End of the road for pros?

[Mario]

Forgive my ignorance...

Chicago, are you raehl?

 

[Chicago]

No offence, but before you go advising Dye, a $20m company in 5 years, that they should be hiring publicists for thier players, or telling the Major Leagues that they are doing it all wrong, would it be better to use your insightful and infallable judgement in your own manor, by hiring a marketing guy to show the World what you have there. Perhaps we woudl not be talking about companies making less money at all if the college market was being nurtured and exposed more professionally?

You're comparing the marketing plan for a $20m+ manufacturing company to a 2,000 player paintball league? Do you see where that might not make a whole lot of sense? Or how it might be a little unreasonable to expect said 2,000 player paintball league to be as well-known as said $20m manufacturing company?

I don't think you understand the nature of the business that the college league is in. We have made some decisions that we believe will be best in the long-term.

One of them is that the league is an incorporated, non-profit league actually owned by the teams. The downside of this is that we can't go get a few million of venture capital dollars (ala NPPL) to go drop into marketing. The upside is that when we are successful, the teams are in the driver's seat.

Another is to run the league in an as industry-neutral manner as possible. I've seen other leagues run into trouble when they get too tied to money from a particular paintball business, or even paintball businesses in general. We've made the conscious decision to not chase paintball sponsor dollars. We're learned to operate without them. It's turned out to be helpful - while the other national circuits are addicted to industry money, it doesn't matter to us one bit.

On top of all that, we're pretty new. We started with 12 teams in 2000. These were not 12 teams owned by people who owned multi-million dollar paintball companies. They were 12 teams owned by poor college students. In fact, all of our teams are teams of college students. And our teams can ONLY be college students. It's an entirely different beast than when your teams can be any team in your area.

When you have paintball teams that are NOT owned by paintball manufacturers, your teams are NOT willing to spend $3,000 an event to play. The owners of your teams are NOT willing to get together and pay $250,000 each for a franchise. There is no one who is going to blow 1.8 million dollars putting a show on ESPN2.

So, are we as well known in paintball as leagues that got their start in 1991, that have been losing money for years, because they are owned by people willing to spend hundreds of thousands to millions on them?

Of course not.

We have always had limited resources, and we've had to make choices. First, we have to run good events. After that, when deciding between doing what we did and spending more effort on reaching the paintball market, we chose what we did. It is far, far, far better for the NCPA to have a TV show on every year than it is for us to be in paintball magazines.

Why?

Because my teams can go to their university with a tape of the show and get piles of money. They can not go to their university with piles of paintball magazines and get piles of money.

My objective is to pay for my guys to play. When you start evaluating what we do based on both the resources we have available, and what actually will pay for my guys to play, I think it becomes a lot more clear why we've done things the way we've done them.



I run a national league of teams that pay an average of $150/event. That's a 'success' in itself. I run that league profitably (barely, but that's more than can be said for anyone else). Every cent of money we make we invest in things like marketing to grow the league. We have billion dollar out-of-industry companies sponsoring us. We have been televised for the past three years and have a contract for 2 more.

So, if anyone wants to give me the MILLIONS of dollars that WDP, Smart Parts, DYE, National, Pacific Paintball, etc. have collectively sunk into their national league/televised paintball efforts, I think it's pretty safe to say we could do better.

 

[Chicago]

I'm sorry but this does not wash. If you want to expose to all 13-25 year olds, then you would reach that exact age group through traditional paintball.

But NOT in a way that traditional advertisers are familiar/comfortable with.

You could also do it for free, so there is no excuse you can use that would compensate for this lack of positive action.

The advertising is free. The opportunity cost of what we spend our time doing is not. You will see this change a bit this year as we are going to have more resources available.

As in college football, the best college players should be scouted by the pro teams, and should have ambition to play for them. I know they have this ambition already and no amount of closeting at this stage will change that.

Your numbers above make no sense, so I will guess it was a typo. Whatever the number you put on paintball mags (and bear in mind that there are people on here that know these numbers far better than you) makes no difference. Writing an article and issuing a press release is FOC. The only reason not to do so is apathetic and in no way valid.

