The Wild World of TB!

Yes, another post here about PB Nation and this one in a vein that has nothing to do with Scenario Paintball but it should show the 'average' scenario paintball player the scum that runs PB Nation and the hypocritical attitude of Ed and his staff. Now I am not an expert in the NPPL vs PB Nation debacle, however, I have read quite a bit about it the last few days including giving Ed some trafic by reading page after page of the posts on his website. In fact, this article will probably send some more traffic his way, but people need to read for themselves what this ass gnome loves to say and how his little jock holding staff that call themselves mods and admins defend his manifestos'.

So let's start with what started this 'War' between NPPL and PB Nation, shall we? This is the quote from Ed that started the whole damn thing:

Why we are closing the NPPL Forum and blocking the NPPL web cast

Sometimes you just have to take stand. This is one of those times.

We just learned that our friends from Monkey with a Gun and all the other paintball filmmakers have been locked out of center court for filming during the entire Boston event.

The short story is that the NPPL President has cut a deal with Fox to put the event on TV but this deal excludes all of the paintball filmmakers from access to the center court. They can film all the other courts just not the center court. All of you know how important the center court is to a NPPL event. This is the first time in many years that the hard working, dedicated individuals who promote our industry with great paintball films have been locked out of filming on the main field.

This season many of you have noticed that we have greatly reduced our coverage and support of the NPPL series and now we feel that we have to completely end our coverage and support of this series.

Enough is enough.

So to that end we have placed the live broadcast sites, the home page and others on the swear filter and we are also going to close and lock the NPPL forum in a few days.

We hope that you will understand and support this decision and also voice your opinion to the owners and management of the league so perhaps things can be turned around.

As always your continued support is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ed
President
PbNation LLC

And if you want to go and read it straight from the source and the page upon page of his admins and mods then go here: http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=2272705

Now what does this mean according to people who aren't mesmerized by Ed and his power in paintball? Well according to quite a few people it all came down to NPPL signing a media agreement with Fox Sports to have exclusive access to the center court at NPPL events. Now you heard that correct, Fox Sports. Not some fly by night film production company or some company who makes money selling DVD's of events, no a live production company that is in the business of sports production on a international level. Who would have thought that was 'bad' for paintball, right?

Well the rumors run down that Ed was involved with Monkey With A Gun (MWAG) and had some sort of alliance or (knowing Ed) a monetary agreement on DVD's sold and advertising on PB Nation. And this directly effected Der Der and MWAG who's main meat of business is DVD's of tournament paintball events. Now do you think that these yahoo's would have tried to get agreements with the NPPL before Fox Sport's did giving them exclusive rights? Of course not because then they would have had to pay the NPPL some money rather then ripping off the event by taping the event and then selling it. And Ed wanted to step into this and 'stand up' for the little guy? Yeah right!

Ed has stated time and time again, that PB Nation is his website and he can say or do whatever the hell he pleases. He is in the business of making money and that people who try to affect his money, his business or his family, well let's just say he thinks he is Tony Soprano when it comes to how he wants it dealt with. However he wants to charge people to post news and press releases, he wants to charge scenario promoters to post their events, he wants to charge fields to post their events and he wants to charge tournaments for posting their events. Seems Ed needs money worse then a hawg needs slop, and as I have pointed out, I don't understand why, I mean he makes quite a bit of money. Based on the research I have done, here is another set of figures to add about PB Nation.

You remember I mentioned his affiliate money right? Well let's look at what he gets from paintball, shall we? This is a quote from Paintball Journal:

First source of income: Supporting Members. I estimate the average rate of supporting membership is something like 1.5% of all registered members on PBNation. If that is true, then they are all paying $30 a year for that privilege.

PBNation has 388,000 members. That’s nearly 6,000 supporting members if my rate is close. That is…

$175,000 per year from supporting memberships.

That’s chump change compared to what they pull in from ads, though. I did a quick tally of their ads this month, and emailed them about their rates for advertisements. At the current rates, they’re raking in over $30,000 a month from the number of ads that I saw when I counted.

Assuming that the number of ads stays relatively the same throughout the year, I feel safe in saying…

$360,000 per year from advertisements.

That’s $535,000 per year total. Now, THAT is why I feel it’s a damn good thing that they’ve finally found it in their hearts to give back to the paintball community that’s made them what they are. Even with server costs and paying people to run the business side of things, it’s still an incredibly lucrative business, much more than anyone would suspect.

So a half million dollars from paintball, and you wonder why he went after the NPPL for not giving the little guy their due? But let's look at what other people had to say about the NPPL vs PB Nation debacle shall we?

http://paintballheadlines.com/2007/07/15/pbnation-to-nppl-were-hypocrites/

http://paintballheadlines.com/2007/07/17/pbnation-to-nppl-were-sorry-kinda/

http://paintballheadlines.com/2007/07/18/sd-feature-pbnation-sponsored/

http://www.paintballguns.net/nppl/pbnationcom-bans-nppl-who-should-be-crying/

http://www.paintballjournal.net/pbnation-vs-nppls-fox-deal/

http://www.paintballguns.net/paintballgunsnet-news/pbnation-did-it-again/

and finally my good buddy Dale,

http://www.68caliber.com/features/editorials/story042516.php

So what's the deal Ed? All these guys 'bitter' as well?

