreeding" (i.e., metagaming against each other until your decks can only ever beat each other’s decks and no one else’s in the tournament - also known as "Finkelized" on the PT circuit) and in addition it gives the weaker players a chance to hone their skills to the point where you could eventually include them in the team.

Conversely, if you build a team around a Pro Tour winner simply because he has a famous name, you may just find yourself left high and dry when he is offered a personal sponsorship that does not include the rest of the team. One of the very first Magic player teams was composed of five players of varying skill levels. One of this team’s players would eventually emerge as a steady tournament winner and be offered an endorsement deal valued in the thousands of dollars (for him alone). This player dropped the team unceremoniously, scooped up the endorsement dollars without looking back, and ultimately refused to pay the team the thousands of dollars in Pro Tour and tournament earnings that were, according to the team’s formal agreement, to be split among the team for travel and other expenses. It only takes one loose cannon to destroy a team and I can tell you honestly that you are better off without a "star player" who is unstable. It is up to you to make sure your team members are dedicated, share common ethics, and encourage an environment of mutual respect.

If, on the other hand, you’re the best player on your team, remember a few critical facts: although some singers did very well after they left their rock band to go solo, many others (David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen comes to mind), did not. Don’t join a team if you’re even slightly motivated to dump them at the first sign of a solo sponsorship. It’s a sad fact that the $25,000 or so a player earns for winning a PT often turns a competitor into a selfish, ravenous, money sucking monster intent only on sitting on a pile of money greedily a la Scrooge McDuck (wow, that’s heavy, isn’t it?).  As well, dumping your teammates is a great way to become a pariah among the professional magic peerage.

Finally, remember that there may be one or two individuals who may never win a major event but are integral to the success of your team. Mario Robaina was the core and heart of PCL in the early years of the PT - he was their creative force, master deck builder, and moral support. Yet his efforts to promote and preserve the team are largely unknown to the magic population. Ideally, your team should have at least three strong players, of which you need someone good at constructed, someone with a gift for sealed, and someone who understands draft. On the West Coast, "Team Dickhead" has always been known for the sealed and draft skills yet they often stumble at constructed format tournaments. Conversely, Tongo Nation has strengths in constructed formats but all do noticeably poorly in non-constructed events. Team CMU, on the otherhand, is, in my opinion, one of the best teams out there right now - their members include the mad genius deckbuilding skills of Erik Lauer, the sealed specialist Mike Turian, and player abilities of Brian Schneider, Randy Buehler (who coincidentally is a Pro Tour winner), and Dan Silberman. As well, they have a hearty respect for each other and tend to work together as a strong unit instead of a bunch of individuals randomly playtesting. See Mike Turian’s PTLA tournament report for an example of what I mean about this great team. Team CMU and Team Deadguy (nice guys do finish first) are the best examples of how great a Magic team can be.

So you have a Magic Team formalized, you’re good players, and you want a sponsorship. . .

Unfortunately, it is often at this point that most teams stumble. I have never understood why so many good players find it so difficult to promote themselves; America is a capitalistic society, people are weaned on advertising from the cradle, yet when it comes to making a resume or promoting themselves, players cringe up in horror or disgust.

To obtain a sponsorship, you are will probably have to do more than play well and win often. And yes, Mark Justice’s sponsorship by HobbyTown USA and TNC’s sponsorship of several teams including Tongo Nation were the result of those players winning frequently and not through any concerted effort of their own. However, those were the days of few "stars" and when only a year or so of Pro Tours had concluded. It was easy at that time to pick a few "stars" and focus on them. The professional player market grows with every PT and the number of "star" players increases with every event. It is no longer feasible nor even easy for a sponsor to pick one individual or team and promote them alone. There are many sponsorship dollar candidates and you will need to do some simple legwork to bring your team to the attention of a sponsor.

Through hard work, effort, and concerted promotion, Wizards of the Coast developed Pro Tour sponsorship relationships with corporations such as Yahoo and MCI. TNC, on the other hand, came in and scooped up the people who were, at the time, the best of the Magic playing community. Although I’m sure the TNC promotion has been the best for the teams they support, I do not believe, in looking at the whole picture, that having one organization sponsoring every good team is the best decision for either the players, for the Pro Tour, or for the sport in general (and yes, it can be argued that Magic isn’t a sport. I define it as a sport due to parallels between competing and earning prizes. If it makes you feel any better, put the word "intellectual" in front of the word "sport" any time that I use it here). The inherent problem with the TNC monopoly is that other sponsors will be reluctant to spend money on what could be perceived as "inferior players" and so will take their sponsorship dollars to other sports. Less sponsors mean less sponsorship dollars available for the players and less diversity in the teams sponsored as well. This is counterproductive to the success of the Pro Tour and could arguably result in some stagnation in this area. Clearly, the more sponsors in the professional Magic circuit, the better the competition level, the greater appreciation and awareness of the sport of Magic as professional, and the greater chance we will have Pro Tours in the future.

