Before we get into it: The story below is about educating brands that don't understand your property. That's a writing skill as well. If you're trying to stay visible with brands or build a pipeline, writing consistently is the fastest way there.

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Bottom Line Up Front: The Isle of Man TT generates over seven figures from commercial partners despite being objectively dangerous, selling to an island population that swells 50% for two weeks, and requiring Parliamentary approval for major activations. Video content and a consultative approach replaced traditional pitching.

Nyan Amer joined North One Television as one of three new business executives working on the Isle of Man TT's commercial operation. Six months later, everyone else was made redundant.

The World Rally Championship side of the business had been sold to Russian owners who had “cash flow problems.” The FIA took back WRC promotion rights. The entire partnership team disappeared.

Nyan was left alone to manage the commercial contracts for an event where riders die. Where 40,000 people descend on an island of 80,000 residents for two weeks. The event generates 7% of the Isle of Man's annual GDP.

No pressure.

You can’t minimise the risk when selling the TT. It's about understanding which brands align with it and which do not.

"The reality is that global brands with strong brand heritage and brand loyalty can't necessarily invest in something that can be seen to be that fatal," Nyan told me. "But at the time, I didn't really dwell on the reality. I kind of ignored it and became numb to it."

He had riders; he knew who raced. Some didn't come back. But they wouldn't have had it any other way; racing the TT was the epitome of their careers.

So how do you sell partnerships around this?

Nyan was mindful of what the TT represented. He stayed within the endemic brands of motorcycle racing and motorsport, where education wasn't necessary. Explaining a property to a brand takes a lot of work. Start with your low-hanging fruit with brands that get it.

Motul became a multi-year partner. They had a pedigree with Le Mans, understood racing, and had a motorcycle product range. They used the TT to engage up to 150 distributors from around the world, flying them in on a private jet from the TT straight to Le Mans 24 Hours because the events ran back-to-back.

Monster Energy is aligned with official merchandise. At the time, if you wanted Monster logo clothing, your options were TT merchandise or Tech 3 MotoGP. That made TT merchandise genuinely desirable with tangible memorabilia.

RST, Dunlop/Goodyear are all endemic. All understood the environment.

But endemic brands have a ceiling. You eventually run out of motorcycle tyre manufacturers willing to take title sponsorship.

Non-endemic brands presented the education problem. The TT is a two-week event. You can't casually invite prospects to "come check it out" like you would for a season-long championship.

Nyan's solution was to lean heavily into video content from North One Television's production capabilities.

"I used the TV products, used the broadcasting, used unique perspectives from working with the TV production company," he explained. "Created sizzle reels and trailers that really epitomised what the TT stood for."

The content showed the technical feat of man and machine without dwelling on the fatal aspects.

One piece focused on Dunlop/Goodyear tyre technology. How do you create a tyre that survives 37.73 miles at an average speed of 136 mph? The broadcast gave audiences technical depth while giving partners brand exposure that danced around Ofcom's branded content regulations.

"If it's newsworthy, then it stays in the broadcast," Nyan said. The key was creating content worthy of a TV broadcast that wasn't overtly promotional.

The 37.73-mile course itself presented another problem: how do riders prepare for it? Before the video game, they'd rent cars and drive the course with traffic. It took 45-60 minutes per lap in a rental car with other vehicles around.

Nyan negotiated a deal to recreate the course digitally for next-gen consoles. The logistics were absurd: 37.73 miles of data to capture accurately, and current TT riders now use the game as training. And now the TT is potentially safer because riders can practice properly.

That video game deal required approval from multiple stakeholders, including MPs. Everything major did.

Now, before we get into why Subaru's lap record almost ended the TT, it's time for the news...

In 2011, rally driver Mark Higgins and Subaru set a four-wheel lap record at the TT (37.73 miles in a production car).

Coming down Bray Hill at full speed, the suspension bottomed out. On the ascent, the car got lighter. Full lock one way. Fully lock the other. Full lock again. Fishtailing across the road with a journalist in the passenger seat who had no idea anything was wrong.

The aerial footage shows the car control required to keep it on the tarmac. Bikes come down Bray Hill at 180mph, but there's crash protection infrastructure built around two-wheel racing.

A car accident going off track would have ended the TT permanently.

When Subaru's contract came up for renewal, they had one condition: break the record again.

The Isle of Man government's response: Doubtful. Over 100 years of heritage wasn't getting jeopardised for a brand partnership.

Nyan worked with North One Television's CEO to build comfort levels around what it would take. The questions weren't "can we do this?" but "what would it take to do this safely?"

"Within the relationship I'd built with Subaru, they empowered us to work with them to get something over the line," Nyan explained. "They bent over backwards on health and safety."

