Lowering the Bar.

delta paintball · 02-04-2010, 12:23 AM

Let’s start things off by first explaining what the bar is. There used to be a standard by which excellence was measured in paintball. If you dared to push yourself hard enough and reach your fullest potential, you were looked at as being apart from your peers. This wasn’t a mark of elitism, but an example of reaching accomplishment within the industry. The industry recognized this by holding these people up as the embodiment of those that set themselves apart with their dedication.

As you look out across the landscape of the industry today, it is fairly evident to anyone who cares to see that the paradigm has changed. While nobody was watching, the industry lowered the bar. Now ask yourself, why would they do that? Is it because the standards that were once so difficult to obtain have been achieved by the majority of the players in the sport? Is it because greatness stalks the field in more numbers then any other time in paintball? Hardly, in actuality what you’re seeing is the encouragement of everyone being special, or as we like refer to it, the gold star standard. The reality of the situation is that there are better players, but the industry is lowering the bar to push sales. What does that mean to you, the player in laymen’s terms?

The industry has taken the reward of sponsorship and turned it into nothing more than a coupon book to make a sale. Yet, those of you who may very well have a “sponsorship”, may be saving some money but really you are no better off then shopping at a Black Friday sale. The whole gimmick behind the sponsorship is the company saying to you the player, “hey, you are special, and we are going to give you a special price on a special product because you are special.”

Now what’s really funny is that the industry is crying that they are making no money, in reality they are creating the entitlement attitude that a majority of players today suffer from, this behavior is a self fulfilling prophecy that each and every player is special, and therefore they shouldn’t be spending the money that the companies so desperately need to get by.

Alright players, it is time to bruise some egos and be bluntly honest. Take a look around, how many players do you know that have a sponsor in their signature on PbNation alone. How many of these teams have you heard of beyond your local market? Our guess is less then 1% is known outside of their market. This brings into question why do sponsorships exist in the first place, and the answer is marketability.

You take a team that is known for excellence by the old standard and add to that their presence beyond their home market, and that is marketability. Marketability for a sponsorship means exposure for products over a wide base audience. If your team doesn’t have a greater appeal beyond your local market, to what benefit does a sponsor drive. And this requires introspection on your part. If you are not adding to the bottom line for a company by raising their visibility and you are in a cash plus position on your end, the only thing you are doing for that company is adding to their sales volume on a personal basis. You are not having any affect on their advertising, you are not bringing in any new customers, all you are doing is becoming another sale, and this is where you have to be honest with yourself.

To the industry by and large the only way to right this ship, is to return expectations to the original model. Don’t be afraid to tell somebody that they are not good enough. It is because you have not stood up and forced your expectations that the entitlement era of paintball began. You need full volume sales, and cutting the throat of your dealer network by pushing direct sales to customers you would otherwise have under the guise of a sponsorship undermines the sales force you have built. We can not tell you how often we have seen players walk into a brick and mortar store and demand special pricing because they have been told that they are special, which stems from the entitlement atmosphere which you have promoted to your own detriment. To be frank, you are sponsoring too many teams, and you have diluted the definition of excellence.

George Shaffer | Josh Foote
Delta Paintball, Inc.
Delta Paintball Team

Walking_Target · 02-04-2010, 12:34 AM

'Excellence' by those standards is any group of 3-10 players who can cough up enough dough for the 'sponsorship' packages put together by big companies or distrubutors. The worst offender up here is Badlands. You get 5 guys who can cough up the cash for a pod pack and gun, and you have a Badlands sponsored team.

let's face it, the old days of being able to point to the local team and see a group of guys who are working hard, drilling every weekend and improving, just to GET a sponsorship are over.

The days when seeing a "sponsored" team on the field that you really did have to watch out for are over now too. When I do bother to play at a regular field, i see teams or individuals, many of whom are bragging about their sponsorships and have no right to be that cocky; not with the way they 'play'.

Horizon · 02-04-2010, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by delta paintball

Let’s start things off by first explaining what the bar is. There used to be a standard by which excellence was measured in paintball. If you dared to push yourself hard enough and reach your fullest potential, you were looked at as being apart from your peers. This wasn’t a mark of elitism, but an example of reaching accomplishment within the industry. The industry recognized this by holding these people up as the embodiment of those that set themselves apart with their dedication.

.........

Well put and very true.

russc · 02-04-2010, 01:04 AM

Absolutely. I know a few guys who have been offered a potential spot on a good team, but they would be forced to drop over a grand on brand new Eclipse team guns.

