CONTRACT KILLA, ASR, BAD BOY UGH....

Ok so if you read our older posts, i have been ranting on what we do, where did we go wrong, how we should fix things, all that krap . The past week i have watching the news like a midget on the toilet (on my toes) on this current news on bailouts, debates, Chargers! the pbnation, the pbreserve, the view and all that. I see something brewin! If you just want to scroll down and see the video we took at the ASR with Todd, Cuba and me where we find out the CEO aka PSP event Organizer, was in fact THE Bad Boy Booty Model. Ah fun times!

ON RECENT PBN BASHER FILES

From Lane Wright (or he call himself Lane Wright):
First, I absolutely applaud your post. That is all I ever ask for. People can hate everything we do and criticize every decision we make, so long as they back it up with reason. I may debate their reasoning with my own. But, I accept everyone has their own way of thinking.

Two of my most prized confidants today were people who totally bashed PSP on the Internet years ago. But both did it with logic and rational thought behind their rants (even though they were almost always wrong). Chris Raehl and Paul Richards wrote more BS about me than anyone. But they always included a reason why they felt like they did. They are two of the people who's opinion I respect the most, today.

The pricing structure is simple - it is there to protect us from having people only attend WC. The fact of the matter is that 3 of our 5 events are marginally productive for sponsors, at best. It could be argued that the World Cup is the only event that sponsors get true value in their sponsorship. I don't necessarily agree. But I can see the argument.

But another fact is that if sponsors decided to pull out of the year long sponsorship and only come to WC, PSP would never make it to WC. So I structure the program to discourage that. Everyone who wants to be anyone has to be at Cup. The pricing is such that it makes sense to almost everyone who is of the sponsoring level to sponsor the season, as opposed to just attending the WC.

The difference in price of "vendor booth" vs "sponsor layouts" based on the additional perks sponsors get. Logo on website, banners at events, mentions at grand stand field, announcements to our data base, etc.

Being that we had to draw a line of what we referred to as vendor level and sponsor level, and it needed to be more than just the area people used, I decided that once a truck/trailer with awnings, signage, etc were involved it would go into the "sponsor level". It seemed legit to me. At the time everyone who would be inclined to sponsor us brought traveling display trucks and everyone who had traveling display trucks were people who looked at sponsorship level involvement.

The $17,500 comes from an effort to protect the other sponsors. In this particular case, Planet and CP. They pay an amount of money to sponsor us each year. This money gets them an amount of space at each of the 5 events and various other things to help promote their brand. Obviously, this cost of space is not even/equal for all events. Certainly it is understood that WC is worth more than NEO. My breakdown allots almost $14,000 of the total money Planet/CP pays for the year to their space at World Cup. To protect them and show appreciation for their support for the whole year, when someone new comes in and wants the same space at WC, they will be priced at 25% more than a season sponsor paid for the same space.

So, this isn't an attempt to protect the owners. It is an attempt to protect the existing sponsors. In this case, a non-owner gun manufacturer, who started very small and grew, in part because they were willing to pay the price to get their stuff out in front of people, and I hope, to a smaller degree, because people who run events think ahead enough to protect them when they support us.

Just to take it a step farther - we do the same thing when people sponsor at one level and then want to increase to the higher level at World Cup. And we do it to EVERYBODY.

KEE (who is an owner in PSP) sponsored PSP at the Gold level this year. They want a Platinum size spot for World Cup. To protect DYE and SP as Platinum sponsors, KEE will pay an additional money to have that space at World Cup. An additional $12,000, as a matter of fact. That's the price charged to an OWNER, who has already paid $50,000 to attend and sponsor their own events.

