Question about US vs Europe

[Baca Loco]

They!? Oh, we know who they are

Originally posted by Mark

I agree that this thread does appear to look like a one or two person posting from some of the "informed" postings (Baca Loco is off the hook now, if only cos they are a Mod now)

A thought, although this thread is in the Tournament forum (a lot of people don't read this section), can this thread be duplicated in the Speak your brains as well..Mods?

Mark,
I think if you re-read Chowderhea--uh, Superbeef's prior post he was referring to the thread on SmackTalk about Chitown prize packages and not this thread.

As to duplicating this thread elsewhere. Since you have asked your wish will be granted.

PS--what do you mean Baca Loco is off the hook now, if only cos "they"? What am I, some sort of Legion of Moo, or perhaps suffering multiple personality disorder in your estimation?

 

[raehl]

Uhm...

Keeping prices the same and just letting hte first X number of teams register is the paintball equivalent of rent control.

Choice 1: I keep prices the same, but just limit the number of teams.

Choice 2: Raise prices, get the same number of teams, but now I have an extra $100,000 to rent a better facility so the event is more attractive for spectators and television. Or invest that $100k in better reffing, or hell, if you're a greedy event promoter, just pocket it (even if that did happen, it wouldn't happen long as someone else would come along and produce a better event with the $100k and steal the customers.)

Which choice is better for everyone?

Another way:

Choice 1: Continue to let as many teams enter at present rates, allowng quality of events to continue to degrade because the facilities can't handle the numbers.

Choice 2: Raise prices so only the best teams (as measured by their ability to attract sponsors to finance themselves) can afford to play. Quality of events is increased with the availability of additional revenue.


Which choice is better for everyone? All limitting prices while using a "First come, first serve" process does is deprive the league of investment income it could be using for improvement. You're essentially giving away free money to teams who can't pay more who just happen to register before teams who CAN pay more. No, a free enterprise system isn't always NICE to everyone, but it WORKS.


- Chris

 

[Cube]

Uhm...

Originally posted by raehl
Choice 2: Raise prices so only the best teams (as measured by their ability to attract sponsors to finance themselves) can afford to play. Quality of events is increased with the availability of additional revenue.

You really cannot measure the skill of a team by their ability to get sponsors. That is truly ludicrous, and besides that what happens when you raise prices so "lesser" teams cannot make it to the big shows? You enter a vicious circle.

Can't afford to play in the big events, don't get media coverage.
No media coverage, no marketing appeal.
No marketing appeal, no interest from potential sponsors.
No sponsors, can't afford to enter big events etc, etc.

Raising prices so that only heavily sponsored teams can enter events is just plain ridiculous. Eventually the events will become a victim of their own pricing policy. The very teams you're forcing out will go off to other series designed for the non sponsored player and they'll stay there because the big tourneys won't be the big thing any more.

In fact if you limit teams by finances you will effectively reduce the quality of the tournaments, how many of the top, heavily sponsored, teams go to tourneys? how many people do they take? Where do the crowds come from? Who spends the money at the trade stands? Do you really believe that all those people spending their hard earned cash all come from well sponsored teams?

I think you may find that the smaller non-sponsored teams make up a large chunk of the paying customers at a tournament, alienating them is almost certainly a bad thing.

For paintball to go in the direction you seem to want is to effectively create a "Super League" and I don't think it'll work and ultimately I think it'll be bad for the game as a whole.

But then opinions are like.........

and that one's mine

 

[Buddha 3]

Wake up and smell the coffee, homeboy!
The way the Millennium series work here in Europe is on a first come, first serve basis, with a maximum number of teams. And as it seems, quality wise any event that the US has on offer is getting spanked left and right. Hmmm, makes ya think...
If you raise the pricetag of an event, the number of teams attending will indeed drop, which will mean that the competion will only be interesting in the pro league, since they (may) have the financial backing to be able to enter the event (even a lot of pro teams would struggle, as they do so already). This would mean that over time, less and less teams will enter (in any division, particularly the lower ones), which in turn means that the pricetag has to go up yet even more to be able to cover the costs, which leads to more teams dropping out in the future. In other words, you are killing your own event!