But here is where the news gets to be more current rather then ancient history. On Thursday of last week, this press release was sent out by NPPL and PB Nation:

"The National Professional Paintball League and PbNation are releasing this joint statement to the paintball community to inform the community that after several discussions the two companies have resolved their issues that derived from the 2007 Boston event. Regrettably a dispute occurred between the parties at that Boston event that had caused a rift in the working relationship between the companies.

“It’s time that we moved forward,” stated PbNation LLC, President Ed Rieker. “The history of PbNation has been to always support the sport of paintball and to help in any way we can to grow the sport. During the formative years of the NPPL, PbNation was one of the largest media sponsors and pioneered the live web casting of NPPL events. We appreciate the team at the NPPL for taking positive steps to resolve this issue”

“The management team of the NPPL is pleased to announce the resolution of this issue with PbNation and is looking ahead to producing a great tournament series this year for the paintball community,” said Bruce Friedman, Chairman of Pacific Paintball, owner of the NPPL. “NPPL management was happy to reach out to PbNation to accomplish this and greatly respects this leading brand in our marketplace.”"

Now I am sure some people think that is cool, but the reality is that I am sure that NPPL 'kissed the ring' before Ed and PB Nation did anything on this, that or they paid up to PB Nation. See that is how you get ahead with Ed, you pay money. I am sure that even I could get some great PB Nation love if I paid for it. Bought some advertising, maybe gave them some great cross links, kissed Ed's ass and talked about how PB Nation is the best in the world, shit like that. Trust me, that will never happen. In fact, I wouldn't PISS on Ed, if he was on fire. I would break out the wienies and marshmellows and start selling them with a glass of lemonade. But not even 4 days later, we are at this stage of things with NPPL vs PB Nation:

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=2685855

Yep, it seems that because NPPL didn't cross promote the way Ed and his staff felt that they should have that all bets are still off until they comply. You heard me right, Ed is once again dictating to these people how they should run their business and how they should cross promote. And he isn't appealing to their business ethics or hell even a sense of didn't we just settle all this. Nope, he went right back to the billy club and attempted to slap the NPPL into place. What does that tell you? That in the 'negoiations' that prompted this reconciliation, evidently Ed and PB Nation felt like they had the stroke to control it. Most would assume it meant that NPPL blinked first and that they feel like they need Ed more then Ed needs them.

But here is a post from someone in that thread that really hits the nail on the head with regards to PB Nation and this incident.

To sum it up simply, PbNation was the billy club of the center court fiasco, which it had no reason to be involved with to begin with. This was an issue between the league and it’s other media outlets, not PbN. The pre-emptive strike made by the website was not only unnecessary, but reprehensible, both when it happened and even now, as they’ve “made up”, and yet the NPPL has not received the same level of service from PbNation as it did before. Can anyone say “grudge”?

I mean, how childish can you be? Is this why they are number one? Because they cater to the 'Killwithme.com' mentality of today's online youth? I mean, I think that I and others have shown that PB Nation makes a lot of money. And they have done nothing but get good at driving traffic into a website and then selling it to the paintball community as paintball traffic. Anybody remember when PB Nation looked like this?

http://web.archive.org/web/20010302162818/http://www.pbnation.com/

This is what advertising and money do for you, it makes you feel drunk on power. It makes you feel like you can do whatever you want and no one can stop you. And Ed knows that most paintball players are fickle and have a short attention span. And that most companies in paintball will posture but in the end if you wear them down, then you will come out on top. You just have to have the money and the time to do it. And when you have no inventory or 'expenses' then you are in an excellent position to try and be the top dog.

And here in this thread we have Chris Raehl still posting his tripe. Why does that name sound familar? Well he is supposed to be the president of the College tourney league that also helps with high school paitball ( http://www.college-paintball.com/ ). So why is he getting into this? Seems he is a little angry that someone might not have to swallow as much of Ed's nuts as he has had to get the coverage he has gotten. You might remember he got into the scenario producer thread as well, when the talk about charging scenario producers to post their events. And was he trying to do what some might assume would be good for the sport? Nope, he was supporting PB Nation in charging for everything that they can. Hell, you would think that he had a vested interest in the success or failure of the policies of PB Nation.

Well he does, I mean, if Ed fails then he fails. And he certainly doesn't want anyone to get something that he doesn't. But to put yourself into areas that you don't know, do nothing but show how much of a yes man you are. It shows that you only push the agenda as it is fed to you. You used your 'place' in paintball to drive Ed and PB Nation's agenda. In yet another example of someone who got to be someone in paintball by being in a position of something rather then gaining a rep as a player, this guy should be viewed as the choad that he is. When are you moving to Avondale Estates Chris? I mean Ed needs all the 'alternative' lifestylers he can get in his constuientcy.

So where did the title come from? There was an old Chris Rock stand-up skit about a interview in jail:

Chris Rock: They was interviewing a brother in there, they said now, "Sir, when a new inmate comes in and he wants some drugs, how do you initiate him?" The guy goes, "Well, the first thing I do is make him toss my salad." The guy's like, "'Toss my salad?' What's that?" The guy: "Well, having your salad tossed means having your asshole eaten out with jelly or with syrup. I prefer syrup." I'm not making this up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTYMeitHNes

Guess Ed doesn't like jelly, so while NPPL may have eaten that ass, guess they just didn't do it to Ed's exacting requirements. Too bad!

I am sure that some people were starting to think this site would be all fluff and TB's rants. While some people may think I am full of piss and vinegar, that couldn't be further from the truth.

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