Subaru brought in Nicky Grist—Colin McRae's former co-driver, someone who understood risk at a World Rally Championship level. Grist did a robust risk assessment and evaluation.

It became a three-year partnership agreement. Year after year, Subaru came back improving safety standards for the event. They moved infrastructure forward. They made the TT safer for fans.

In the third year, they set the production car lap record at 128mph across 37.73 miles. It's never been done since because it's no longer allowed.

This is what triple-win partnerships actually look like in practice:

Subaru achieved unprecedented value, a production-car lap record that can't be replicated. The event got an improved safety infrastructure funded by a commercial partner. Fans got to witness something genuinely unique while being safer than before.

"That's a win-win-win," Nyan said. "They made the TT safer as a result of the work they did."

Most partnership activations don't require Parliamentary approval. But the principle holds: if you're asking for something extraordinary from the rights holder, what are you providing beyond money?

Nyan described his sales approach as consultative. In practice, that meant putting his objectives on the back burner and becoming an extension of the brand's team.

"I pride myself on some of the relationships I was able to build because it felt like I was an extension of their teams. Everything else came secondary because it felt like we weren't doing business as two entities. We were doing business as friends."

This occasionally caused friction with his bosses because he advocated for why things should be done rather than why they shouldn't. He stood on the brand's side.

"The consultative sales process is so important. You have to understand what matters most to them. You can't do that without really tapping into their objectives, what their business thrives on, where their growth trajectory is going."

He referenced the Ironman partnership piece I wrote: the approach of identifying 80-90 potential brands in a category, narrowing to nine through data and surveys, then approaching them with a solution to a problem rather than a partnership proposal.

"That's how I believe it should be done," Nyan said. "But the reality is it fundamentally isn't, because the drive to chase the number becomes overwhelming. Unless you have the right infrastructure that allows bandwidth, you need execs, you need a team to build a pipeline within an industry, create contact lists, and do due diligence.”

The timeline matters here: a rights negotiation at the global level takes 12-18 months. That has to be a reality the business is comfortable with.

"The number of times I've been in conversations about joining a business, and they ask, 'What's your black book of contacts like? Where's the low-hanging fruit you could bring in your first three to six months?' I might shoot myself in the foot here, but that's impossible. If I go to someone I know well and pitch them something that doesn't align with what I know is completely outside their scope of interest, I'd sully my own relationship. It has to be bespoke and make sense."

By the end of Nyan's time at TT, he managed 15 partners solo because it was a two-week event. But he was clear about when that breaks:

"If you had 15 commercial partners doing an F1 race season, you'd have to have partnership managers and a siloed team working on new business generation. Guaranteed."

He outlined the minimum team structure:

New Business Team:

The exec builds the list of 80-90 brands in a category. The manager does outreach. The director closes.

"You can't generate pipeline and close deals at the same time; pipeline generation is time-consuming in itself."

Partnership Management Team: Separate from new business. Focused entirely on activating existing partners.

Supporting Infrastructure:

"Those are three different stakeholders within a business you have to work with to get a deal over the line."

The problem is that most businesses cut corners on team size while expecting the same results or groundbreaking outcomes without proper infrastructure.

"Teams are only as strong as the people working within them. It's difficult to get that blend of personalities, but having the right number of bodies in a role is pivotal."

For properties with limited resources:

Video content isn't optional when prospects can't easily visit. Content that demonstrates technical depth and newsworthy elements. Partner with your broadcast team if you have one. The Isle of Man TT game became a training tool for current riders because it accurately replicated the course. This also includes talented creative teams (writing, photo, video, graphics)

For commercial teams being asked to do both new business and partnership management:

You can do both for a short-duration event with up to 15 partners. Beyond that, the roles need separation. Pipeline generation alone is time-consuming before you even start outreach. Activation requires dedicated focus during event season.

For brands evaluating partnerships in controversial or high-risk properties:

The consultative approach works when both sides are honest about constraints. Subaru's three-year deal improved safety infrastructure while achieving its activation goal. That required Parliamentary approval and robust risk assessment, but the outcome justified the process.

The Isle of Man TT generates mid-six to seven figures across 15 partners. That's not world-changing money; you could get a multi-year deal for six figures.

But it's generated in an environment where global brands with strong heritage often can't participate because the risk is too visible, where major activations require Parliamentary approval. Where the entire commercial operation was one person for multiple years.

"I was fortunate to bring in some of their strongest commercial years in the history of the event," Nyan said. "But it was also what it did beyond revenue, creating merchandise, building that TT merchandise as a rite of passage. That transcends making money."

The TT merchandise range became desirable because Monster Energy logo clothing was scarce. The video game made the event safer. The Subaru partnership improved infrastructure.

Revenue matters. But if you're only measuring revenue, you're missing what actually makes partnerships renewable.