The Wild World of TB!

So I have been monitoring this website since it was sent to me over a week ago. And I must say after looking into it and reading more and more about it, I just have to say that this website is a bunch of bullshit. The premise sounds good, and what is that premise you might ask? Well it is simple, you sign up for this website and you get 'sponsored' by some of the best companies out there. Now the current economic status of paintball notwithstanding, is getting a discount really a sponsorship and is 10 to 30% off a product worth $39.95? Some might say yes, however let's take a look at it and see what there really is behind the scenes.

First and foremost the site is www.pbsponsor.com and who runs it? Well I don't know since the domain is registered via proxy and there is no contact information except for email addresses. There is no physical address or phone number for that matter nor is there any contact person that you can call or hold accountable should they not offer the services that they claim to offer. Now they have been posting on my favorite paintball forum as Jamie Slaughter and his little brother who is an Army 'combat' veteran but talks like a 16 year old. But I digress, the simple fact is; who are these people and how do you get a hold of them, once they get your money?

And then let's move on to another point; what do you get for your money? The people behind the company would have you believe that you simply sign up on their website and submit your information and poof you get a sponsorship. When you get offered the sponsorship you pay them $39.95 and then you get it. Now the sponsorships are individual and not team related. Meaning my team of 13 would have to pay $39.95 each to get the same Redz sponsorship. Now how is that a sponsorship again? Now for the remainder of a year you will get other 'sponsorship' offers from companies all outside paintball as well. Sounds great right? I mean 20% off a hotel stay, 15% off a coupon to Denny's, you know the important stuff. Oh and they are flying some pretty big logos like KEE and DXS and Planet E. But you have to ask yourself, what are those companies getting out of it?

What do I mean? Well as a scenario player who was on a team FULLY sponsored by two major gun manufacturers and other companies, there has to be a trade of value. Meaning they are paying you in goods to provide them a service which is normally awards, won games for tourney players and general in your face advertising. They pay you to rep them to the paintball world. Now, this company comes along and offers to be the middle man and caters mostly to the new and naive players who think that sponsorship is super important (it isn't but that is another blog) and that they can pay someone $39.95 and magically start adding logos to their paintball jersey. The question I have is that in every instance of sponsorship, I had a full length contract sent to me. Me and my team looked at it, discussed it and signed it. That was the only way to get a real sponsorship. These days everyone is 'sponsored' by some company and what that means is wholesale pricing that anyone can get if they open a dealer account.

In fact, if I had to bet on anything, that is what this is. The people behind the company have accounts with several manufacturers and they provide you with the 'sponsorship' which is their price and they make their money off the $39.95. I am quite sure that the sponsorships are very limited, meaning you wont have the full stable of products offered up, simply the product that they choose to sponsor you with. Then again it could be that this guy has convinced some of these people that he will send them X number of customers and what kind of deal will they give him? Again, this is only as good as the company who stands to make the most money and that company is the nameless, faceless people behind this farce.

They spent hours defending themselves on PB Nation and the best that they could muster is try it out. They never really answered the questions and simply tried to passive-aggressively push back that these people asking the questions were somehow to blame for people not getting sponsored today. That's pretty bogus if you ask me and so is this website. Just because Paintball X3 is running an ad doesn't mean shit to me, according to them that makes them 'legitmate'. I'll stick to doing sponsorship the old fashioned way and thats meet the people who make the decisions, pitch to them what I and my team can do for them and go from there. We already have a dealer account with several companies so no thanks on the whole sale pricing there Mr. 'PB Sponsor'.

However in the end, I am sure, like the playing paintball in the island paradise a few years back that everyone was swearing was legitimate and had sponsors and more, this too will be proved to be a false ad and yet another attempt of someone to fleece another guy of his hard earned money. As for me, no thank you. And if you were a smart person (which most people who visit here are) then you would stay the fuck away from it too. Make sure you pass this on to your friends unless you just want them to get fucked.