Rusty Malinoski of Canada competes in the men's wakeboard semifinal during the Pan American Games in Toronto on Tuesday, July 21, 2015.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
When he took to the water this week to win Pan Am gold, the man affectionately known as "Bone Crusher" was sporting a different look.
Wakeboarder Rusty Malinoski's helmet was stripped of its usual gold star advertising Rockstar energy drinks. His board, normally covered in a patchwork of logo stickers paying tribute to his sponsors – about eight in total, from MasterCraft boats to Rockwell watches – instead was decorated with a maple leaf. (The only exception was the Hyperlite name – the company that makes the boards.)
This is par for the course for most elite athletes here, who are accustomed to the advertising blackout zones at events such as the Olympics and Pan Am Games, which restrict exposure for any companies that are not Games sponsors.
But for Mr. Malinoski, whose sport is not yet in the Olympics and who is accustomed to pro tour competitions, it's unusual.
"It sucks," he said. " … I can't plug my sponsors how I wish I could here. But it's a cool experience for me to be part of this."
Mr. Malinoski is one of the lucky ones at the Pan Am Games. Few of the other elite athletes here have the profile to attract sufficient corporate sponsorships to support their training, travel and equipment costs. Not household names, many of the athletes compete in sports that get little media attention outside Olympic cycles. That makes it difficult for them to attract sponsorship dollars. When marketers parcel out those budgets on sports, they tend to concentrate on pro athletes who are bona fide stars, sometimes Olympic medalists, or on the other end of the spectrum, on local teams or leagues at the grassroots level.
But there is a whole middle tier that is often overlooked: high-performing athletes who are still not as well known. They came to these Games with varying levels of support.
None of the men's baseball players who won gold for Canada have sponsorships, according to a spokesperson for Baseball Canada. They mostly play professionally on farm teams associated with Major League Baseball franchises, so they are paid to play but do not have what it takes to attract marketers. Just one female player, Nicole Luchansky, has support from a marketer: She is part of Pan Am sponsor Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's "Team Next." The $2-million program gave grants to support athletes leading up to the Games.
Bowlers generally get by on prize money, and a handful of in-kind sponsorships from companies that donate bowling balls, for example. "A lot of pro bowlers own their own pro shops, or are connected to shops," Pan Am bowler Robin Orlikowski said. "They'll do lessons, or drill bowling balls."
In racquet sports, it's common for racquet makers to sponsor young athletes at the grassroots level by giving them free equipment, squash player Sam Cornett said. That's a relief for parents who do not have to shell out $100 or $200 every time their child breaks a racquet. Ms. Cornett has worked with Black Knight Squash and Badminton since she was 12. More recently, the in-kind sponsorship expanded and the company now gives her some financial support. Otherwise, she relies on help from friends and from "carding" – the athlete assistance program run by Sport Canada. Each national sport organization receives a certain amount of cards to allocate to athletes, worth $900 or $1,500 per month. Squash has two for women and two for men.
"The others have nothing and have to find their own way," Ms. Cornett said. "Everyone's a bit different. I'm not a household name. It's not a household sport."
Tim Macri can relate. The treasurer for Roller Sports Canada has a daughter, Kailah, who competed in one of the more obscure Pan Am sports: artistic roller skating. In the past, Kailah received support from the Petro-Canada Torch Fund, but otherwise her career has been subsidized by her parents. That includes paying for coaching and floor time, and $20,000 to $30,000 per year in travel expenses to attend competitions. A costume-maker in California charges $500 to $800 per dress, depending on how elaborate the "stoning" is.
"It's basically an unknown sport," Mr. Macri said. "Because the Games were here, people were interested. We got media attention, and that's going to help."
But it does not always help – even at the highest levels. The Dufour-Lapointe sisters were the darlings of the Sochi Olympic Games, medal-winning, perfectly bilingual freestyle skiers who cheered each other on, and also happened to be gorgeous. Perfect candidates for sponsorships, right? They saw a few come in, but far less than you might expect.
"Everyone thinks that my daughters are really rich," their mother, Johane Dufour, said in an interview with the National Post in February. "But they're not."
It wasn't until she reached the Olympics that trampolinist Rosie MacLennan received sponsorship: Springfree Trampoline provides free equipment, BioSteel Sports Supplements Inc. provides the supplement drinks she uses in training. And she is one of the athletes supported by Canadian Tire Co. Ltd.'s Olympic sponsorship program, which allows her to train without having to work a day job. She also benefits from carding.
"For a lot of athletes, it's pretty tough," she said. "Those cards are tough to come by."
She believes more companies could benefit from broadening their marketing programs to overlooked athletes.
"At the grassroots level, you can get access to some pretty incredible talent," she said.
So are sponsorships that pay. The Canadian marathon record-holder, Lanni Marchant, faced that problem while she was coming up. "You can't pay your rent in running shoes," she said.
Now that her international ranking has improved, most of her income now comes from running: about half from sponsorships and half from prize money. She partners with Asics and with the website Marathonguide.com, but she's looking for more.
That's why on Saturday, after running the 10,000-metre race at the Games, she'll do a short "shake-out" run with whoever wants to join her, ending with beers at the Molson Canadian tent at CIBC Pan Am Park.
"The idea is to celebrate with the community, and along the way there are opportunities to demonstrate her accessibility," said Brian Levine, managing director of Envision Sports & Entertainment Inc., who works with athletes on sponsorship deals. Heading into the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janiero next year, Mr. Levine says he is in talks with brands on Ms. Marchant's behalf. He believes she has promise because, unlike some other sports, participation in running is so high in Canada, and the athletes are more easily relatable to a large number of consumers.
"Pan Am is such an interesting window of time," he said. "Olympic sponsors will be looking at how athletes do at Pan Am, and at their world championship events that follow, to augment their Canadian Olympic Team partnerships with individual athlete deals through the fall and winter. So it's a really critical time."