Sponsorship's great, isn't it?

Ir0nExpress · 02-04-2010, 01:48 AM

I'm assuming delta got hit hard by this?

You guys are great in person, seen you guys play and sit out teching guns for SP, it probably does suck that all of you ended up as "just another sponsored team". Definitely more than the average team out there.

Sometimes, everything has to be leveled to the ground before it's rebuilt again. Everything comes full circle, it will get better again.

drg · 02-04-2010, 02:03 AM

Well surely part of this is paintball's inability to achieve a higher national profile as a sport.

shadawg · 02-04-2010, 02:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ir0nExpress

I'm assuming delta got hit hard by this?

You guys are great in person, seen you guys play and sit out teching guns for SP, it probably does suck that all of you ended up as "just another sponsored team". Definitely more than the average team out there.

Sometimes, everything has to be leveled to the ground before it's rebuilt again. Everything comes full circle, it will get better again.

Actually, quite the opposite. We are just pointing out what has become painfully obvious to us yet has not been addressed by those with the power to fix it. It is an issue that is he proverbial pink elephant in the room.

On a whole Delta's position has been to create marketing agreements instead of. Pursuing traditional sponsorship paths as they are equally beneficial to ourselves and the companies we work with and for.
We make it a rule to only do business with companies we believe in and back that belief with our reputation. We also put a premium on loyalty, ours and the companies we work with. In that aspect I like to think we are less mercenary than your average marketing team.
Our dedication to that principal is reflected in our sig banners.

heinous · 02-04-2010, 02:29 AM

edit: nevermind, probably too blunt.

Horizon · 02-04-2010, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shadawg

Actually, quite the opposite. We are just pointing out what has become painfully obvious to us yet has not been addressed by those with the power to fix it. It is an issue that is he proverbial pink elephant in the room.

And thank you for that. Paintball store owners have been pointing this out to manufacturers for years. Things like making "sponsored" teams buy gear at wholesale prices and then mandating they buy several more units with which they can do whatever they want, realy hurts the retailers. Smoretimes "sponsored" teams have the ability to buy many extra units which they then flog on buy/sell forums to fund their teams. It's bypassing the traditional retailers which has put them in a position where they can't support themselves. The flooding of the market with cheap gear has created a condition where retailers are forced to close their doors. That's not good for the industry as a whole and is a big reason that last paintball store in your city closed up shop.

Cockerpunk · 02-04-2010, 09:58 AM

on the sponsorship bit, i agree.

but i disagree that the paintball industry has lowered the bar in other respects. in every way i can think of, i think the paintball industry has been moving forward, building better product, better design, better reliably, more professional customer service, better marketing and product control models, all together moving in the right direction. maybe the sponsorship bit is exactly right, with the market out of its "if you make it they will buy it" mentality, teams and players have had to put up or shut up when it comes to sponsorship.

sadly, the minute SP seemed to be doing the same was when they died out. the shocker for 500 with a multimode board isn't a half bad gun, and the vibe/sp1 were solid.

if they could figure out that slowing down a spool valve doesn't make it more efficient, and that rollback is a serious cause of loading fractures, there guns would have done much better.