Your best option once you develop the team is to pick one team member to be in charge of promoting and securing a sponsor. That person, to help defray the costs of the time and effort he spends on promoting you, should be paid 5% or so of the team earnings. Unfortunately, distribution of team earnings is usually a poorly discussed and loosely regarded aspect of team play - and it may cause serious problems for you later.

When you formalize your team, I highly suggest you go beyond a verbal agreement and consider a team mission and contract. For illustration purposes, I will make a pseudo magic team called "Team Jester" and give you an idea of what a professional team could and should look like. Although they mean very little to you with regards to your team actually winning more tournaments or playing better, you have to remember that being able to present a formal team structure to a sponsor is extremely important. Your sponsor needs to know that your team is focused, united, and will be around at the end of the year to continue to promote their products.

What should be in your promotion package? A resume and a written agreement are a must. Optional items include a team logo, a small write up with a team mission, and possibly even a webpage you can use to entice a sponsorship. Just remember to be as professional as possible in all of your documents - no crayon, pencil, or ink.

Naming Your Team

Give yourself a nice, descriptive, yet professional sounding name. Companies do not want to be associated with a team whose name is a profanity, slur, inside joke, or otherwise obscure and unmarketable. Bad names include "Team Dickhead", "Team Five Guys and a Peter", and "Team <insert any Magic card here>." Be creative yet have an interesting sounding name. For example, "Team Eclipse" or "Team Card Sharks" are interesting names that would be very easy to build a logo or concept around to sell to a sponsor.

Creating a Logo

If you are going to give your team a logo, then do it right. Avoid the white-undershirt with spray painted Magic Cards on the back. Not only is this illegal (copyright infringement) but it is also an extremely poor way to represent yourselves as a professional team. Leave the spray painting to graffiti artists and the undershirts to old men wearing their Hanes v-necks on top of beige bermuda shirts, black socks, and black shoes on a hot New York day (sorry - that’s just the stereotypical picture that t-shirts invoke).

First, get the logo designed. The best way to get yourselves a logo is to advertise a logo contest on the internet for your team. Either give a general idea of what your team is looking for (in my example, Team Jester wanted a logo with a Jester’s head on it, and nothing else) or just let the artists loose their own creative talents. You should offer a suitable "prize" for the contest winner - I recommend a card in the $50 (if you live in a small city) to $100 price range. Offering an English Moat, for example, to the winner whose design is chosen is a great way to reward the artist and get yourself a great logo. Some specifications you may want to put in writing for the contest: Logo should have no more than 2 colors (each color greatly increases the shirt silkscreening costs and adds to the printing costs as well). The logo should also include a black and white version and the artist should be able to provide camera ready art/color separations (don’t worry about these technical terms - the artist will know, hopefully). Finally, make it known that the logo becomes the sole property of the team.

Once you have the logo, go out and spend a bit on shirts for the team. It is extremely important to show a unified team front by proudly wearing your shirts at any event in which you compete. You are good players, you win a lot, why not strike fear and awe (and promote your team in the best way possible) in the general Magic-playing masses by wearing your colors whenever you compete.

First, choose a short-sleeved polo-type shirt that has three or four buttons down the front. These are professional golf-player quality shirts that make your team look like they have business being in a professional tournament circuit. Polyester shirts that button down the front are great for bowling teams - but this is magic and you probably won’t be wearing the logo of the local plumber or hardware store on your back. Keep the colors of the polo shirts neutral - black, ivory, beige, or navy. Ideally, you’ll want the logo on the back, large, and you might want to spend a bit more to put the logo small on the front as well (this will cost a bit extra, but when you have your names sewn underneath the small logo it looks incredible).

Shirts with printing will set you back around $19 for each completed shirt. Hence, for each player to have two shirts with two-color designs on front and back (and hey, buy two, not just one as being clean is _important_), the total cost will be about $40 per team member. This will include screen costs (each color of the logo requires a "screen" for printing). If your team can chip in a percentage of earnings for something a bit nicer, I recommend you have the logo sewn in. To have a logo sewn in requires an upfront fee of $100 or so per image to digitize the logo, and then labor and shirt costs will run about $5 and $12 respectively. Of course, prices vary. Check your local yellow pages under "T-shirts", "Silk Screening", or "Sports Equipment" for companies and quotes.

Here is a logo example for  a fictitious team I created for illustration purposes:   Team Jester.  You will see them referred to throughout the rest of this page.

