How to sign Red Bull | Payson McElveen (Part 2)
Are you a project, or a performance athlete?
I’ve always wanted to know what goes on inside a Red Bull contract. How do they approach you? What’s the financial side like? How much free swag do you get? And, most importantly, how do they make you a better athlete on and off the bike?
Becoming a Red Bull athlete is about as cool as it gets. Not everyone understands the significance of winning Paris-Roubaix, how hard it is to make the Super Bowl, or why UTMB is the pinnacle of ultra-running. But, if you can say you’re a Red Bull athlete? Instant kudos.
I’m still figuring out how to make privateer racing (essentially freelance professional racing) work out. If there’s one guy who’s nailed it, it’s Payson McElveen. Luckily, we both spend our winters in the same town, so I invited him out for hot chocolate.
This is part two of our chat.
Joe
Who is Payson McElveen?
Payson McElveen is a 31-year-old pro-cyclist from Austin, Texas. A MTBer at heart, he now specialises in gravel and finished 3rd overall in the Life Time Grand Prix. He’s also known for his podcast ‘The Adventure Stache’ and his crazy challenges such as ‘White Rim FKT’, ‘Crossing Iceland’, and so many more. Read about his backstory in part one.
There are few things more desired in sport than a Red Bull contract. It’s not just financial gain, it’s legitimacy. That helmet wrap alone says more than a thousand words, yet, more often than not, even the athletes don’t know why they were signed.
For a brand that is so very public-facing, Red Bull has done a ridiculously good job of keeping the inner workings of their athlete partnerships private.
How to sign Red Bull
“I’ve heard through the grapevine that going to Mongolia was the first thing that put me on their radar,” Payson tells me. “I think they saw me and thought: well, this American kid has just sent it and done this race in Mongolia. That’s a little unusual; let’s keep an eye on him.”
That seems to be Red Bull’s approach. They spot someone doing something different, something cool, and then they bookmark them.
“I’m pretty sure that’s how they first heard about me, but I’ve still never had a clear answer on exactly why they signed me - and I’m sure that’s on purpose.”
What he does know is that Red Bull were looking for someone in the surging mass-participation, off-road scene in the U.S.
“People assume I’m talking about gravel, but it was before that. It was Leadville, the Epic Rides series. They wanted representation there. They also had this White Rim FKT idea that had been sitting on the shelf for ten years. And having someone in the Rocky Mountain region seemed to matter too.”
“Timing for these things, whoever the sponsor, is everything and there’s often a healthy dose of luck involved too.”
The Negotiations
The unique offering of Red Bull is that they almost operate in their own category. Take Payson’s bike deal: when that comes up for renegotiation, he could go to one of twenty other brands, but with Red Bull there’s not really any competition.
Monster Energy exists, and has a similar model with helmet sponsorship. But Monster are not Red Bull. They don’t have the same cultural weight, the same athlete ecosystem, the same - well, they’re just not Red Bull.
So, how does the negotiation start? Do slide into your Instagram DMs? Drop in via LinkedIn? Cold email?
“My earliest memory of the process was getting ice-cream with one of their guys the week before Leadville,” Payson recounts.
“Did you negotiate with them for the first contract?” I ask.
“No way man,” he laughs.
Payson’s signing story is quite simple. It seems his first contract was very easy: you offer this and I will sign it.
My internal athlete marketing geek wants to ask Payson about the contract. There’s little to no information online about what a Red Bull contract is worth to an individual athlete. Of course, being British, I do not ask him about figures, and move swiftly on.
While I don’t ask him about figures, I do ask if he’s renegotiated since.
“Yes I have, and I worked with an agent for three or four years. There were always negotiations going on. I parted ways with that agent last year. I have enough industry connections these days to have an idea of where my value is.”
Whether at Payson’s level or my own, ‘value’ is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the gravel world at the minute. People are constantly doing the ‘he-said-she-said game’. My opinion? Value is personal. Everyone offers completely different things, and comparison is a fool's game.
