Sponsor question

Just a question that came up while chewing the fat with a couple buds.  

So suppose that you have a (fill in your own sport here) and you lucked into a sponsor of sorts.  After a short while doing your sport you decide to get out of your chosen sport.  Do you owe anything back to the sponsor?

I do not have a sponsor for anything but the question came up.

I don't think that's enough info.

Are you just talking about ending an ongoing arrangement at some obvious point (e.g. end of season) and just not doing it again next season?

Or a situation where there was an expectation of, for example, a season's worth of participation, and for some reason it's being cut well short.

In many cases, hopefully there's an expectation set about what the sponsor should expect for their support. I would think it would be bad to get a check for a season's races and a couple of promo appearances and just bail two races into a season, speaking automotive/hypothetically.

It would depend on the sponsorship deal and how it was written.

With the one big cash paying sponsor I had experience with our deal was for a certain number of races, and had we not run in them all we would not have been paid the full amount. They paid an installment every few weeks so if we had missed in it would have been deducted from the next payment.

In reply to Wally :  I think Wally answered our question.

In reply to all.  Suppose you get a sponsorship and after an event or two, end the season early and drop out.  You do not complete a season.  

I did not know if they give a check - big or small - at the start of the season or do they make installment payments.  So if you competed part of the  season - do you give it back for not completing the expected season?

In reply to 68TR250 :

That should really be sorted out in the agreement. Both what the expected total participation is, and what would happen if participation is less than that. Sounds like if we take Wally's example but make it a lump sum, then yes, they would have given it back, as they clearly defined a path by which reduced participation was deducted from the sponsorship. But they decided that up front.

By definition, there are no rules for the case that there are no rules.

I can easily imagine a racer saying "well, we did 40% of the season, but used the support to buy an improvement which cost 100% of the support up front. The part didn't cost any less." I can also imagine a sponsor saying that they expected a season and expect, if it was paid up front, either a prorated refund, or in some cases "Hey, you were going to do a season and didn't do what you said. I want it all back."

I don't think I agree with either of those stances, but I just don't see any way around the two parties having to hash it out themselves if they didn't agree up front.

In reply to Ransom :

Our agreement spelled everything out. We were paid x amount per race. If we didn’t show we were out that money, if we showed but didn’t qualify we were out part of the money, and if we finished well there were bonuses. Lawyers are good at making sure every possibility is covered so there’s little doubt how a situation will go.