We do write articles and we do issue press releases. We don't do the volume of them that NPPL or even PSP does, but I also don't have 14 full-time staff holed up in an office in southern California either.

Marketing, and in particular sports marketing, is about covering ground and exposing the product. You are not interested in exposing your paintball product to the paintball industry? How does that benefit your players? 6 months ago you could have given me any old answer and I would have had to believe you. However I now have a decent idea of what your customer-base wants, and I am having a hard time reconciling that with what you are telling me now....

You have talked to some of my players who want to feel like paintball celebrities. They want other paintball players to take them seriously. They don't like that other people on the field just think 'college teams arn't as good as pro teams'.

I understand that is what some of them want. They need to get over it. No one is ever going to think they are as good as pro teams because they are never going to be. They'll be luck if they're ever as good as D2 teams - the eligibility requirements are too narrow for them to compete with the talent pools that non-college teams can draw from.

And they will get over it. The teams you're talking to in SoCal are very new college teams, and they are in an area of the country that has a particularly bad 'agg paintball lifestyle' attitude. In a year, when their team has developed a bit, when they've got full-color pictures of themselves on the cover of their student newspaper, and the university is writing checks for them to play, they won't be so worried about what the other kids at the paintball field think.

 

[Missy-Q]

You're comparing the marketing plan for a $20m+ manufacturing company to a 2,000 player paintball league? .

No I'm not. Not at all.

Do you see where that might not make a whole lot of sense?.

I do, but it wasn't what I was saying. if you re-read you will see.

Or how it might be a little unreasonable to expect said 2,000 player paintball league to be as well-known as said $20m manufacturing company?.

With your current 'marketing' it would be wholly unreasonable, yes.

I don't think you understand the nature of the business that the college league is in. We have made some decisions that we believe will be best in the long-term.

One of them is that the league is an incorporated, non-profit league actually owned by the teams. The downside of this is that we can't go get a few million of venture capital dollars (ala NPPL) to go drop into marketing. The upside is that when we are successful, the teams are in the driver's seat..

Like I said. A lot of marketing is just hard work. Its free to attain if that work is done and done well.

Another is to run the league in an as industry-neutral manner as possible. I've seen other leagues run into trouble when they get too tied to money from a particular paintball business, or even paintball businesses in general. We've made the conscious decision to not chase paintball sponsor dollars. We're learned to operate without them. It's turned out to be helpful - while the other national circuits are addicted to industry money, it doesn't matter to us one bit..

I think this is wise, and nothing I am saying is leading you in the direction of relying on, or even accepting, industry funding.

On top of all that, we're pretty new. We started with 12 teams in 2000. These were not 12 teams owned by people who owned multi-million dollar paintball companies. They were 12 teams owned by poor college students. In fact, all of our teams are teams of college students. And our teams can ONLY be college students. It's an entirely different beast than when your teams can be any team in your area..

Understood, but irrelevant in context to my post.

When you have paintball teams that are NOT owned by paintball manufacturers, your teams are NOT willing to spend $3,000 an event to play. The owners of your teams are NOT willing to get together and pay $250,000 each for a franchise. There is no one who is going to blow 1.8 million dollars putting a show on ESPN2..

As you have stated, you don't need this investment as per your deal with TV. You have the deal, why aren't you trying to get people to watch it?

So, are we as well known in paintball as leagues that got their start in 1991, that have been losing money for years, because they are owned by people willing to spend hundreds of thousands to millions on them?

Of course not..

Being well known and blowing a ton of money are not synonymous in this case, or in any marketing plan.

We have always had limited resources, and we've had to make choices. First, we have to run good events. After that, when deciding between doing what we did and spending more effort on reaching the paintball market, we chose what we did. It is far, far, far better for the NCPA to have a TV show on every year than it is for us to be in paintball magazines.

Why?

Because my teams can go to their university with a tape of the show and get piles of money. They can not go to their university with piles of paintball magazines and get piles of money..

You miss my point. Its not about the money you invest, or the money available. You have already ststed that you don't need the funding from the industry. Do you also believe that the teams and the league can continue to operate completely separate from the conventional market when the opposite has been proven in other sports?