 

[raehl]

Gah...

You're not getting this. I'm not saying just arbitrarily raise prices, I'm saying set prices where the number of teams who end up playing is the maximum number of teams you can handle. So some teams can't afford to play - so what? There's plenty of people who can't afford to play at $1750/team as it is. Whats the difference between 50% of teams not being able to afford to play and 70% of teams not being able to afford to lay in the national circuit? Pricing *ALREADY* keeps a lot of teams out, so saying you shouldn't set pricing to limit the number of teams is ridiculous, because you ALREADY DO. In the US, I think we're getting to the point where there are more teams able to afford the pricing than there is resources to get them in and out of the event in 3 days and thus pricing should be increased to remedy the situation. A first-come, first-serve process, while "noble", just deprives the league of revenue it could use for something else.

Yes, having low entry fees so more teams can afford to enter is an admirable concept. But in the real world, you don't price a product to sell it to the most people. You price a product to bring in the most profits, period. What you're asking is the equivalent of saying BMW should sell all their cars for $10,000 because they'd have more customers. Sure, they'd have more customers, but their cars would also suck.

As for the comparison between Millenium and the US, I don't really have any experience with Millenium to comment on that specifically. I can say that saying "We have first come first serve, and we're better than the US tournaments." is not a valid argument because you've offerred no evidence that the first-come-first-serve nature of the tournaments contributes to the quality of the event. Maybe there's just better locations that are mre reasonably priced. Maybe the european climate is better (no Vegas's in Europe). Maybe everything is just closer together. There are plenty of factors to consider, any combination of which could (and probably do) contribute to quality of event.

The National pro-am circuit should be the pinacle of play, the BMW/Mercedes of tournaments. For teams who can't afford that, you play in a lesser regional (or maybe lesser national) league.


And yes, ability to afford the event (i.e. get sponsors) is EXACTLY the way to measure the skills of teams. You should have a sliding price scale, more for pro than am then novice than rookie, and sponsors will see performance at lower levels and if you're good offer you more support to move up. If you're not even in the league yet, you'll have to demonstrate your skill at other events to get sponsorship for the naitonal circuit. Just because you havn't played the national circuit before doesn't mean your team can't get sponsorships to do so. (I've done it twice with teams who have never even played a tournament together before.)


This thread just reminds me that most people in paintball do not understand one iota of business, and that's what a paintball league is. Free enterprise system, transfer of finite resources is controlled by pricing the resources so their availability matches the demand at that price.

- Chris

 

[Buddha 3]

Gah...

Originally posted by raehl


This thread just reminds me that most people in paintball do not understand one iota of business.

- Chris

Excuse me?
I was going to reply to your post with valid arguments, but that last little paragraph made me change my mind. Obviously you are a shortsighted fool if you think that people who don't agree with the way YOU like to do business have no sense of business. You're basically saying that I don't understand one iota of business... Sure man, you're right. What do I know? I only have been in charge of a retail chain, and now I only 'do things' at one of my country's major insurance companies. So basically you can kiss my ass, and I'm no longer willing to have a normal discussion with you, because I find you offensive. Goodbye.

 

[raehl]

<chuckle>

It wasn't directed at you personally - just saying that the thread reminds me of one of the obstacles in this industry. People here are trying to say economics doesn't apply because it's nicer if they don't have to pay more for tournaments. They (including you) are wrong. Something's value is determined by what people are willing to pay for it, and if the availability of that something is finite, the people who are willing to pay more for it than you get it. Not nice, but that's reality. Trying to ignore that fact of economics just creates even more problems in the long run.

But you're right, this discussion is probably over, as I don't think anyone who is ignoring the economics of the argument is going to stop doing so short of a good econ class.


