As well as the competitive route, online content offers a way into a sports career for people who are looking, the Mid West’s recently crowned senior sportsperson of the year says.
Jaeger Stone said he met up with Ben Severne, the founder of his sail sponsor Severne Sails, in Perth and has known the company for a long time since he was identified as a young talent.
The internationally ranked windsurfer said brands were interested in someone who was a “potential future world champion,” but were also interested in unique projects.
While high-profile concepts like the Red Bull Storm Chase attract attention, many athletes create their own content and use it to approach potential sponsors.
A content creation formula could also work for young people in places like Geraldton, he said.
Sponsors want exposure from their sportspeople as a way of providing them with value, and that can come in different ways.
“They want you to be in the windsurfing news, on the internet, on social media,” Stone said.
Homegrown sportspeople can achieve with content like the WA-based Youngbloods spearfishing YouTube series, created by former electrician Brodie Moss.
The key is to show content that’s “unique, interesting and (the creator is) being consistent,” Stone said.
Hawaii-born Jamie O’Brien, one of the world’s top surfers and a Pipeline specialist, famously burned the Association of Surfing Professionals rulebook and left the pro circuit to concentrate on freesurfing and content creation at a young age.
The star of the Who Is JOB YouTube series, who travels six to seven months of the year, has used a giant gas-powered catapult, set himself on fire while surfing a barrel at Teahupoo in Tahiti, and filmed his co-star trying to surf down a giant sewer drain in Hawaii.
With professional earnings limited, many bodyboarders rely on content creation, including World Champion Ben Player, who recently filmed himself tackling a reef in Scotland in full motocross armour and helmet.
Stone produces content locally and overseas and won this year’s Storm Chase in Northern Ireland.
Australians Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones, both in their mid-50s, produced the Storm Surfers series of tow-in surf movies after leaving the competitive scene.
In Storm Surfers 3D, the former tour competitors surfed the Turtledove reef break about 75km off Geraldton on the edge of the continental shelf with WA surfers.
Clarke-Jones also produces content at the big-wave break of Nazare in Portugal and other breaks.
Stone said he hoped to be back windsurfing in early January after an injury at Hell’s Gate.
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Jaeger Stone was named The Geraldton Guardian-Mid West Sports Federation senior sports star of the year last Friday. He was awarded a cash prize of $5000 from Crothers Construction.
Young football star Jed Hagan was the Karara Mining junior sports star of the year, while the Geraldton Buccaneers were judged the Geraldton Greenough Financial Services team of the year.
The Buccaneers were winners of the 2019 State Basketball League championship.
Their off field leader, Dayle Joseph, was named the Sportfirst coach of the year.
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