Any club can submit a request for Sanctioning by providing specific required items to the AVP (or EVP, one of those VPs). TLCA bases the decision on projected income and more importantly, value to TLCA members and any follow up items from prior years (did they pay 10% of proceeds and provide a final budget).
Sanctioning basically means the event can get insurance and ad space in trails, truthfully a very good service for the small 10%. Some events have tried to go on their own and usually come back once they see insurance costs and more importantly, miss the TT ad.
There are various levels of TLCA sponsorship: Hosted, Sanctioned, Open, Rally, Limited and Restricted.
TLCA has supported these events with merchandise. We usually created a Package depending on event sponsorship type, and tried to stay consistent. For instance, Sanctioned might recieve 120. in merch. Open and rally around 60, and any event at all who simply wanted to highlight TLCA would receive at least two T shirts just for asking.
This is all history now (or at least will be taking a new approach) now that TLCA does not officially do merchandise any more. The new process basically has TLCA making 10% on any item than ANC sells with our logo on it. I do not know how freebie items will work.
Hope that helps!