Sponsor

The gifts can be anything ranging from food and medicine to weapons and tools that tributes can use to increase their chances of survival.

Tributes attract sponsors by turning on the charm for Capitol citizens, whether it is during the interview with Caeser Flickerman, or through the training scores, they receive from the Gamemakers. Katniss and Peeta were highly successful in catching people’s eyes, and were, therefore, able to secure enough sponsors to survive the Games.

Sponsor Definition

Sponsors are those who send various gifts into the arena to aid in the survival of their favorite tribute in the Hunger Games. The items they send are called “sponsor gifts.” Sponsor gifts can be sent by anyone rooting for the tribute, whether it be the wealthy citizens of the Capitol or friends and family from the tributes’ district.

There are several ways to attract sponsors. Making a good impression in the Tribute Parade and on the interview with Caesar Flickerman are guaranteed ways of winning over sponsors. Further, receiving high training scores from the Gamemakers can also increase the sponsorship that a tribute receives, as well as the performance of the tribute in the arena itself.

Sponsor gifts are routed to the tribute’s mentor, and it is up to the mentor to decide when to send a gift to the tribute and whether to send it at all. Gifts are also sent district-wise, which means that mentors can choose which of their tributes to send their gifts to. For instance, Haymitch chooses to send all of the sponsor gifts that District 12 receives in the 74th Hunger Games to Katniss because he believes that she has a better chance at victory than her district partner, Peeta.

Sponsor gifts come at exorbitant prices. Most of them run into millions of dollars, and the price of each gift increases as the Hunger Games goes on.

History of Sponsorships

Sponsorship was not always a part of the Hunger Games. It was introduced in the 10th Hunger Games by Coriolanus Snow, along with the concept of gambling on the tributes. 

Dr. Volumnia Gaul enlists the students at the Academy in a project to increase viewership of the Hunger Games amongst the citizens. She is duly impressed by Coriolanus’ idea of involving the citizens in the Games through sponsorship and betting. Dr. Gaul implements the program right away, and as such, sponsor gifts were a part of the 10th Hunger Games. At that time, the gifts included a meager selection of food – bread, apples, and cheese – and water. However, as years went by, the gifts expanded to include high-tech medicines, sophisticated tools, and weapons as well.

While sponsor gifts were taken to tributes with the help of drones in the 10th Hunger Games, during Katniss’ time, they were dropped down to the tributes silently in silk parachutes.

Sponsor gifts were the only means of sustenance for tributes in the 10th Hunger Games. As such, tributes would attack and steal gifts from other tributes. Further, the drones that were used to transport the gifts were not well-developed and could therefore be blown off course or even hijacked by the tributes for their own purposes. The gifts were also not as expensive back then, and mentors could therefore supply gifts much more frequently to their tributes.

However, mentors were limited in this act by the fact that they could only send gifts to tributes when they were visible to the cameras. This changed significantly in later Games that featured superior technology, allowing mentors to send sponsors to tributes whenever and wherever they were.

Sponsor Gifts

Sponsor gifts include food, water, medicines, as well as tools, and weapons of various kinds. For instance, the gifts that Katniss receives in the arena include medicine for the burns she receives in a fire, rich lamb stew that she had previously eaten at the Capitol, broth, and sleep serum. She was also sent a loaf of crescent bread from District 11, which she guessed must have been originally meant for Rue, but was sent to her instead, out of gratitude for what she did for the District 11 tribute. This was the first instance in which a district sent a gift to a tribute from another district.

Notably, Haymitch made use of sponsor gifts to communicate non-verbally with Katniss, by providing her with gifts when she acted in a manner according to his approval, and by withholding gifts when she acted otherwise.

The gifts that Katniss received in the 75th Hunger Games were much more varied, owing to her alliance with other tributes such as Finnick, Mags, Wiress, Johanna, and Beetee. The alliance, therefore, receives a constant supply of bread rolls from District 3 which they split between themselves. The bread rolls were also a form of communication between the rebels and the tributes, to signal a breakout from the arena. The group also receives an ointment to protect their skins from poisonous fog and a spile to collect water from trees.

According to Katniss, one of the most expensive sponsor gifts to have ever been featured in the Games was a beautiful golden trident, which was sent to Finnick Odair in the 65th Hunger Games.

Coriolanus Snow was able to keep up a steady stream of sponsor gifts to his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, in the 10th Hunger Games, allowing her a better chance of survival and contributing to her victory in the end. The gifts dramatically increased after a speech Snow made on the television, after which he receives enough to keep Lucy alive for days at a time.

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