Behind the Sponsorship: What Do Brands Want? (Part 1)

with Carbs Fuel Founder and CEO, Gabe Multer

Gabe Multer is Founder and CEO of Carbs Fuel, one of the fastest growing nutrition brands in endurance sports. He was born in NorCal, but now lives in Colorado, and if you were to meet him, that just makes sense. While he grew up racing bikes, his professional background is in tech sales, at least until the start of 2024 when Carbs Fuel hit the market.

Almost as soon as Carbs Fuel hit the market, they made a stir. Their flagship product is as simple as their name: a 50g energy gel that only costs $2.

It’s simple, and it works.

Gabe and I met through a mutual friend, Cole Davis, in the autumn of 2022. At the time, Carbs Fuel was just an idea he was thinking about in his spare time. We’ve stayed in touch since ridden together in Colorado and shared a house at Unbound too.

We share an interest in athlete sponsorship. We’re on two opposite sides of the table, Gabe as the brand, and myself as the athlete. I sat down with him to talk.

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“I want to start with this, I will only ever work with an athlete that believes in the mission. What we’re doing with products and flavours will change over time. I tie the value to our why: we want to change the industry by making fuelling simple and accessible. It’s bullsh!t that nutrition has become so expensive and complicated.

My perspective is just one perspective. What I expect from an athlete is very different to what I imagine a bike, or apparel partner would want. Inherently, people expect a little less from a nutrition sponsor, and equally nutrition is comparatively inexpensive.

At Carbs Fuel, I’ve started to think about athlete partnerships as three different types of people. It changes over time, and I’m trying to better understand what type of person we’re working with and where we can leverage them.”

1. Community Leader

This person doesn’t necessarily have a massive following, nor are they the most unbelievable athlete to ever walk the face of this earth, but they’re an authentic person who is well respected in their community.

“So, somebody like you”, I ask Gabe.

Gabe is also the Founder & Director (quoting his LinkedIn!) of Holy Cow Racing, a cycling club based out of Colorado with some over a hundred riders mostly in their mid-late twenties. Yes, their kit is cow splatter. Gabe himself is a community leader, and exactly the sort of person his brand would try to work with.

Yes, exactly. You could say myself and Holy Cow. Another good example here is in Bloomington, Indiana. There are a few other athletes who love our product. They’re not big name athletes, but they’re in the local community. Our number one bike shop of the year for sales was in Bloomington. I visited there to do a race, and 50-60% of athletes were fuelling with Carbs. We had no connection, beyond a few friends and unofficial ambassadors in town, and with that, we've become the product of choice in Bloomington.

It all started because there are a couple of these community leaders - ‘micro-influencers’ if you want to use that term.

2. Marquee Athlete

This is the athlete that lends credibility to our brand. On the bigger scale, it’s working with someone like Tadej Pogačar: it’s when an athlete is so incredible that people say ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.’

There are already examples of this in the nutrition space: Keegan Swenson and NeverSecond, Eliud Kipchoge and Maurten. This year, amongst some others, we worked with Alex Wild at Carbs. Alex finished 7th overall at the Lifetime Grand Prix and made a name for himself as the man who was balancing his career while racing at the top level.

I don’t necessarily expect direct sales related to this type of relationship, it’s more of a credibility signing. Brands do not need many of these athletes either, only one or two in each sport that they’re targeting. It can be very easy to overspend the budget here.

3. Influencer

The third type of person I think about is the influencer. This is someone who’s going to help top-of-the-funnel brand awareness, someone who has a broad reach.

An influencer is providing a specific type of value, but it’s different to the other two types of athletes, so brands should work with them differently.

The problem with athlete sponsorship is that everyone thinks about how they work with an influencer and applies it to the other two athlete categories. They expect a direct ROI. They expect to measure X number of clicks, posts, or sales converted.

I think the best way to work with this type of athlete is not to force them into a specific voice or style, you have to trust them and give creative control.

This sort of agreement is where I’m looking at metrics, there’s an expected ROI.

Teams?

Gabe didn’t include team sponsorship in his three types of athlete partnership but moved onto it later.

I can struggle to work with teams because I know firsthand how much influence some people can have on the success of the sponsorship.

There's a lot of trash-talking and blaming that goes on in a team, and it's easy for a brand to get thrown under the bus. If that happens, then all of a sudden, this thing that was supposed to be valuable for you is probably a negative.

Teams send a powerful message, even at the top level you see riders not using their sponsored nutrition brands and what does that show the consumer? When I’ve been talking with teams it’s important that everyone tries the product, even though I know not everyone will love it.”

If there’s a team camp, I want to go and join them, to build a relationship and tell them about our why. I think that can make a difference as to whether a partnership works or not.

The Dream Partnership?

This is where my head and heart are different. I love bike racing, I think pro-road racing is so exciting, and I just love that world. It would be so exciting and fulfilling to work with a World Tour team, the idea of following the Tour and having this connection with people who are using something that I make. That personally, is like, wow, you know?

One day, I want to work with a World Tour team, but it has to be the right team at the right time. Who’s going to tell our story best? Who are we most aligned with? Who’s going to deliver what we want to be delivered?

Does Carbs Fuel even need athlete partnerships?

One hundred percent, we need to work with athletes. As an emerging brand, we need to get our product in people’s hands. It needs to be seen and it needs to be validated.

Working with athletes immediately led to twenty or so people across the US talking, posting, and sharing about our product. That kickstarted us as a brand, and without those athletes, I don’t think we’d be where we are today.

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Thanks very much for reading, this is part one of a two-part article that I’m writing. Normally, I don’t like to write two parters, but this was getting too long.

In the second part, coming Monday, Gabe talks about how to activate an athlete partnership, some financials, and his do’s and don’ts for athletes when talking to brands.

For athletes reading this who work in this world, I think it’s a nice task to step back and see where you would be in Gabe’s model. Personally, as a writer and kinda pro-cyclist, I guess I’m a mixture of them all.

Oh, and please do Subscribe, it’s completely free.

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This article is not paid, nor do I have any agreement with Carbs Fuel. Gabe is simply a good friend and I like what they’re doing. If you’d like to try their product, head over to The Feed.

• The Feed (US and Global)

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  Project TAG, proudly partnering (both for my athletic and influencing ability) with…

  • Pullwood Consulting

  • ENVE Composites

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  • Panaracer Tyres

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