- Chris

 

[Buddha 3]

Look, I don't mind having a discussion, I don't even mind being wrong, but I do mind your utter arrogance. Saying, like you do, that others are wrong and you are right, is frikkin' arrogant. Make sure that people understand that you're just stating an opinion, because until you have proven that you are right, that is all that you are doing.
So you'd better wise up, or you won't have a friend in the world left...

 

[Baca Loco]

Bud, I already told you he was a funny guy and a politician

Originally posted by Buddha 3
Look, I don't mind having a discussion, I don't even mind being wrong, but I do mind your utter arrogance. Saying, like you do, that others are wrong and you are right, is frikkin' arrogant. Make sure that people understand that you're just stating an opinion, because until you have proven that you are right, that is all that you are doing.
So you'd better wise up, or you won't have a friend in the world left...

One must make allowances.
In the meantime here are a few more "facts" of economic reality for our pal, Chris, to consider.
NPPL/PSP won't start raising prices yet because they are in the midst of boom time growth and have a) no idea yet where the ceiling is, and b) have other revenue streams that are directly related to scale of event, ie: fees they charge vendors, principle sponsors and paint companies. More teams means higher fees to secondary revenue sources, and those sums aren't insignificant.
Plainly some finite number of teams is the "most" that can be accomodated but it seems to me the PSP or whoever is or should be interested in determining their peak profit point so when they start fiddling with the pricing structure they have a target number of teams in mind and at this point in time I doubt they have sufficient data to make that judgement.

 

[Cube]

Bud, I already told you he was a funny guy and a politician

Originally posted by Baca Loco
b) have other revenue streams that are directly related to scale of event, ie: fees they charge vendors, principle sponsors and paint companies. More teams means higher fees to secondary revenue sources, and those sums aren't insignificant.

Totally agree and I said this earler.

To put it economically for our friend

Who buys the kit on sale?

Is it
a) the totally sponsored player playing with sponsored gear who plays for the competition and the sponsor or
b) the non-sponsored player who buys their own kit and plays for the competition and the fun of it?

Not that difficult an answer.

Who are the team sponsors looking at in this marketplace? Why do they bother sponsoring teams?

Again not difficult. If less economically challenged teams go to events and buy kit from the trade stands who is going keep paying to put them up? No market no point in investing in buying the rights to stalls from the tournament. This means that the extra pot you are on about has just significantly reduced, you may even find that your positive financial status had just dropped into the red.

Until Paintball reaches the economics of say football, where an event can be held and people will turn up just as fans and buy stuff the theory of price based exclusion WILL NOT WORK.

More Customers=More Business, if you can't grasp this mate time you went to an eco class. Go read up on supply and demand and relate this to what I've just said.

It's actually very simple economics, companies follow the money, you exclude people that much no matter how fancy your words are they'll be forced to go somewhere else that doesn't exclude them, the big companies will most likely follow them if not totally then partially. If the media goes that way too, then heaven help your elite events.

To use your BMW/Mercedes example who's got one? Look at the demographics of the purchasers of BMW's most of the purchasers are in the top end demographic, or business users. This is a huge marketplace with a lot of "exclusive" competition.

This means that BMW are forced to keep their prices high in order to appeal to the very people they are aiming at. These people will not buy cheap. This provides a problem, with the marketplace the way it is they have to provide more features and stay viable, and that is difficult in that business. Is it any suprise that BMW introduced the smaller compact model for the "family" market? Didn't Mercedes do the same thing with the A3? I wonder why.

Would it perhaps be that they think that providing a lesser spec car to a wider customer base at a, (just about), affordable price would bring in more money? I think it would.

Besides, BMW were well known for overcharging for their badge based on perceived status, their cars in comparison to others are poory equipped for the price, so would your tournament be.

The difference is the status demand for your highly priced and exclusive tournament wouldn't be the same, people simply wouldn't care. Nothing to impress their colleagues or neighbours with.

I bet they'd vote with their feet even if they had enough cash to get in.