Bad Sponsorship

Next Sunday we start our Fall softball campaign. We've changed leagues and will be playing at a different park. As such, we're going to be changing sponsor bars. The team captain has decided - for who knows what reason - that we're going to have Trinity on Halsted sponsor us. The sponsorship?

Well, there isn't really one. They're going to give us T-Shirts, free advertising for them, but not give us any money. What we're supposed to do is have a "party" at Trinity. We can charge any amount we want for a couple hours of open bar (draft beer). The bar takes a $10 cut and we keep the rest.

Typically, a bar gives us a couple hundred bucks as sponsorship. In exchange for that money we agree to come into the bar and spend (more) money there. Our team doesn't use sponsorship money to pay league fees. Those are paid by the team members. We do it that way to weed out those that aren't really committed to playing. The sponsorship money is used to reduce our bar tabs after games. With this plan we might as well ask our friends to stop by and buy us a drink after the game.

I don't like it. I'm going to play but I don't feel any commitment to this bar.