02-04-2010, 12:23 AM	#1 (permalink)
delta paintball Mr. Republican Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: South Jersey	Lowering the Bar. Let’s start things off by first explaining what the bar is. There used to be a standard by which excellence was measured in paintball. If you dared to push yourself hard enough and reach your fullest potential, you were looked at as being apart from your peers. This wasn’t a mark of elitism, but an example of reaching accomplishment within the industry. The industry recognized this by holding these people up as the embodiment of those that set themselves apart with their dedication. As you look out across the landscape of the industry today, it is fairly evident to anyone who cares to see that the paradigm has changed. While nobody was watching, the industry lowered the bar. Now ask yourself, why would they do that? Is it because the standards that were once so difficult to obtain have been achieved by the majority of the players in the sport? Is it because greatness stalks the field in more numbers then any other time in paintball? Hardly, in actuality what you’re seeing is the encouragement of everyone being special, or as we like refer to it, the gold star standard. The reality of the situation is that there are better players, but the industry is lowering the bar to push sales. What does that mean to you, the player in laymen’s terms? The industry has taken the reward of sponsorship and turned it into nothing more than a coupon book to make a sale. Yet, those of you who may very well have a “sponsorship”, may be saving some money but really you are no better off then shopping at a Black Friday sale. The whole gimmick behind the sponsorship is the company saying to you the player, “hey, you are special, and we are going to give you a special price on a special product because you are special.” Now what’s really funny is that the industry is crying that they are making no money, in reality they are creating the entitlement attitude that a majority of players today suffer from, this behavior is a self fulfilling prophecy that each and every player is special, and therefore they shouldn’t be spending the money that the companies so desperately need to get by. Alright players, it is time to bruise some egos and be bluntly honest. Take a look around, how many players do you know that have a sponsor in their signature on PbNation alone. How many of these teams have you heard of beyond your local market? Our guess is less then 1% is known outside of their market. This brings into question why do sponsorships exist in the first place, and the answer is marketability. You take a team that is known for excellence by the old standard and add to that their presence beyond their home market, and that is marketability. Marketability for a sponsorship means exposure for products over a wide base audience. If your team doesn’t have a greater appeal beyond your local market, to what benefit does a sponsor drive. And this requires introspection on your part. If you are not adding to the bottom line for a company by raising their visibility and you are in a cash plus position on your end, the only thing you are doing for that company is adding to their sales volume on a personal basis. You are not having any affect on their advertising, you are not bringing in any new customers, all you are doing is becoming another sale, and this is where you have to be honest with yourself. To the industry by and large the only way to right this ship, is to return expectations to the original model. Don’t be afraid to tell somebody that they are not good enough. It is because you have not stood up and forced your expectations that the entitlement era of paintball began. You need full volume sales, and cutting the throat of your dealer network by pushing direct sales to customers you would otherwise have under the guise of a sponsorship undermines the sales force you have built. We can not tell you how often we have seen players walk into a brick and mortar store and demand special pricing because they have been told that they are special, which stems from the entitlement atmosphere which you have promoted to your own detriment. To be frank, you are sponsoring too many teams, and you have diluted the definition of excellence. George Shaffer \| Josh Foote Delta Paintball, Inc. Delta Paintball Team __________________ "Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies." Because Winning Counts. Last edited by delta paintball; 02-04-2010 at 12:00 PM. Reason: Grammatical Error.

02-04-2010, 12:34 AM	#2 (permalink)
Walking_Target Post Whore Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: ON, Canada	'Excellence' by those standards is any group of 3-10 players who can cough up enough dough for the 'sponsorship' packages put together by big companies or distrubutors. The worst offender up here is Badlands. You get 5 guys who can cough up the cash for a pod pack and gun, and you have a Badlands sponsored team. let's face it, the old days of being able to point to the local team and see a group of guys who are working hard, drilling every weekend and improving, just to GET a sponsorship are over. The days when seeing a "sponsored" team on the field that you really did have to watch out for are over now too. When I do bother to play at a regular field, i see teams or individuals, many of whom are bragging about their sponsorships and have no right to be that cocky; not with the way they 'play'. __________________

02-04-2010, 01:48 AM	#5 (permalink)
Ir0nExpress Back to paintball. Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: New York	I'm assuming delta got hit hard by this? You guys are great in person, seen you guys play and sit out teching guns for SP, it probably does suck that all of you ended up as "just another sponsored team". Definitely more than the average team out there. Sometimes, everything has to be leveled to the ground before it's rebuilt again. Everything comes full circle, it will get better again. __________________ MCarterBrown Feedback (+112/-0) Automags.org Feedback (+16/-0) Pbnation Feedback(+16/-0)

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02-04-2010, 02:03 AM	#6 (permalink)
drg Banned Join Date: Mar 2007	Well surely part of this is paintball's inability to achieve a higher national profile as a sport.

02-04-2010, 09:58 AM	#10 (permalink)
Cockerpunk Banned Join Date: Jul 2006	on the sponsorship bit, i agree. but i disagree that the paintball industry has lowered the bar in other respects. in every way i can think of, i think the paintball industry has been moving forward, building better product, better design, better reliably, more professional customer service, better marketing and product control models, all together moving in the right direction. maybe the sponsorship bit is exactly right, with the market out of its "if you make it they will buy it" mentality, teams and players have had to put up or shut up when it comes to sponsorship. sadly, the minute SP seemed to be doing the same was when they died out. the shocker for 500 with a multimode board isn't a half bad gun, and the vibe/sp1 were solid. if they could figure out that slowing down a spool valve doesn't make it more efficient, and that rollback is a serious cause of loading fractures, there guns would have done much better.