If an amateur athlete wants to receive money sponsorship from a company: 1. Can he do this as a sole proprietor? 2. If yes to 1, can he claim sport equipment as expenses?

The primary purposes of the questions are to determine: 1. if an amateur athlete can be a sole proprietor since sponsorship (in exchange for promotion of the sponsor) is income (note that he is not a professional athlete); 2. if this is a business, then is sports equipment (which are necessary expenses in order to run the business) expenses that can be claimed for tax purposes.

Note that this question comes from the athlete looking to: 1. avoid the option of having a trust account; 2. decrease taxable income via business expenses.

An answer other than "speak with an accountant" is what I'm looking for.  The whole purpose of posting my question here was to avoid having to find and speak with an accountant.