Editing Sponsored (section)

==Notable Examples==
*Dryad Project 3<ref name="Exhibit A">“I haven’t fought alongside them.  That’s part of it.  The other part is that  Recycler and Retouch are from Dryad Project 3. [...] sponsored, not corporate, so they had someone paying the bills and all they had to do was hero.  And they were pretty good at that.  The sponsors?   They started it off on the entire wrong foot.  Way too much promotion and way too much money pushed into a team with self-imposed mission of saving the planet.”<br><br>“Not a bad mission, considering how we ended up.”<br><br>“That’s the issue.  It wasn’t saving the planet from Endbringers or other threats.  It was saving us from ourselves.  Pollution, deforestation, ecology all things that have their validity… on [[Earth Aleph]].  People didn’t buy it.  And if people aren’t buying, how do the sponsors get the money they invested back? [...] Hired a bunch of bright, genuinely cool heroes, diverse, all good, but few of those heroes cared about the mission before they joined the team, some didn’t care after, and the ones who were really gung-ho got sidelined-”<br>[...] “The lack of care from sponsors and the hired-on heroes seemed pretty obvious to most.  Then the team got on the wrong side of the Youth Guard, broke or toed the line of just about every damn rule in the book when it came to costumes, school, friendships, throwing kids into violent situations… Two pairs of parents were saying they hadn’t seen their kid in weeks.”<br><br>“That was the part I heard about.”<br><br>I smiled.  “Yeah.  And the shitty thing is they had some good heroes.  Recycler and Retouch weren’t hip in a way that worked for Dryad Project Three, but they’re strong, they’re pretty capable with potential to place themselves in the public eye, and they’re earnest, which is really important.”<br>[...]<br>“What happened in the end?  Gold Morning?”<br><br>I shook my head.  “Two members of the other serious or semi-serious members joined a villain eco-terrorist group.  The team was barely staying afloat with money from sponsors, after a hundred fines from Youth Guard, court cases, more promotion and marketing, and then a reporter dropped an expose.  The sponsor wasn’t a saint in the eco thing, with cover-ups.  The heroes were a distraction.”<br><br>“Everything that could go wrong went wrong,” Anelace said. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2018/12/04 Excerpt] from [[Polarize 10.12]]</ref>
*[[New Wave]]<ref name="Exhibit B">I spent most of my childhood watching my mom balance the books, I did the events, the photoshoots, the merchandising as a PRT-acknowledged team. [...] I think I have your PRT trading card from that time period in a binder in my office.” [...] “Which one?  I had one that was holographic, which you could swipe through the controller for the video game to have me as a polygon-rendered helper, and the higher quality one that had the bio on the back.” - [https://www.parahumans.net/2017/12/09 Excerpt] from [[Flare 2.1]]</ref> (mainly self-funded)
*[[Haven]]
*Goldenrod<ref name=WDH2>'''History:'''<br>Unicorn is the fourth individual to take the name, receiving permission from the retired Unicorn III.  She maintained a successful career on sponsored hero team Goldenrod, receiving multiple sponsorships and catapulting to #23 in the American cape popularity rankings, #6 in an early 2010 Parahumans Online vote for non-PRT capes, leading to her suggestion that she might start her own sponsored team of capes.<br><br>In late 2011, Unicorn IV was investigated in relation to a string of disappearances.  The investigation prompted others to speak out, raising issues and questions about her behavior, including apparent threats directed at Unicorn III (and Rosenthal’s summary loss of the Unicorn moniker).  Within days of renaming herself Monokeros, she was accused of involvement in the kidnapping, torture and murder of nine celebrities aged 8-15 as well as an unknown number of heroines seeking to join her new team, which never existed as more than theory or bait.  She killed three capes who attempted her capture, was caught, and was sentenced to the Birdcage. - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Mj6LykIKPlkaMg3uDbjBKHEkBJVNvX8bH7RRp-IFes/edit#heading=h.av8dz55g63ow WD Helena]</ref>
**Potential spin-off headed up by [[Unicorn IV]]<ref name=WDH2/> (cancelled)
*[[The Irregulars]] (arguably)
*[[The Suits]] <!--Close enough for now may be removed later on review of the numberman interlude-->
*[[The King's Men]] <!--Close enough for now may be removed later on review of the numberman interlude-->
*[[Ossuary]], being [[Wikipedia:Direct Action|direct action]] activists, are likely to be outside sponsored.
*[[The Undersiders]]{{Ref|name=under}}<ref>Hounds (Sponsored Villains) are perhaps the best equipped to get things done and make things happen for the greater power that is sponsoring them.  Having to set up to get an enterprise off the ground is a drawback to being a villain, but getting a head start is an advantage of being sponsored.  The ‘hounds’ can pull together just the right team to better execute jobs, but with expectations now attached.  Professionalism is the name of the game, as sloppiness suggests increased attention from authorities, which suggests the sponsor’s investment may fall through.  May take the form of privateers, the illicit arm of a company, or one cell of a national or international group of organized crime.  An interesting take is the ‘Blacklist’ - the faceless masses of the internet that rank and support capes of questionable character. - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KXE2E9op3r0hYlzVXfVhRFNdQ-BLDCp1jnctMyKkPmk Dispositions Guide]</ref>
*[[Bambina]]<ref name="R1.1">Bambina is an example of an itinerant: she hits other cities to make a splash, she shows off, and she tries to grab ratings and rankings on top villain lists that she can then leverage into back-alley sponsorship deals and merchandising. Between her episodes, she returns to LA, lives a life of luxury, and gets spends good money on training and counseling in (villain) branding and kicking ass. - [https://redd.it/50g7x6 Los Angeles Friend-or-Foe] ([[Wildbow]], Reddit.com, 2016-08-31)</ref> - [[Ranking site]]
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