And lastly, I am saying here and now - the owners who sponsor PSP (DYE, SP, KEE) absolutely pay exactly what others pay for identical sponsorship. They pay the exact same for their teams entry fees. They pay the exact same late fees if they miss deadlines. They pay the exact same additions if they upgrade in space. This is no "petty dispute" or "old grudge". I have no ill will towards Bobby or BLAST, at all. The fact that he chose not to sponsor the league didn't bother me in the slightest. I am well aware of the economics of paintball this year. People have to make decisions based on their business plans and the best interest of their company. That's what I am doing. That's what Bobby is doing. If Rennick Miller (an owner) wanted to bring Shocktech to World Cup with his trailer and asked for the same area that BLAST wanted, he absolutely would have been given the EXACT same price. I guarantee that as my word. He got a similar price for Chicago and decided not to attend. It was too expensive for his company. He's an owner and one of my best friends. But he didn't attend the event in the capacity he wanted and we didn't change the price structure. The point is that BLAST is being treated no different than some of the owners of PSP - fairly.

On that point, I guarantee that Bob didn't write a check for his personal gun. I guarantee that Opie doesn't fork over cash for a case of Draxxus paint. I am certain that Rob Staudinger doesn't pay the walk-on fee if he plays at a PBC field. I feel sure that if Dale wants a CP barrel on one of his guns he just takes a CP barrel and puts it on his gun. But, at PSP, the guys who own the company pay to attend the events just like everyone else. They also pony up when the company lose's money. They also haven't collected a single penny from PSP since it's inception, except to pay back a couple of loans they gave to cover prize money. They also sponsor, in one way or another, a good 60% of the teams who play in the league. They pay to remove one of the obstacles others would have when trying to decide to support the league.

It baffles me that no one ever seems to respect or appreciate that. But my Lord people will jump at the chance to claim they are screwing someone at every chance they get. It is EXTREMELY discouraging.

I am sure this is a bit jumbled. I am certain you could look through here and find somewhere that my math didn't make sense. I'm extremely busy and tried to explain something that took me months to come up with in 10 minutes. And I'm just not very bright. But, I think the jest of the effort is obvious. I am trying to protect PSP by protecting the people who commit - to the level that we need from them - to sustaining PSP. The fact that it benefits owners is simply because they are also paying sponsors. And there are times when this same protection policy works against an owner just as it would anyone else.

I hope the fact that I am willing to come on here and spill so much of our business shows something. I'm hiding nothing. I make mistakes. I make mistakes because I do a lot of things and, quite frankly, I'm in over my head from time to time. But I don't screw people. There are no hidden agendas. There are no schemes to keep anyone out. The fact that one or two people may be kept out because of the plan is the price we pay to keep 6 or 8 people in.

Again, I do, sincerely, appreciate your last post. I hope this reply made enough sense for you to understand what I am trying to do. Obviously, there are far more details than what I would be able to put into a post, and probably more than I would be willing to put out to the public. That's not secretive, just prudent. But, if there is a time AFTER World Cup that you think you want a little better explanation, I'll try. For now, I am busy. I am tired. And I have a lot of work to do. This will have to do.


Edit added: I just got off the phone with Bob. Straight from his mouth to me, he simply cannot afford to attend. Our price, the travel costs, the employee costs, and the missed time in the shop make it cost prohibitive. There is no inference that there is a plot against anyone, no belief that I do things anyway but fairly, no hard feelings at all. It is quite simply an economic decision. And, sadly, one that reflects the state of the industry today.

From Brandon Lambertson:
I think paintball is definitely in a slump PARTLY because of the economy, but I have to agree with New Englander, I don't see paintball going mainstream either, at least not with the way things are set up now.. Paintball isn't dead, and it isn't going to die, but it's not headed towards mainstream either. Now first, let's understand the meaning of mainstream as it relates to paintball. We obviously are not going to rival the NFL or the MLB, or the NBA as far as it's mass appeal and media attention...etc., but we can and should be able to rival the sports most like us, as far as popularity. Not just in the market place and with yearly participant numbers, but with fan base and media attention. The problem is, we don't. Some of that is because of the multiple formats, and lack of one set of rules and regulations. Some of it is because of the inability to film and show paintball properly on TV to new comers. Some of it is because we haven't sold our pro players as true professionals and built any interest in them as athletes. More importantly, I personally believe it's because of this entire industries infrastructure...or lack there of.