My objective is to pay for my guys to play. When you start evaluating what we do based on both the resources we have available, and what actually will pay for my guys to play, I think it becomes a lot more clear why we've done things the way we've done them..

And it has been a ood job that you have done in that area, for sure, but there are some really obvious improvements that could be made to your marketing plan that are not only free, they are the lessons you woudl be taught on the first day of any decent marketing class, such as the ones the Colleges charge all that money for....

I run a national league of teams that pay an average of $150/event. That's a 'success' in itself. I run that league profitably (barely, but that's more than can be said for anyone else). Every cent of money we make we invest in things like marketing to grow the league. We have billion dollar out-of-industry companies sponsoring us. We have been televised for the past three years and have a contract for 2 more..

.....Which is the best kept secret in Paintball! Another glaring gap in your promotional repertoire.

So, if anyone wants to give me the MILLIONS of dollars that WDP, Smart Parts, DYE, National, Pacific Paintball, etc. have collectively sunk into their national league/televised paintball efforts, I think it's pretty safe to say we could do better.

You'll never get this, because other than on P8ntballer, you don't tell anyone about it. Plus, you state earlier that you don't want it. I would assume that you do want the cash, just not the involvement of anyone else, and wjile I understand that point well, you run the risk of clutching your league so close to your chest that you are not actually taking the needs of your league owners (the teams, as you say) seriously.

 

[Missy-Q]

But NOT in a way that traditional advertisers are familiar/comfortable with.



The advertising is free. The opportunity cost of what we spend our time doing is not. You will see this change a bit this year as we are going to have more resources available.



We do write articles and we do issue press releases. We don't do the volume of them that NPPL or even PSP does, but I also don't have 14 full-time staff holed up in an office in southern California either.



You have talked to some of my players who want to feel like paintball celebrities. They want other paintball players to take them seriously. They don't like that other people on the field just think 'college teams arn't as good as pro teams'.

I understand that is what some of them want. They need to get over it. No one is ever going to think they are as good as pro teams because they are never going to be. They'll be luck if they're ever as good as D2 teams - the eligibility requirements are too narrow for them to compete with the talent pools that non-college teams can draw from.

And they will get over it. The teams you're talking to in SoCal are very new college teams, and they are in an area of the country that has a particularly bad 'agg paintball lifestyle' attitude. In a year, when their team has developed a bit, when they've got full-color pictures of themselves on the cover of their student newspaper, and the university is writing checks for them to play, they won't be so worried about what the other kids at the paintball field think.

Isn't this disregard for customer/owner feedback and "We know best" attitude one of the tacks you have used to attack the NPPL and PSP in the past? Are you running the risk of ignoring, and thus alienating, the people that participate in your league? I got the impression that the teams are enjoying the NACPA, but want it marketed more. They want to feel more legit, that they have a real place in the industry. To withhold this from them makes no business sense in my opinion. You can't avoid the crossover, it isn't in your power, and your opinion of your client base has to change for your success to continue.

Don't get the wrong idea, I appreciate what you do and what you have acheived, but as you have no qualms about tearing other peoples business strategies apart, I feel that your own could use some work, and I believe my suggestions are valid and necessary, simply because they have come from your customers (sorry, 'owners').

 

[Chicago]

You'll never get this, because other than on P8ntballer, you don't tell anyone about it. Plus, you state earlier that you don't want it. I would assume that you do want the cash, just not the involvement of anyone else, and wjile I understand that point well, you run the risk of clutching your league so close to your chest that you are not actually taking the needs of your league owners (the teams, as you say) seriously.

Actually, I do talk to people about it, and I've always come to the same problem as far as industry involvement goes.

The 'big wigs' are willing to gamble big money on a league/television effort that they will own, and they think that they will find a way to both make money being a paintball manufacturer and being a televised paintball league owner. So they want to spend their money on a league that they will own.

But, they can not have an ownership stake in the college league. it's a non-profit run by the players.

What I have not been very successful at is convincing the paintball big-wigs that for a comparatively small investment in the college league, even though they will never get any direct profit return, they will make more money in their regular paintball business. Some people have been coming around on this, but it's been slow.

