Sportaroo launched earlier this year – an All or Nothing platform for athletes and sporting clubs.
“…we’re now on a mission to make sporting dreams come true.”
(In our market we also have TeamBus and you can scroll down to the bottom to find out some key differences between the platforms.)
Ashley Howden from Sportaroo is a former ITF-ranked tennis player, Hawthorn fanatic and serial entrepreneur in tech/media. Ash has answered some questions today for Crowdfund it! You can find out more about the sports fanatic team members Richard Briggs, Jim May, Iz, Rob White and Dom Wroblewski on their website.
Crowdfund it!: Thanks Ash for answering some questions on the Crowdfund it! site. Can you tell us about Sportaroo and your motivations for launching Australia’s first crowdfunding platform for sports teams?
Howden: As with all good stories, it begins with zombies.
OK, well at least this good story. I know it’s a long bow to draw but bear with me.
It started when a friend of mine wanted to fulfil a lifelong ambition and make his own zombie flick having been a fan of the genre for years. It’s obviously not that easy to put on a suit, shine your shoes, comb your hair in a scary way and go and ask the bank manager for $20K for your low-budget, horror gore-fest SO; instead, he ran a campaign on Indiegogo – one of the more prominent crowdfunding platforms for creative projects. I read about it after he shared the campaign on LinkedIn and thought it would be fun to help a mate and also feel involved with making a movie. So, I backed the campaign and became an executive producer of the movie. – Ta Da! Now I was in the crowdfunding eco-system and between Indiegogo and Kickstarter, I got into the flow of backing a number of creative projects both for personal interest and involvement but also, on occasion, because it would allow me to promote my business at the same time.
But, man cannot live by zombie blood alone, and, with my true passion actually being sport in all its guises, I started scratching about to find some sporting projects that I could either back to enjoy the feeling of participation with an athlete or club and/or get some decent promotional activity for my other business. The reality was that I couldn’t find anywhere that allowed me to slake that thirst. Well, we’d just have to bloody build it ourselves then.
The team got assembled in the coming days and weeks. Since then, it’s taken hundreds of conversations with people at all levels in the sporting world and about six months of iterative development. We hit the ‘GO!’ button a few weeks ago with our first campaign.
So, we’re now on a mission to make sporting dreams come true.
Too many athletes, teams and clubs are held back by funding obstacles which prevent them from actively pursuing their sporting endeavours or being as successful as they’d like. At the same time there are millions of supporters, including businesses and individuals, who would love to participate more in the life of the clubs and teams they support.
“Our vision is to become the sponsorship crowdfunding platform of choice for every sports team, large or small, of any sports code, all over the world. And, ultimately, be the largest, most vibrant online community of sports lovers who don’t just spectate, they participate.”
Crowdfund it! What can Sportaroo offer that other existing crowdfunding sites can’t?
Howden: After countless conversations with sports clubs from a wide variety of codes, it’s become clear to us that sport fundraising has some quite different challenges from creative projects. Sports teams have a unique opportunity to create win-win-win relationships between the team, the supporter and the sponsors. They will inevitably offer quite different supporter packs and communicate with supporters in quite different ways. Our site is already unlike traditional crowdfunding websites and we expect this divergence to increase rapidly in the coming months. By focusing 100 per cent on the needs of sports teams and athletes, we believe we can revolutionize sports fundraising and sponsorship.
Crowdfund it! How are you different to other platforms that focus on sporting projects?
Howden: Our difference comes from our deep understanding of the needs of athletes, sporting teams, sports marketing and sports sponsorship. This enables us to significantly increase the earning potential of our customer’s campaigns.
Crowdfund it! Launching a crowdfunding site is not a small venture. How long did it take to work on your plans and launch the site?
Howden: We spend a few months researching the market and putting the team together, then a few months building our site. We are still at a very early stage and are focused on engaging with sports teams and fans and learning about how the crowdfunding concept should be further adapted to the Sports industry.
Crowdfund it! The team are spread between Australia and the United Kingdom. Is that a challenge or advantage?
Howden: Most of us have lived in the UK and Australia at some point in time and have plenty of experience working with remote teams. We use quite a few online collaboration tools including Skype, Campfire, Sprintly and others. We are focusing on Australia right now but have already planned our rollout into other markets soon.
Crowdfund it! Can projects be posted from anywhere in the world or are you focussing on one or more markets? And can supporters pledge internationally?
Howden: Our current campaigns are with Australian sports teams but we are happy to speak with athletes and teams outside Australia as early adopters within our expansion to new territories. We already accept orders from international, as well as Australian supporters.
Crowdfund it! You’re currently running a campaign for the Icebirds to raise funds for a new bobsled for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Congratulations on meeting target with still a few days to run. Can you tell us about this campaign?
A new bobsled for the Australian Womens International Bobsleigh Team from Icebirds – Aus Womens bobsled on Vimeo.