Paintball was never ready for the boom we had, and we aren't ready for another one if we are fortunate enough to have one. There have been too many bad apples floating around in our Kool-Aid. I think it's definitely time for changes in this industry. The problem is, no one wants to work with anyone because that could mean giving up their piece of the pie

From a guy named "New Englander"
After lurking for quite some time this topic finally got me interested enough to register and reply.

This is the same old same old in regards to discussion. Absolutely nothing has changed all that much over the years.

Paintball is not going to progress past where it is currently. This has been beat to death over the years. First it was - "Wait till it's out of the woods." Then it was "We need someone in the entertainment world to take notice." It has always been "We need to get people in the stands."

It came out of the woods in regards to tournament paintball, great. In all reality we seem to have lost a bit of the fun. You can only move an airball bunker field around so many times before it feels like - "Been there done that." After multiple use....even the airball bunkers start looking like garbage.

Dick Clark and others came and went and absolutely nothing really sustaining ever came of it.

People in the stands? How are you going to get 20 and up men to come watch a bunch of "agg" acting kids play paintball, are they going to pay and actually spend money on merchandise? 20 and up men do not want to emulate children. Tournament paintball has not traversed in a direction that is marketable to an audience that can and will spend money to view it.

There just are way too many different top teams playing too many different formats. There is way too much player jumping and guesting. What team are you going to follow now? Wait...how many of those guys play for a different team in a different format? This is all too confusing.

It's not going to change guys. Your never going to get the public to come out and watch a national paintball tournament. Your never really going to get widespread "pro's" in this game that are true to the word. As in actually get paid to play paintball - not get the winnings.

Enjoy what it is....help clean up the garbage of a mess it is now but just enjoy it.

Anyway... Not Bashing just havin fun.. these days all we can do is smile and weather the storm. On with the vid.

RIPPLE.

WALL STREET GOT NO SKEET

NEW YORK - "Stocks retreated sharply and Treasury bond prices jumped Monday as investors reacted to a stunning reshaping of the landscape of Wall Street that took out two storied names: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 300 points."
What does this mean to paintball? Honestly allot! I will explain a 2 year ripple effect that generated in paintball that I have argued before that the industry has to make legitimate stands before things go in the shitter.
Before I start off, Brandon Lambertson went on a cruise over the weekend to build brand recognition and smooch with the bigger-ups like financial wizards, models, men who have to pay there way to get laid and so on. Anyways, what an ass.

