LESLEY MCKENNA
- Credit: Euan Baxter (euanb.com)
I was lucky enough to get sponsored pretty much as soon as I started riding by Boardwise and then soon after that by Burton UK. I had been riding for a year or so at home on Cairngorm when I had time off from being on the ski team with the Boardwise crew and they persuaded me that I should stop alpine skiing and go and race snowboarding – alpine snowboarding was still big back then – it was 1996 and the ISF tour was still in full flow!
I became more and more enthusiastic about snowboarding and the switch was natural for me as I was not enjoying the alpine ski team at that time. I then went from racing snowboards to riding pipe and boarderX and for a few years did them all. I feel lucky that I got to ride a bit of everything at ISF level and then World Cup and TTR level too. I really have seen all sides!
The best advice I could give is to get out there and really throw yourself into what you love most. If you like to ride pipe – do that, if you like to ride powder, do that. Whatever it is that makes you happy and motivates you to learn is the thing that you are most likely to get sponsored at if you decided to go down that path.
If you are motivated and enthusiastic then you will get the most out of the time you spend riding and your success will be noticed along with your fun attitude and this goes a long way.
The second bit of advice is that once you decide that you want to try and get sponsored, have a plan and be professional about what you can give back to your potential sponsor. There is no such thing as a free lunch and if you are asking for anything, be it money or equipment, then you need to give something in return either through your time or through a well thought out social media PR campaign or come up with something completely new that you think the sponsor will like and get value from.
I don’t think it is harder to be a pro rider today than 5 years ago although I do think that there are more people trying to be a pro rider so that might make it more difficult. Also it is harder to get a good money deal when you are an established rider as there is not so much money around in the industry and in general. However, the time and effort that you need to put in to make things work is still the same.
