But not all paintball companys are owned by "the new business-minded owners of paintball " yet... And thats why contracting sales have something to do with it.
Magued
End of the road for pros?
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But not all paintball companys are owned by "the new business-minded owners of paintball " yet... And thats why contracting sales have something to do with it.
Magued
..hmmm, to imply, as Chris is, that the contracting sales has NOTHING to do with this refocussing is an insane proposition...just insane, and that's why I can't be arsed to continue with this anymore.
Doesn't really matter. This isn't the first time an influx of business people has affected sponsorship.
Back in the old old days, the people who owned fields were the same people who ran teams. The way it usually worked is you'd order your paint from a particular distributor, and then they would 'sponsor' you paint at National events. Of course, this really worked out to a rebate - the cost of your sponsorship was just factored into the cost of the paint sold to you. When pretty much everyone valued the national event sponsorship because most field owners (and even most sales reps) were just tournament team captains or players in disguise, that worked out fine.
But, then paintball experienced an influx of business-minded paintball field owners who did not care one bit about having a paintball team at national events. What did they want? They wanted less expensive paint. And the industry shifted to lower paint prices and stop offering big 'sponsorship' for their customer's teams - they couldn't keep charging a paint price that paid for that sponsorship when most of their customers didn't see any value for that extra cost. And the manufacturer that kept their prices higher to support such a thing would lose out to those who lowered their prices to give the majority of their customers what they wanted.
But until those business-minded field owners came in, the industry, through group-think, was able to have that buy-my-paint-and-I'll-sponsor you arrangement, even though it raises paint costs. You know, a lot of people talk about how the price of paint went down because people shot more of it - nobody talks about how the price of paint went down because distributors started giving a lot less of it away.
Same kinda thing here. For a while, virtually all of the major manufacturers were owned by paintball tournament people, and they were all spending big money on teams, and they were all factoring that into the prices they were charging. When everyone is charging prices that allow for big sponsorship budgets, then it works.
But when the business guys come in, the first thing they do is squeeze any waste they can find out of the business, and lower their prices. So when these new guys start cutting sponsorships and lowering the prices of what they're selling as a result, how long do you think the paintball folk who still run paintball businesses can keep supporting teams that don't get them a return on that money in the face of competition that has chosen to lower their prices instead?
Ok, I was being purposely strong by saying NOTHING - it's probably a bit more than nothing, but not much. At best, the sales contraction may have accelerated the process a bit, by removing any illusions on the part of the legacy paintball company owners that they could continue their sponsorship programs in the face of new business-minded, price-cutting competition.
But, we've strayed from my original point, which was...
The only people Pro paintball teams have to blame for their loss of sponsorship is themselves. They had years where people were throwing money on them, and most did absolutely nothing to take that money and invest it so that in the future, instead of just being lucky that no one cared if that money was made back, their teams would grow into a brand where they actually did present a value.
If teams had done that, and could show how sponsoring them would help their sponsor's business because they had built up a following of fans who actually cared what the team was using, then their sponsorships would be secure.
But most did not.
At last.....
Either you make points succinctly or not at all Chris, you can't back track afterwards mate.
Sure I can. It beats resorting to ad-hominem grammar attacks.
You argue that team sponsorship decline is caused by sales decline.
I argued that sales decline is not the cause of team sponsorship decline, and use the word 'nothing'.
I now accept that the sales decline has 'almost nothing' (as opposed to 'absolutely nothing') to do with the sponsorship decline; at best, hastening the inevitable.
Still doesn't change that the Pro teams are at fault for not creating value worth being sponsored for, and that the real cause of the sponsorship decline is this lack of value offered, and the influx of business people into the industry who will not tolerate throwing money away.
But if you would rather discuss whether I should have said 'almost nothing' instead of 'nothing', I'm happy to accept your concession that sales decline had, at most, almost nothing to do with sponsorship decline.
You argue that team sponsorship decline is caused by sales decline.
I argued that sales decline is not the cause of team sponsorship decline, and use the word 'nothing'.
I now accept that the sales decline has 'almost nothing' (as opposed to 'absolutely nothing') to do with the sponsorship decline; at best, hastening the inevitable.
Still doesn't change that the Pro teams are at fault for not creating value worth being sponsored for, and that the real cause of the sponsorship decline is this lack of value offered, and the influx of business people into the industry who will not tolerate throwing money away.
But if you would rather discuss whether I should have said 'almost nothing' instead of 'nothing', I'm happy to accept your concession that sales decline had, at most, almost nothing to do with sponsorship decline.
Chris, note the nature of my responses, they are short and to the point, yours however .......
Well, I need say no more other than to remind you once again, you are missing my point because to suggest I am saying financial contraction is the sole reason for loss of support is putting words into my mouth.
I have consistently been saying that when you declared financial contraction had NOTHING to do with loss of support, this was flawed and in effect, wrong.
You have now admitted as much and should leave it at that coz I don't wanna read yet another cockdwarfian attempt at saving your skin..it's getting to be quite demeaning.
You CANNOT use Dynasty in this context because they are unique and not representative of other teams, or in fact, what other teams could achieve; this is a convenient misrepresentation of the majority to serve your argument Chris.