This weekend I played at the world famous SC Village to get my sweat on, watch players and see how paintball progressed in the this nature. I found it still moving but not as grand as it was in the past. People still play with no mention of sport, but camaraderie and all around good fun. As we were divided into teams, I began to try to mix with the regulars and not get picked on or typecast to help alleviated a awkward balance of how the groups are divided. As usual, I got to the side where the other group looked to be outgunned, out equipped, and out-experience. My little group of 6 ninjas decided to come out of hiding and said that we will go on the other side. I began to hear sigh of reliefs and groans as we walked to the other side. My buddies are trying to wonder why we are led to sheep-side and i said, "We all need to have fun, we all need to have a good story of paintball when they go back to their lives on Monday. Plus its paintball, we all can play again." They agreed and we let our 6 mingle in with the 75 or so to involve them in to slaughter.
Ok, back to ripples. Not allot has seen what had happened over the two past Christmas seasons, but there has been a huge explosion of online games and other game formats to help generate the "in-house athlete." Everything from Halo 3, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and so on has making its way to help "forget" playing outside, forget paintball. Now, I'm not saying this is a conspiracy to defeat paintball, I'm stating the fact that a 60.00 game can go along way than a case of paint on a Sunday. Now seeing this, stores begin to feel the noose on their necks as people are slow to come in stores. What begins to happen next is obvious and cowardly. Stores begin to slash prices just to get people in the door realizing that it is now getting into the margin of paying the electric and employees. Industry decides to do the same because of manufacturing also needs to get paid for new products and overhead and so forth.
Then stores begin to die. They carry way too much product, not enough demand. The buyer becomes aware of cheap deals, and more stores literally giving away product to make ends meet. So now here comes a wave of great valued products at lower than wholesale prices and can be delivered with free shipping and it keeps... rippling. The stores that are surviving, are merely surviving on paint. and now there great inventory is not moving. which means more sales. I use to have a 500 dealer base around the country and now down to 200. We thought it was just us telling people we are slowing down and knowing that our competitors kept pushing the "Hybrid is dead" agenda in hope to create a better demand for their product. Call it smear tactic. Remember in high school when the girl your trying to mix- it-up with wont give it up so you later on to make your self feel better, you promote to the school that she is a whore? Yea, I'm the whore. So back to ripples!!! industry is now fighting for the same store giving them whatever to make sales and quickly for get because we are all on survival mode, to promote paintball as a sport, a sport of leisure, a sport of release, a sport of team efforts, a great sport of all ages.
So hear is a sport with their demographics wrapped around their finger. A group that expands to even senior citizens and now slowly, dying. While skate boarding is steadfast because they see future and future is bright. As skateboarders get older they stop skating. So they promote more on youth organizations and media attention. As a paintballer gets older, fuck we still play!! As other industry looks at their demographics, their future, they work on awareness and stability. Not the quick buck which will lead to countless issues of disaster. Its like paintball player of old, the sport is so great, we lose jobs, girls, even opportunity for it.
So now sales are down, industry is down. Mags cannot keep advertisers in. Magazine went from a plus size chicken grease wearing big booty model, to a 85 lb. toilet paper-eating, bulimic crack-laced wannabe 50 yr old who now cannot figure out how she got where she is now... Now the magazine dies... no media, no spectacle....ripple continues.

Now the banks you use that you put your hard earned money in, uses that money to work on special interests to help make banks make more money. This can be from real estate to private international wars. Don't believe me, look it up. For this, they give you, interest. Allot of people don't ask what happens to their money as they give it to their banks because they assume it just stays there.
Now, investors are putting money in media frenzied events and or people. More exposure more they want into what you are doing. For example: Monster.
Its all about media, exposure, fan base, news, spectacles, information, longevity and commitment
With no news, no exposure, allot of politics and no future for newer business to make money, why would anyone be part of it. Maybe the Marine corp, but they too have an agenda bigger than ours.
Where is your money now? What do we do? For now, just play.

