Summary

Athletes in minority sports often have a second job to earn enough income to support their sports career. This is mainly due to the lack of sponsors involved in these sports. Athletes that want to live from minority sports need to create a strong personal brand to attract sponsors. To find out how, this research asks the question; which aspects are most important for an athlete in kite/wakeboarding to grow their personal brand? After which, these aspects will be tested to see if they can be supported by a sponsor (in this case NAG). To find out the most relevant aspects, a wide range of literature is reviewed. Topics like: growing a personal brand, life after a sports career, and sponsorship from both an athlete’s perspective as well as the brand’s perspective. There is limited research in the field of kite/wakeboarding therefore research from other minority sports is used as a reference. From this literature a set of targeted aspects was found and divined as; loyalty, passion, exposure, sociability, entrepreneurial, and opportunity. The questionnaire included 16 professional kiteboarders and 6 professional wakeboarders. Questions are aimed to find out the relative weight of each aspect to determine the most important ones. The questionnaire is followed by a semi-structured interview with Annabel van Westerop a professional kiteboarder, aimed to validate the results of the questionnaire. The results showed that kiteboarders prioritise the aspects: passion, loyalty, and exposure. Whereas the wakeboarders showed that: passion, opportunity, and loyalty where the most important. The interview with Annabel did not only confirm these results but also showed that the aspects are related to each other.