On the other hand, I'm not that concerned about it - one of the biggest problems with paintball leagues is that they're financed by paintball companies. If things work out right, there will be so much out-of-industry money that league sponsorship will be too expensive for paintball manufacturers to even consider.

I think it's a tossup as to whether taking the time to convince the industry to invest a bit will speed up (more capital available sooner) or slow down (distraction as opposed to getting out-of-industry interest sooner) the process.


As for most of the rest of your comments, I don't disagree - there are a lot of things we should be doing more of and doing them better. You don't see as much news as we'd like to send out because we've been renegotiating our TV deal every year for the past three years and we're too late in the game for the print media by the time we're done with that. We've got a 3-year deal now, so that will change this year. Beyond that, most of it comes down to staffing and tough choices. I can't fall back on WDP's or DYE's or Smart Parts' or Pacific Paintball's checkbook like other leagues have had the luxury of doing. That means everything we do is pretty much done by volunteers at this point. I work a full-time job in the engineering sector which has nothing to do with paintball. I also run a paintball business on the side. And I run NCPA. That's too much, and the kinds of problems you're talking about are a reflection of that.

 

[Chicago]

Isn't this disregard for customer/owner feedback and "We know best" attitude one of the tacks you have used to attack the NPPL and PSP in the past?

I don't think I've used that tack. Maybe a long time ago, but I've learned my lesson: Doing what paintball players say they want is 95% a waste of time. If you're only as smart as your players, you're in trouble.

Now, that doesn't mean you can get away with not GIVING the customer what they REALLY want, but you have to understand that what paintball players SAY they want and what they will PAY for are not the same things. And while there are definitely customer feedback gems that you absolutely have to respond to in the noise of player feedback, you also need to be good at culling that valuable information out of the noise.


To your specific point, I know that some players want that celebrity feeling. Some players have always wanted that. Hell, if you walk on to any field in Southern California you'll be surrounded by a bunch of paintball players who think they deserve more attention than they're getting. In the college league, those players are almost always new to the league and expecting the college league to provide the same things that they want from other leagues. My solution to that, however, is not to give them what they say they want, it's to educate them to want something different.

What happens is as those new players play the league more, and interact with other players who have been in the league longer, they stop wanting that kind of attention. They realize that the college league offers different things, and they like those things, and they keep playing. We don't lose a lot of players except for two ways: They lose their eligibility (graduate/drop out) or they quit paintball entirely. Very few of them leave because they feel they can get more attention elsewhere.

We have had some players on the west coast leave because, in the short term, they got better sponsorship offers on Am teams than they were getting on college teams. That's both because the area has been particularly competitive for good players, and because the college teams there are newer so their budgets aren't as big. I have a feeling that's about to become less of a problem though.

 

[Missy-Q]

Chris, its really quite simple. You have to trade access to your client base for investment from the traditional industry. You can't get something for nothing, and access into the colleges is your commodity. My feeling is that you lack marketing skills and unfortunately the organisational skills that you have in spades will only get you so far without good marketing.
I am glad that you will be giving this full-time attention and despite our colourfully worded history, I would always be open to advising you in this as it is for the common good.

 

[Chicago]

I have no problems giving access. It's just ownership that's an issue. I think the change in business climate in the industry is going to be good for us though - we're cheap.

I'm aware that I'm no expert in marketing. That's currently addressed in a few ways, and will be addressed more thoroughly in the future.

Appreciate your offer; had already PMd you actually.

 

[Robbo]

Chris, why don't you heed Lane's extremely wise (and well meant) advice coz all I see is a wordy hole that gets deeper and deeper with every post you dig.

Soemtimes it is more expedient to hold up yer hands, admit you were wrong and move on, you won't lose any respect (in fact, in your position, you would probably gain some) but to continue labouring yuor defence is somewhat demeaning I think if not a little tedious.

If I can eat humble pie, then sure as hell you can, coz you ain't as bright as me, I'd beat you like a dog in a street fight, I'm better looking, I've won more in paintball than you could ever dream of ....... but I've got a slight problem with my humility mode

Chris...it's time mate.....give it up ... save at least some vestige of dignity.