Wing Lam on getting sponsored by Wahoo's FIsh Taco

Sponsors will do thorough homework on athletes before making any commitments. Wing Lam explains that after meeting an athlete, he calls team managers, judges, and announcers to get the real story. He says: 'I'm going to call your team managers, I'm going to get the lowdown on you, whether you do what you say you think you do or not. Do not BS me, because I'm going to call you out.' He emphasizes that after 30 years in the industry, he knows almost every team manager and has extensive resources to verify an athlete's claims about their standing within teams and competitions.

Photo incentive is a contract provision where athletes receive additional payment when their sponsors' logos appear in editorial content, advertisements, or media coverage. Wing explains that athletes can earn anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per appearance depending on their contract. The key is ensuring logos are visible on shirts, hats, boards, and equipment. Wing would run full-page ads featuring athletes with all their sponsor logos visible, which allowed the athletes to collect photo incentive bonuses from each sponsor whose logo appeared - essentially 'newfound money for doing nothing.'