Howden: We love the Icebirds campaign! It’s so exciting! We became aware of this team through our strategic partnership with WiSE (Women in Sport Enterprise) and were really inspired by their passion and the riveting storyline. How can it be that the Australian Women’s Bobsled Team doesn’t have a decent bobsled? We’re on a mission to fix that! We also love the supporter packs the girls are offering. They have such a diverse and interesting range of fan offers that we’ve been struggling not to snap them all up ourselves! And the sponsorship opportunities for businesses are ridiculous value for money – your brand in front of an aggregated audience of nine billion over the course of the European competition in 2013 for as little as $5,000. That’s cheap eyeballs… let alone the feel-good factor within the Australian market.
Crowdfund it! Can you tell us about the other projects that you’ve launched on Sportaroo?
Howden: We have also launched a great motor-racing campaign by Sydney Motorsport for the students of Sydney university motor racing team. These guys are really committed to their project and have some amazing supporter packages on offer, 
from very snazzy pit crew shirts to great value sponsorship opportunities. We also have a great and growing list of professional and grass roots athletes and sports teams who have agreed to run future campaigns on Sportaroo. We’re just working hand-in-hand with them planning their campaigns It’s also the way we’re closing the feedback loop in market so we learn quickly in our early days before we move to a more self-service model. A few of them are shown on our homepage labelled ‘Coming soon’.
Crowdfund it! You operate on an All or Nothing funding model. What fees do you charge successful campaigns? What are your average transaction costs?
Howden: We think the All or Nothing model is important to motivate teams to prepare thoroughly for their campaign and to keep promoting their campaign from beginning to end. Ultimately, we want to see their campaigns succeed and achieve as much as they can and it’s our view at this time that the AON model keeps that campaign quality high, which enhances their chances of success. Additionally, we bring a huge amount of sports marketing, sponsorship and digital experience to help with the preparation of each campaign. It’s clear that this hands-on campaign support increases the earning potential of each campaign by significantly more than the 10 per cent fee we charge at the end of the campaign if the campaign is successful.
Rates can vary from our payment provider, but it is likely to be less than 3 per cent of the total amount raised.
Crowdfund it! Your success fees are around double the average at ten per cent. Why did you choose that higher margin fee?
Howden: Given that crowdfunding is so new to the sports industry, we believe it is critical to give our customers plenty of expert, hands-on support. We believe that working with us, our customers earning potential will increase by a lot more than our 10 per cent fee. Given that they only pay us if the campaign is successful, why would they risk doing it any other way? Bear in mind that most agents at the professional and high-performance amateur level charge 20 per cent plus, 10 per cent is more than reasonable. And, given the specialist nature of the campaigns, supporters and sponsors that we’ll build within our community over time, a premium over a more generic funding platform, or a platform that doesn’t offer as much support or quality control, doesn’t seem out of whack to us, or any of customers to date.
Crowdfund it! Are there additional benefits to sporting teams in using crowdfunding for their projects?
Howden: Actually, we believe that although the fundraising possibilities of Sportaroo are very attractive, we believe that the engagement created by crowdfunding may prove to be even more valuable to sports teams. A Sportaroo campaign brings a team together around a common goal in a highly motivating way. It’s really fun and it also helps connect sporting teams to their local communities. It also enables them to stretch beyond their usual community and can help grow their member, sponsor and supporter base.
Crowdfund it: What is the team at Sportaroo hoping to achieve in your first year?
Howden: Our first goal is to continually refine the platform and improve the experience for campaign owners, sponsors and supporters. By the end of the year we want to have proven that Sportaroo is the best way for athletes and sports teams from a variety of disciplines and codes to generate the sponsorship $$ they need and engage with their supporters.
Crowdfund it: What do you think is the future of crowdfunding in Australia?
Howden: It’s no great surprise that we have an extremely active crowdfunding startup space in Australia. We boast three of the largest crowdsourcing platforms on the planet through the likes of Freelancer, 99Designs and DesignCrowd so we’ve been exposed at a business level to successful ‘long-tail’ models for a while and seen how they can disrupt an industry. While some segments such as equity-based crowdfunding are likely to move more slowly here in Australia due to our regulations, we expect other segments to catch on very quickly. In just the last few days we’ve been contacted by people who came across our site and were already looking for a way to raise funds for their sports team through crowdfunding. Both consumers and businesses are now quite familiar with the crowd-funding mechanic and user experience so it’s only a matter of time before funding issues in other industries are lined up for a crowd-style solution…
Crowdfund it! Thank you Ash for your time in explaining Sportaroo!
You can like Sportaroo on Facebook, follow them on Twitter or go to their website to support or enquire about launching projects.
You may also be interested in:
Teambus. They operate on a ‘Keep All’ model and 5.5 per cent fee. Discounts are available to their partner clubs and organisations.
Crowdfunding Platforms in Australia and New Zealand
Chipin not-for-profit Crowdfunding
Great to hear about this! Sports enthusiasts need this kind of platform. Good to know too that Sportaroo does not charge service fee if funding do not reach targets. Laudable!