The Importance of Community Sponsorships aka Fundraisers

The burden associated with finding money to train and develop is lessened by sponsorship financing, which enables athletes to concentrate more on the growth of their careers. Without sponsorships (or some external source of funds like family), some sports are impossible for many to participate in with the high costs of participation due to equipment, memberships, and travel expenses.

Additionally, sponsorship is now acknowledged as a powerful marketing tool that may increase brand affinity, raise consumer awareness, increase traffic, advertise new goods and services, and connect with target audiences on a more personal and meaningful basis. There are many benefits of sponsoring athletes.

Sports programs are expensive. If you're an athlete or a coach you're probably familiar with the fact that expenses can quickly mount between the cost of traveling to competitions and the price of uniforms and equipment.

Athletes typically seek brand sponsorship to support their careers, but if this isn't an option or is unsuccessful, many also turn to community sponsorship.

Fundraisers, in which our community or the public donates money to support athletes, are one type of community sponsorship. Little to no benefit is provided to the community by these sponsorships other than some item or good that is a token of the exchange like candy or a raffle ticket.

When money is a little tight, fundraising is frequently needed, and occasionally athletes will arrange a local crowdfunding scheme to support their profession. The popularity of online crowdfunding has made it possible for people to fundraise for athletes and other causes and for athletes to fund their dreams.

We don't honestly pay attention to the daily challenges that many athletes face globally. Many frequently lack the tools needed to succeed in their chosen fields.

To raise money for their sports, athletes organize events like car washes, candy sales, raffles, t-shirt sales, junk drives, hire teams, virtual yard sales, peer-to-peer fundraising and even panhandling!

Athletes and sports teams frequently turn to money raised within their own communities to pay for everything from equipment to tournaments. However, some of the items used for fundraising do not have long-term value, do not retain their value, and cannot be resold.

As a way of assisting athletes with this community sponsorship, JRZY developed trading cards as a form of community sponsorship to give athletes a tangible token of exchange they can use to earn money from their community. But unlike other forms of community sponsorship, such as crowdfunding and straightforward donations, which have limited worth over time, JRZY digital cards have the potential to increase in value (monetary and sentimental) over time and can be used as collectibles.

These digital cards will evolve with the athletes, increasing in value as the athletes progress up the professional sports ladder. Because of that, these trading cards will have the capacity to retain and increase in value, resell value and offer long term value that other means of fundraising do not have.

Issa Hall, Founder of JRZY, had this to say about the value of the trading cards,

"Now our community can invest in athletes for their benefit, and for a future windfall if and when these athletes go on to future success, and I'd much rather have a trading card to remember the athletes I've helped along the way over a pack of peanuts any day."

Web 3 has the potential to activate economic growth for athletes and this type of community sponsorship will benefit atheltes and change the way that we interact and engage with community fundraisers, and understand why it's so important.

In a decade, when countless strangers in a community who believed in athletes hold their trading card, we'll now remember them and understand why our decision to spend a few dollars on an athlete amounted so so much more.

It changes lives.