The Perks
Becoming a Red Bull athlete isn’t just a new helmet wrap, bigger salary, or countless free hats - it’s a status symbol.
I’m starting with the hats. I’m always taken aback by how many variations of headwear that a Red Bull athlete receives. I swear one of the stipulations in that contract is that an athlete is a hat person. Caps, hats, beanies, toques, visors, headbands…the list really does go on.
Of course, the swag is a big perk of being sponsored. You can tell a Red Bull athlete a mile off as the items they get are not for public sale. Yes, the brand sells a bucket load of merch, but none with just the logo on the front.
“It’s legendary, just crazy. Half of the time I’m just like where did they find this stuff. It’s just so fun. They gave me this crazy designer bag from their Alpha Tauri collection. There’s some super nice jackets too. I’ve got this denim jacket which is almost a little too flashy for me to pull off day to day, but it’s all just so cool.”
Away from the ‘swag’, the brand supports athletes in other ways too. Payson alluded to Red Bull financially supporting the creation of the White Rim FKT film, and then there’s his own ‘Chasin’ Payson’ event, a concept that Red Bull came to him with.
Their athlete support system is second to none, and I’m going to come back to it in another article.
The Secret Sauce
“Without a doubt, Red Bull is a big part of it all. Not just the presence of Red Bull, but the things they encourage you to do. They gently, but supportively encourage you to be a well rounded ambassador for the sport.”
“What do Red Bull encourage you to do, that you’d encourage others to follow?”, I asked.
“Find ways to impact your sport that are really new. It sounds cliché, but bring new things to the table. In 2019, we did the White Rift Fastest Known Time (FKT), and back then FKTs really weren’t a big thing in cycling.
You don’t necessarily have to be the first to do something, but if you can be the first to presents it in an exciting way, that inspires others. That’s where you create, for the lack of a better term, a brand.”
With this, Payson is inadvertently referring to what Red Bull see as ‘Performance Athlete’, and ‘Project Athlete’. In the perfect world, you sit somewhere in the middle. Results are cool, but projects? That’s what gets people talking. This is something that the guys at the Second Nature pod talk about all the time, and a topic I’ll be covering soon.
“A brand is resilient to the absent flow of results.”
Advice for the Next Generation?
Payson has mastered privateering. He’s more than just a bike racer, and looking at his core sponsors - it’s lucrative for him too.
“If I had to give advice, it would be that race results are always relevant. But, race results alone - unless you’re winning the one of three, or five that completely change things - are not enough.
You need to have ideas that get people stoked on the sport, not just recycled ideas. People lose sight of the fact that their job is not to win races, or getting views on a reel, those are just pieces of it. Our job is getting people stoked on the sport.
I also have to figure out what’s next and it’s becoming an ever crowded market. It’s not just the races that are becoming more competitive, but off bike projects aren’t getting the same headlines either.
There are more YouTube series than you can shake a stick at - not just in gravel racing - but life as a whole. How many ‘Day in the life’ videos do we see these days?”
“Results are like your PhD. The PhD itself doesn’t give a good lecture, but people show up to your lecture because you have the PhD.”
Conclusion
Payson’s one of those people who gets it. He’s not arrogant and he’s well aware that the roadies could kick our butts if they came to gravel. He understands the game - the exchange of value between sponsor and athlete. In a small way, he’s revolutionised the modern day model of pro-cycling.
Sitting down with Payson left me with more questions than answers about the whole Red Bull relationship. I want to take him out for dinner and ask what the relationship with the athlete manager is like, what they’ve done for him and how they advised him off the bike. Hell, I want to speak to one of their athlete managers myself and ask them: what would you do if you were me?
This piece might come across a little - fan-boy ish. Because, in a way, it is. Payson is seven years older than me, and very much has the game figured out. It’s the model I’m going for, and the more I can learn from someone like that, the better.
Payson’s Instagram: Here!
My Instagram: Here!
While you’re here…
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