http://www.warsow.net/?page=sponsors
I'm wondering whether there's any reason not to solicit of funds in the same manner as warsow. Do you think anyentity would sponsor QW development?

It didn't worked for Warsow, why should it work for QW? Getting third party sponsors for old game/small community is almost impossible - companies are willing to put money in to something new and profitable, with constant support from developers/publishers (like already hyped to the sky Modern Warfare 2) or with huge community (CS). Look at Quakelive - internet was crazy about it when public beta was released, now it have moderate base of players, and while playing it i've seen like what, 3 ads? And that's "new" game with big target audience (you can run it on eight year old computer) and constant support from well known developer id.

QW have small community, no dev team (people are doing some great things from time to time, but are not organised, closest thing to dev team is ezQ team), no support from original developer - id is focused on making money, not spending them on over decade old games.

So if you ask if somene would sponsor QW development:

Not going to happen.

It didn't work? They have a sponsor. And despite having a huge development team and web presence (I even saw it on TV!) it still has less players than QW. FYI in case you didn't notice qw.nu has ads on the forums and links on the homepage, but I presume these are just diverted into keeping qw.nu online and nothing more, perhaps 'sponsorship' mislead you, I wasn't talking about exclusive branding rights or something, just an upgrade from the random ads/links. Just suggesting it may be worthwhile to mimic 'warsow's' solicitude.

if that's three ads
per market locality... the ads I've seen in qlive/Australia are specific to Australia. But that's offtopic I wasn't suggesting that QW is worth blockbuster ad money. Warsow has very much more effort and staff going for it but has less players than QW

Web Ads are another thing. I was talking about kind of sponsor that put money in to development of game. Even if Warsow have sponsor, most (if not every member - can't imagine that Foopics pay them, probably they just give them web space and/or servers) of the team work for free - and most of tourneys are without prizes.

So if you meant sponsor that give web space or some servers in exchange of ads on the site - it's possible, i agree.

Maybe something to get 10 ports on wargamez would be fine

QuakeLive does have ads in some countries

But lets imagine that we would be able to find a sponsor of some sort, who should the money go to? We don't have any organisation that handles qw.
Should it go to the ezQuake devs? The QHLAN crew? EQL? Ownage? QWnu? Servers?

Regarding the ads/links on qw.nu - Maybe I should clarify what it is used for, it of course cover the cost directly linked to hosting the sites and services listed here: http://wiki.quakeworld.nu/QuakeWorld.nu

It basically pays the expenses I used to cover myself. Since 2008 the server that hosts the qw.nu network of sites and services, are being sponsored by a generous swede - That means that the actual cost of running the site is much lower than before, so the extra money have been used to support other qw projects. Like recently covering part of the cost of running the nQuake site.

Other profit have been used in the same manner.