A LAMB IN WOLVES CLOTHING

I have been into paintball since 1989 and over the years I have been apart of some really great historical paintball moments. I witnessed pump guns go from 12 gram CO2 and ten round tubes to constant air and full size loaders to being modified into semi-auto guns which lead to the actual production of semi auto guns. I saw loaders go from gravity feed to home made motorized self feeding loaders and then into actual production loaders by ViewLoader. I saw masks go from shop goggles to the first JT protective half masks to full face protection. I watched and was apart of the EPIC battle for the title of the best gun in paintball, between WGP's Autococker and AGD's Automag, which gave birth to some of paintballs greatest airsmiths/tech who went on to create some of the greatest products paintball has ever seen. I was working in a paintball store in California when the first Spyder debuted. I saw the dawn of the electronic gun age with the Angel. Hell I owned one of the first Angles to ever make it's way to the United states. I was apart of the movement when paintball came out of the woods and stepped onto the first HyperBall fields. I watched as fields became inflatable when Sup Air made fields where the bunkers were inflated and connected to each other by tubes. I played the last ten man game ever played by the NPPL/PSP with the SC Iromen and I won the World Championship title that same year with them. I watched as two leagues became separate and started their rivalry. I played the very first Xball game and thought I was going to die from exhaustion. I was apart of the team (Miami Effect/Infamous) that broke the rules and the contracts and walked away from the NXL to play in the NPPL. That single act broke the divide between the two leagues long enough to allow the NXL teams to be able to play both leagues and compete against the other pro teams again like it had been in the past. Ive worked in stores, at fields, at manufactures and distributors. I owned my own paintball store for ten years. I had my own line of products out for eight. I played pro for six. I have came up with and contributed to some of the products that helped make the industry what it is today, like the present day weight belt style harness, the first bolt redesign of the original Matrix to what became the now DM series, the "screw apart" two piece barrels as well as many more products. I am fortunate enough to be able to call people like Rich Telford, Chris Lasoya, Matty Marshal, Davey Willamson, Adam Johnson, Billy Wing, Yosh Rau, Andy Kopcok, Jon Richardson, Travis Lemanski, Mike Paxson, Ron Kilbourne, Josh Davey, Zack Long, and many others, not only past teammates, but friends.


I have witnessed some of the greatest things in the history of paintball, but I have also witnessed some of the shadiest, back stabbing, two faced moves you could ever imagine. I have a lot of dirt on a lot of people and I have always, for the most part, kept my mouth shut. But there comes a time when enough is enough and people need to know what is going on not only behind their backs, but for the most part, right in front of their face. I have always been a loyal and honest person. Other than when I left the BushWackers (who were amatuer at the time) to play with the pro team, SC Ironmen, I never left ANY of my teams for better offers, even when I wouldn't have been looked down upon for doing so. I always stuck it out through the good and the bad and trust me, there were some SERIOUSLY bad times. I believed in the concept that everything happens for a reason and that people are rewarded for their good acts and punished for their bad. While that may be a novel concept in the real world, it does not apply in the paintball industry. It seems that in paintball, the good die young and the bad....well lets just say the bad seem to make out pretty damn well. I am somewhat guilty of being apart of a lot of the bad that has happened in this industry simply due to the fact that I have known about it and I didn't say anything or try to change it, even though I was not reaping any benefits by doing so. I just thought it was better to go with the flow and not cause any waves for myself, my teams, or my paintball related businesses. Now that I'm not involved in the paintball industry anymore, I have no loyalties to anyone but myself and the players left behind in the shit storm that is modern paintball.

Many people have come and gone throughout the history of this sport and I can't honestly think of one of them that made a significant long term change for the better, something that continues to this day positively. People have tried, but nothing has stuck. Now if your thinking about people who made an industry changing product that positively changed the way the game is played and the way things are bought and sold, then your not talking about what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about a revolutionary product. I'm talking about why paintball isn't really growing and why it hasn't been received well by the public. The same public in which every single one of us came from. Why have other extreme sports like skateboarding, bmx, snowboarding, motocross, and MMA to name a few, had such immense success in a relative short amount of time? Paintball has been around for about as long as most of those sports and longer than others, yet those sports have all gained greater public acceptance, status, growth and financial stability over paintball. All we get to hold onto, is a couple years worth of having the numbers show we were growing faster than other sports, but where did that fast unsustained growth actually get us in the big scheme of things.

