How Sponsorship In Motorsport Works?

Whether it’s your hobby or you’re really trying to make a career out of racing, make sure you run it like a business.

This means making yourself and your team look and operate professionally from appearance to behaviour. Sitting with a CEO talking about a strategic partnership is no different than sitting for a job interview.

Image and professionalism can make or break a deal. Approaching a prospective partner with a Gmail or Yahoo email (topracer@gmail.com) is seldom going to be taken seriously.  What you need is a sleek website, Facebook page, business cards, PR and media strategy, and most importantly a business plan. Raising funds for your racing is no different than seeking finance from a bank or investor for your new business.

Most people in Motorsport know that it’s a business first and a sport next. So how much more of a business really is it?

Let us assume that when cars are being raced on the track it is known as a sport, and from the time the cars stop and are parked, then it’s a business.  We can then calculate a more precise picture of how much more Asian Motorsport is a business. There will be some people reading this who have more capacity for mathematics, but we have tried to keep this as simple as possible for the purpose of making an understandable point.

Calculating the average time race cars are on the track during 10 of the major series in Asia we have found the following:

The average amount of time that racing is a sport over an average race weekend equates to:

Free Practice x 2                                =          60 minutes

Qualifying x 1.5 (30 mins average)    =          45 minutes

Race x 2.2 (40 mins average)            =         88 minutes

                                                                      _________________

Total on-track                                                193 minutes

For the purposes of keeping the business aspect as real as possible, we will assume a 12-hour workday (8 am-8 pm). So a race weekend consists of 36 hours or 2,160 minutes. Therefore:

On an average Asian race weekend, motorsport is 8.94% Sport and 91.06% business.

During a week, motorsport is 3.83% sport and 96.17% business.

Over a whole year, based on an average of 6 race weekends (1,158 minutes), motorsport is 0.45% sport and 99.55% business.

This goes to show how important it is to run your racing as a business, look and behave professionally, with integrity, and be entrepreneurial in your strategic partnership proposals. This is important for anyone involved in the motorsport industry, or who is looking to get involved.

Motorsport really is business!

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