Do yoyoers get paid?

I am a yoyoer myself i am not a newbie haha but my question is like do players that for example come in the top 5 at the world yoyo contest or 1st at regional do they get paid and if yes how much approximately as an estimation

I believe sponsors players simply get free supplies.

As for winning comps. You get the prize… So in a way. :slight_smile:

They would get paid if they won worlds but not by the company. I have no idea if the company you get sponsored by pays you to place high in contests.

It would make sense though, because if people know you are in that company and that you use, let’s say Duncan’s, yoyos, that means that more people can hear about the company. Basically a promotion.

There was just an article on yoyoskills about this, & it should help clear up some misnomers and notions that pro yoyoers a make living (for the most part) doing this.

This article will give you some tips and tricks for possibly using yoyoing to make some side money though.

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Yoyoers would get max around $500 cash from winning contests a year, plus supplies from their sponsor.

Mainly just free stuff from sponsors, an dyou get eome prize for winning contests, I think you get $500 for winning worlds. You cant really makr a living though. Only a special few can makr aliving out of yoyo,

Yes, and most of the time, the cash prize is not even enough to cover the costs of getting to the event. If you’re looking to make a good living, I think being a “professional” yoyoer is the wrong career. Most of those guys just do it for fun.

It reeeeeeally varies from sponsorship to sponsorship. Some companies pay based on contest placings, some offer royalties from signature yoyo’s, some pay for video output. Most help out with travel and/or lodging at contests (and if a player is a competitor/judge that can lead to more opportunity to earn $). You might think that the largest companies offer the most, but as they often have bigger teams so that isn’t always the case. If you’re an experienced performer, you actually can do really well from all sorts of gigs. (Once i got $500 for 2 hours of yoyoing as a “stunt double” for a short film!) However you can pretty much count the players who get lucrative gigs on the regular on your two hands (maybe a few toes). In general it’s usually safe to say that a player who doesn’t actively seek out independent performance opportunities cannot be fully funded solely by a manufacturer’s sponsorship. At least not yet.

Short answer: yeah, some do. But few get paid a lot from sponsorships. Performance is another story, but even there, nobody yoyo’s to get rich. :wink:

How CLYW works:

For players who get signature models they get royalties per yoyo sold.

For players that are working hard and are placing well may also get travel expenses to contests, etc …

Some players also go above and beyond and do tutorials/promo vids and they get compensated for their efforts.

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Well we have our awnser from clyw I bet some companies work the same way

Well, from what I’ve heard, Patrick Borgerding got paid a staggering $75 for his 2nd place win in 3a this year at Worlds. Yep. He’s making it rain.

Yoyoers are rich and famou$$$

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Get money. Get paid.

“So You want to Make Money Yo-yoing” [YoyoSkills]

CASH?!?!?!

:slight_smile:

actually it was probably a check, haha. #yolofactory

This sounds more than fair to me. A royalty for the signature gives players some incentive to help create a nice yo-yo to begin with, and help market that yo-yo. Those who put the work in and earn traveling expenses get to see some places in the world they may not have gone otherwise…all just to go yo-yo. Those who do tutorials and promotional videos being compensated extra, sounds like any other job, where you get paid for your efforts.

The main income in yo-yoing for those who are great at it, seems to be the acknowledgement of being at the top of your craft. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Those who want to take it further can do what Andre Boulay has done and think “business.” JD, Hiroyuki Suzuki and many others have chosen to take it that next step and turn yo-yoing and yo-yo expertise and knowledge into something lucrative. I’m not saying that everyone is cut out for that, and probably most are not, but the possibilities are there if you want it.

YoyoFactory was started by…players. So, in the end, I think yo-yoing in and of itself may not be too lucrative, but yo-yo as a business can work very well. I think that all starts best by being a player first. Yoyoing helps you acquire more knowledge if you want to take it that next step.

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By simply being sponsored, no.
But some yoyoers are more than sponsored, they actually work for the company doing demonstrations, marketing, tours and whatnot, they help assemble they yoyos and are more employees than sponsored players. There are a lot of sponsored players that have a job on YYF, Duncan and OD.

there is work out there for those good at performance.
I’ve had quite a few gigs over the last couple of years but only one of those was LED yoyoing/poi walkabout the rest was fire spinning.

the most yoyo related job I’ve had was working on the firetoys festival stall for a couple of festivals over this summer. but again that’s only possible because I can demo & teach poi, staff, contact ball, juggling, Diabolo and yoyos.

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