Apparently, you have to wear your ballcap sideways to lure a sponsor. But I’ve written the folks at hookit.com to see if there’s a market for underwriting masters tracksters. Here’s a detailed history of this San Diego-based outfit, which used to be called SponsorHouse or Loop’d. With youngsters sharing a major share of the market, there has to be a small slice for older adults to feast on. If you affiliate with this outfit, lemme know how it goes.

Here's a blank profile I created for myself. All I have to do now is set a few world records and corporate sponsors will come banging at my door!

Four years ago, The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote about this operation:

For sports such as motocross, BMX or mountain biking, sponsors rely on contest standings more than anything. Scott Tilton of Carlsbad knows that firsthand. When he was growing up on the East Coast, racing motocross, he sent endless resumes to companies looking for sponsorship. The Internet was not around and it was difficult to find sponsors.

“You would only hear back from 10 or 15 percent of the companies,” he said. The rest would not respond. He set out to change that when he started Sponsorhouse.com with his buddy RJ Krause. The Oceanside company provides a venue for sponsors and amateurs to meet, by creating an online site where athletes build profiles and sponsors do the same, to help them develop relationships.

Sponsorhouse is in its fifth year of business, and 50,000 athletes and 400 companies have signed on to offer and vie for discounted gear and free product, eliminating the stack of resumes and paperwork of the past.

In January 2008, the U-T added this:

Getting into the loop | Smaller social networking sites use niche markets to compete

Bigger doesn’t always mean better. At least that’s what Scott Tilton, president and chief executive of Loop’d Network, thinks when it comes to social networking sites. Loop’d, a Sorrento Valley startup with 24 employees, is aiming to be the MySpace of the action-sports world. Sure, MySpace and Facebook have tens of millions of subscribers, Tilton acknowledged.

But he said small, targeted social network sites such as Loop’d are the wave of the future as advertisers look for ways to reach niche markets.

“Everything is changing,” Tilton said of the Web landscape. No doubt advertisers are enamored with MySpace and Facebook. According to eMarketer, which tracks online media, companies will spend $1.6 billion this year — a 69 percent increase over 2007 — to advertise on social networking sites.

Although the bulk of those ad dollars will go to the social networking behemoths, smaller sites such as Loop’d (loopd.com) are seeing their share of the market increase. In 2007, 8.2 percent of social networking advertising was on niche sites, up from 7 percent in 2006. That number is expected to grow to 10 percent in 2008, said eMarketer.

Targeted social networking sites are popping up all over the Web, covering such topics as divorce, pets and shopping. Carmel Valley resident Yana Berlin has started a site called fabulously40.com, catering to women older than 40.

“When I go to MySpace or Facebook, it’s about everything,” Berlin said. “I get lost.” Her site, which is in beta testing, will cater to a demographic she calls a “marketing heaven,” because many older women have time and money to burn. Tom Nelms, vice president of business development for Loop’d Network, said the appeal of Loop’d is also about the demographic it attracts, namely the often tough-to-reach youth market.

“These key brands are learning they have to go where the kids are, and that’s social networking sites,” Nelms said.

Loop’d has 240,000 subscribers, a pittance compared with Facebook’s 59 million subscribers and MySpace’s 110 million.

Still, Tilton said the site has grown by more than 20 percent since it officially launched in November and has been able to lure advertising from some of the biggest brands in action sports, including Oakley, retailer PacSun and Monster Energy drink.

Patrick McIlvain, global sports marketing director for Oakley, said the promotion it’s running on the Loop’d Network is one way for the company to tap into the grass roots of the action-sports market. With the help of Loop’d, Oakley is inviting amateurs to submit videos of themselves doing their best tricks in six different action sports, including skateboarding, snowboarding and motocross.

In the past month, about 1,500 users have submitted videos of themselves that have been judged by other users and Oakley employees as a way to reward emerging talent and foster good will among action-sports enthusiasts. “We’re not trying to attract everyone. We are trying to attract the most passionate about the sport,” McIlvain said.

“If you want to be an authentic brand in those core sports, you have to give back.” Tilton said these types of marketing efforts work better on niche sites and help avoid some of the problems that have plagued advertising efforts on larger sites. In November, for instance, Facebook launched its Beacon program, which alerted users’ online friends to their Web purchases as a way to virally promote those products.

After privacy concerns caused a public outcry, Facebook apologized and made it easier to opt out of the service. Tilton, 31, said the key is to make the promotions voluntary and part of the overall experience. “We want it to be purpose-driven and not cheesy,” he said. Loop’d Network is the expansion of Tilton and co-founder RJ Kraus’ original business called Sponsorhouse.com, which was designed to match athletes with sponsorships.

The two former motocross enthusiasts came up with the idea in 2001 when they realized how difficult it was for budding athletes to connect with potential sponsors. To promote the Web site, the two friends took all their savings and a logo-laden RV across the country to various sporting events. They ended up in San Diego because of the many action-sports companies in the region.

Building on the Sponsorhouse.com foundation has been the key to attracting new users and advertisers to Loop’d, said Kraus, 30, because the company had an established reputation.

“Sponsorhouse is where we started, and it really attracts the competitive athlete, and it really attracts the fans,” he said. Tilton and Kraus hope the combined companies’ reputation will help them fend off competition from other small sites, action-sports companies and larger sites that may try to segment their users around different interests.

Loop’d has ambitious growth plans, but so far it has relied on angel investing to fund its expansion. Although there is plenty of potential competition, building a niche social networking site is easier said than done, Nelms said. Kraus pointed to Freestyle, an action-sports company that makes watches, which tried to run a sponsorship contest on its own site but couldn’t get enough video submissions, only about 50 a month.

Since Freestyle moved that promotion onto the Loop’d Network on Nov. 29, it has attracted more than 500 submissions. “By trying to do that on their own site, they were an island,” Kraus said.

So when did Loop’d become Hookit.com? The site’s official answer:

Q: If Loop’d wasn’t Loop’d, what would it be? …
A: Hookit.com

Check out the new name and the updated look – http://www.hookit.com

Why the change? We had to. After getting involved in an expensive and time-consuming trademark dispute over Loop’d, we agreed to settle and change our name.

Why Hookit.com? Our members picked it through a series of polls, interviews and surveys. Plus, we think it does a much better job of describing what the network is all about – A place to hook up with friends, brands and deals all around your sports.

Is the network the same? Don’t worry the only thing changing is our name and a slightly updated look, so you won’t have to do anything differently and all your stuff is waiting for you right were you left it.

What happened to Loop’d and SponsorHouse? No more SponsorHouse, Loop’d or the Loop’d Network powered by SponsorHouse…Just Hookit.com. So bookmark it, add it to your favorites and tell your friends.

Have more questions? What do you think of the new name? Grab a logo to update your other social network profiles? Here’s the section for everything you need:Hookit.com Support Page

We are really excited to finally be launching Hookit.com and more importantly to move on to creating new services and features again for our members and brands.

Thanks again for your support and patience!