How to become a Sponsored Athlete at GORNATION

Brand Ambassador, Talent and Pro Athlete Explanation

Since we're a community brand and our goal is to inspire and help as many athletes as we can, we want to give something back and grow together with strong and nice sportswomen and sportsmen. We're getting messages every day through Instagram, mail and other social media channels saying "How do I get sponsored by GORNATION?", "How can I become a GORNATION athlete?" or "Where can I join Team GORNATION?". This article is here to bring clarity and a guideline for everybody asking the same questions.

2015 was the beginning of the GORNATION journey and since then we learned a lot about how to build successful and solid collaborations with athletes around the world. The most important attributes an athlete should have from our experience are:

1. A personal brand that people look up to - It is very important that you're standing for something, that people admire you and take you as an inspiration for their lives. You should have a positive attitude and should treat your followers in a respectful way. We're looking more into the relation with your followers than into the number, so you should aim for having a deep connection to your followers instead of buying 10k followers. For this cause it's also important to be at place at competitions, have a good network with other athletes and being integrated into the scene.
2. Respectful and clear communication - For the collaboration it is really important to be able to speak and write English because it simplifies the communication with our sponsorship manager. And because we love our products and brand it is important for us to show appreciation and gratitude for support from the other side. It is as important for us to respect the work of an athlete promoting on events or social media as it is important for us that the person receiving our products respects them and our collaboration terms.
3. Strong moves and an individual style - You don't have to be the best athlete worldwide to become sponsored, we don't sponsor people with the best moves, we're looking more deeply into a person BUT: If you reach people because you're doing your moves in a way nobody has ever done them before or you're setting records and impressing people with your strength, that helps! Aim to be recognizable and create your unique style.

There are different stages of sponsorships at GORNATION and we want it to make as clear and transparent to you as possible. To show this visually we're taking the changed GORNATION logo:

The pyramid starts with the GORNATION Ambassador who is an athlete who has at least one of these two attributes:

1. You have a solid social media following of at least 3000 active followers and you go to competitions and events at least 4 times a year
2. You are skilled in photography and/or videography and can deliver awesome content with GORNATION products

A GORNATION Ambassador can apply for regular free products in exchange for posts and stories on social media, content like photos and videos with GORNATION products and representing GORNATION during events and competitions. If the first two periods of three months each are spent successfully, you're offered to become a GORNATION Talent and to join Team GORNATION.

A GORNATION Talent has spent six months successfully as a GORNATION Ambassador and succeeded to deliver value. He has a deeper relation to the brand, is officially in the Team GORNATION Chat, is exclusively invited to Team GORNATION Events and gets clothing with his own name on them. He gets sent the new GORNATION collections before release and will be one of the first ones having it. A GORNATION Talent thinks long-term and doesn't just want some free clothing pieces. He is part of the brand and grows with it every day!

The GORNATION Pro Athlete is the most rare form of sponsorship. The athlete needs a bigger audience and following, needs to compete at international professional competitions and therefore has a professional level of power and skills. GORNATION Pro Athletes receive financial support to support their travel and competing lifestyle, in addition to exclusive clothing pieces with their names, invitations to exclusive events only for Team GORNATION members. For this level of sponsorship you need to have at least 20-50k active followers on Instagram/YouTube, upload high quality posts and have a deep relation to your followers (because quantity doesn't mean quality). There are only limited spaces for Pro Athletes to guarantee the best treatment and the quality of the team spirit.

Do you want to join our movement? Do you want to grow Calisthenics and Street Workout with us? Do you meet the criteria above and want to apply for a limited sponsorship?
Then contact us at sponsor@gornation.com and we will check your application and come back to you.

Keep growing Gorilla!