We are still a self sustained industry with very little true outside interest or help in the form of sponsor dollars. Why is that? Is it as simple as just not having the right industry infrastructure, the proper game format, or media outlets? If so, who's fault is that and why isn't it being fixed? Why have we not really done as well as those other sports in the over 20 years that we have been around? Why after 20 years are the same main companies, for the most part, still the ones that "control" the industry? Is there a correlation there? Why haven't more outside companies come into this, "near" billion dollar industry? Why isn't paintball on TV because of its own viewer strength and not because its being paid for by the industry? I mean, if every paintball player in the U.S. tuned into a show, those numbers alone would keep a show aired. Why don't players support the shows on TV? Why do we waste money playing paintball in the parking lots of football stadiums pretending that its making a difference in the eyes of the public and drawing in outside interest? Why are there two leagues spending so much time and money fighting each other in a battle to be the premiere league that the world will recognize as such when paintball goes mainstream, when there is so much ground work still left to be done before we even get there? Why is the ENTIRE referee organization completely unorganized and inconsistent? Why aren't more than a hand full of the best players in the world recognized and promoted for all the hard work they have put in and continue to everyday? Why cant you look up your favorite pro player and find out his game statistics and see for yourself that he is seen as a great player because of the numbers he puts up, not because he has a cool catch phrase or sweet headband fashion and is good at getting himself in front of every camera that it clicks off a shot? Why is being a total dick to other people on the field, cool and becomi ng the norm? Why is cheating considered "just part of the game"? Why do manufactures and distributors help open and then sell products to two rival stores, less than 5 miles apart from each other? Why do dealers slash their prices and devalue products because their stores are slow due to their own incompetence.....and why does the industry allow that?

These and many more, are all questions that not only need to be addressed, but that I believe I truly have SOME answers to. I know I don't have all the answers and I don't pretend to, but I believe I have some, and I welcome ANYONE to add to them or even correct mine. That is the type of thinking that has been lost in this industry. There is too much inner fighting and little to no cooperation. Everyone thinks they have the only answer. People aren't willing to swallow their pride. If they would stop fighting each other over all the little scraps that paintball has become and started working together, then they would all have a much bigger piece of a much bigger pie.

Brandon Lambertson

THIS is FUN!!!! But I should not laugh..

Since i have been doing this... well, as long as i can remember, the story telling is a lot more unique knowing that it may never be on the pages of a magazine or a prestigious internet website. Hangin out this past weekend with MMA industry folk and attending x-treme sports seminars... i have begun to realize when the panel brings up moto-x, skateboarding, bla bla bla then MMA, i have begun to realize that paintball was never and is never part of what these people as the general anti-established-felt testosterone, anti corporate industry. Hmmm, I thought, why is that? Did we believe to ourselves in our own world we were kings of something? Did we all forget to be out of the box and produce the media attention that made the X-games industry survive?? I remember talking to Adam Gardner and his mission to put XBall on TV and made some great success and advancements in the forward progress of paintball. He tells me there quirks of making it better however, he invited everyone to participate and put there teams and industry brands together so it was worthwhile. Through it all, no one backed the brothers and show still went on which made to look like they were monopolizing the TV and sport. People simply did not want to involve themselves because if it failed, they want to point some fingers. Unity, like the xgames with their sanctioning committees and industry committees have involved everybody to get a grip on the future of their sport build strategic foundations with group foundations to help the awareness of the industry to the rash public and its own media. College paintball is sick!! That is what paintball should look like and we all should support it.Rock music was said to never survive, but here it is. Skateboarding in not a sport in fact its still called a crime in some cities, but here they are, a sport, an X-treme spectacle, on fuckin TV. Remember that this billion dollar industry makes shirts, shorts, shoes, and a damn board that has not been but wood, bearings and wheels. After all that, they pay their dues to promote the sport. What have we done?? Kill the industry, Slash prices to kill stores, false advertising and promote false agendas. Law suits to monopolize and or reduce the plan of another manufacturer. Provide no sanctioning guidelines and yearly meetings for all manufactures to provide goals.

Infamous beating the Russians (5 tired vs 15 fresh comrades) should have been glorified as well as Rashad Evans putting the beatdown on Chuck Liddel

Later i got some bad and good news about our paintball but remind you that once read we all can laugh and be judgmental but at the end... Lets make it better. If I name names like Todd Martinez or Keely Watson before news gets out I really dont know what might happen.. I'm just a reporter with rights that involve the truth. Seek the truth, dont click and paste what is told you to be the truth.