Writing a Resume

Here is where you will list on paper all the important details of your illustrious careers in Magic. Take each group member, listing the person with the best record first, and highlight *every* major tournament they’ve played and all the better finishes. At the bottom of that player’s summary, place the total amount they have earned playing Magic. Prize money is very, very important to a sponsor and nothing to be ashamed of. Use PGA golf as an example - the top golfers are the ones who earn the most. The larger the earning, the more consistent a player they are and the greater chance that they aren’t a "one shot wonder" who won one tournament and then disappeared back into obscurity.

Example of a Resume for Team Jester’s:

Team Jester Group Statement

Vision Statement

To be the leading and most recognized professional team in the Magic: The Gathering sport.

Mission Statement

Team Jester is committed to placing highly or winning in professional level Magic tournaments by using the combined resources of the team and attending all possible major tournaments as a professional team.

Values

Integrity: Of the individual and the team. We value honesty and trust in the way we treat one another and in the way we meet our commitments and compete in all tournaments.

Quality: Of our play and deck designs. We pursue our team vision and carry out our mission with a commitment to excellence in both how we play and how we comport ourselves when not playing.

Innovation: In our team’s efforts. We value team creativity in accomplishing our tournament goals and support an open playtesting environment to find the very best decks and playstyles to fit our team.

Okay. You have the  paperwork stuff done. Go to your local Kinko’s or other copy shop, make sure they use a good clean copy machine, and spend around $15 getting the above two or three pages printed on that nice gray bond paper stock. You’re going to be mailing these items, so be prepared to buy some manilla envelops as well (for those who have never worked in an office, you need the large paper-sized ones so you don’t have to fold up your resumes when you mail them. They are only around $3.00/dozen, so don’t worry about cost yet).

Time to go shopping. . .

No one likes to be a salesman and having to actually sell your team to a prospective sponsor can be difficult to the point of being painful. Sure, rejection is hard, but you don’t really stop looking for a job after one company turns you down, you don’t stop applying to schools after one rejects you, and you don’t stop looking for a sponsor after they tell you they aren’t interested at this point of time. Take your sponsorship package, including team resume, etc. and start with the major corporations who you think would benefit the most from having their products on the back of your shirt.

I have included a sample cover letter at the bottom of this page.

Since Yahoo and MCI already sponsor the Pro Tour, try campaigning with other corporate sponsors such as Ultra Pro, Sprint, AT&T, and every single full page advertiser in the Duelist Magazine. You need only to do a short cover letter detailing a request for sponsorship and mail it to the organizations (I recommend you find their addresses on the web or by simply calling their corporate offices. Address the envelope: Attention: Promotion Department. That’s general enough to eventually get to the correct hands of the corporation’s promotion department or marketing department). After you’ve sent out a flurry of letters to the advertisers in the Duelist or Scrye magazines, then canvas your local area. Although their sponsorship will probably be much less than you’d earn from the big corporation, you should not overlook these resources. How about your local store? Your local distributor? Have a large corporation in your city that usually sponsors the local baseball team? Try them.

The point of all these mailings is to get your name out there until you find the perfect fit of sponsor to team. Even if you are turned down by the large corporations, at least your efforts have put you in their sight. They may not want to sponsor you at this time; however, as the sport of Magic continues to grow in the next few years, it is conceivable that those organizations will decide they want to be a presence at the Pro Tours - and your team will very probably be the first they consider if that happens. The point is not to give up. For example, with one local heavy metal group, I sent out demo tapes to every major record label for a year straight. During that year, the group started to obtain a following of fans and, as it would turn out, one of the record labels made a strategic decision to enter the heavy metal market after Guns and Roses and then Pearl Jam made it big. That heavy metal group was was the first to be considered and got the record deal simply from their persistence and due to chance.

As your team does well and earns respect in the Magic-playing community, you may be approached by promotion groups or agents. They will offer you a sponsorship and, in return, take a percentage of your sponsorship award. I would be extremely wary of anyone who doesn’t offer you a sponsor up front. If they come with a ready-to-go sponsor, you will probably leap at the chance; however, consider the whole deal carefully - you may not need that promoter and will end up having given quite a large amount of money to them for nothing. I personally try to avoid promoters since they tend to be "ambulance chaser" types capitalizing on opportunity and laziness.

Summary

How can you increase the odds of a sponsor choosing you over another group of players? I’ll recap here:

1) Form a sound team of dedicated and honest individuals who work well together

2) Advertise for a logo. Make shirts/stationary for promotional purposes

3) Spend an evening creating a Team Resume and Team Strategic Plan

4) Bundle the package together and send to prospective sponsors - both local and national. Don’t give up!

5) Win many Magic tournaments and appear at major events as a unified and focused team.

6) Play honestly and be open with the Magic community - help with deckbuilding, etc.