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We've all seen them. Those advertisers flipping signs on street corners and outside of businesses to catch your eye and coax you inside.

You would never guess that many of these workers, who often spin signs to earn extra cash, are part of a burgeoning sub culture that is now on every continent, and has an annual world championship in Las Vegas.

In a world of constant, in-your-face digital advertising, it is hard to believe that a guerrilla technique like sign spinning has been taking off.

But, as AArrow Sign Spinning Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder Mike Kenny says, the influx of digital ads is why sign spinning has taken off.

"Advertising has so over saturated people that they just block it out and ignore it," said Kenny. "When they'd rive down the street they are trying hard to ignore ads being thrown at them. Sign spinning is a form of entertainment and gets their attention."

Not only is it a form of entertainment and a lucrative business, it has also grown into a competitive, extreme sport in justa few years. There are regional competitions leading up to the big finale--The World Sign Spinning Championship. Now in it's seventh year, the two-day event features competitors from over 10 countries who have about one minute to show off highly choreographed routines, often planned months in advance.

Kenny said he never imagined sign spinning would get this big, or have such a reach.

"We are in 30 different U.S. cities and on every continent. We have spinners in France competing against spinners in South Africa, Korea and Croatia," he said. "It's very interesting how it has transcended international boundaries and cultures."

Sign spinning was never intended to be a sport.

Needing to make money, 18-year-old Kenny and his partner were hired as "human directionals" for a business in San Diego. Obviously bored out of their minds standing outside for hours holding a sign, they started to flip it.

"We noticed more and more people went into the client's location and we realized we had something," said Kenny.

Fast forward 11 years.

AArrow, headquartered in North Hollywood, Calif., now rents out sign spinners for $30 an hour and will make $4-$4.5 million in world wide chain sales this year.

But impressive sales are not what drives the growing marketing company.

"it’s more than a job to me now," Christian Altamirano, the company's general manager explained about why he has been spinning signs for over seven years. "I got really into it and it was an organization, a community, a friendship, so I took it to the next level."

Altamirano is in charge of training all the spinning "rookies" for the L.A. chain and says the difficulty and intensity is what transforms the every day job into a sport, an art and a form of expression.

"You really see all these different, cool personalities between the spinners and their techniques," said Keith Phillips, who started sign spinning with AArrow in September. "I am more of a technical person but you have people who make it their own and put some type of juditsu into it, or dance."

"That's what I usually do, put my music in and dance," he added.

AArrow employees meet every Wednesday to practice and show off new moves. The spinners reiterated the fun, competitive community that sign spinning creates.

"I love it because I get to teach people," said Jeremy White, who has been spinning for almost 10 years.

At one of the practices, White was painstakingly teaching a spinning rookie the first three of the 14 basic tricks all spinners have to nail down before they can get into some of the more advanced stuff, like a scissor catch.

"You have to throw the sign up in the air, do a handstand, catch the signs in between your legs and land it perfectly," Kenny explained when asked about the move. "It's one of the 300 tricks in our 'Tricktionary.'"

White attempted a similar move at practice:

Spinners earn $8 to $20 per hour, depending on their skill level, and all spinners know where they stand.

"We are very big on ranking people with stats," said Kenny. "They get scored out of 100 and it's like the NBA, you know which players are doing the best and which are doing the worst and we do it exactly the same, everyone knows what their stats are, that's where the competition kicks in."

AArrow has woven together employment, community, competition and self-expression to create a burgeoning sub culture that is taking on a life of its own.

And since the advertising technique is spreading from large chains like McDonalds and Jiffy Lube to mom-and-pop stores across the world, it seems some non-digital advertising might not only stand a chance, but carve out it's own corner of the market.

"I think when people see a human being in the flesh spinning a sign for a company it piques their interest," Phillips said as he flipped his sign outside of a Jiffy Lube at the intersection of San Vicente Blvd. and Venice Blvd. "One of my favorite aspects of the job is making others smile and seeing them wave back at me."

Phillips casually flipped the four-pound Jiffy Lube sign behind his back before adding, "Art comes in a lot of ways."

(Video made by a few AArrow spinners)

Check out more photos of sign spinners in action.

Reach Editor-in-Chief Brianna Sacks here