Does anyone else here agree that YYF has too many players?

General Yo-Yo
21

I think some people are missing the point. I don’t think anyone is complaining about more players getting supported or more players out there promoting yo-yo to the masses. The issue at hand is whether it’s a good thing for one big company to be able to buy up all the talent.

At some point you could see yo-yo contests with virtually every high placing player being sponsored by YYF. The general public doesn’t know that one yo-yo is pretty much as good as any other, this could lead to unfair representation of other companies who keep losing talent. Maybe other companies would lose interest in supporting contests at all if it will always be a YYF landslide victory.

It’s something to think about. I don’t think YYF is ‘out for blood’ or anything. There would probably be a lot of ‘push back’ from the community if such a situation ever arose.

22

A company cannot buy up all the talent if:

A: The talent isn’t willing to take the deal
and
B: The money wasn’t there to be offered, or the deal wasn’t of a sufficient nature to be accepted.

Yoyo doesn’t warrant/command Michael Jordan-type dollars. Fact of life for now. Until yoyo players and yoyo’ing reaches rock god status, forget it. Jordan makes $80million a year sitting on his duff for the most part these days. Shoot a few commercials and otherwise do whatever the heck you want. Nike, Hanes, a few other brands… the guy is raking in easy dollars.

Granted, YYF is NOT my favorite company, but I don’t have “hate” for YYF either. Yeah, they have a lot of sponsored players. They are taking a BIG chance in their marketing and promotions to do this, and that’s THEIR calculated risk. It must be paying off or they wouldn’t do it.

Duncan, who has been around for ages, also seems to have a sizable number of sponsored players.

YoYoJam also has a large number of sponsored players.

Many of the other companies aren’t that big, they simply can’t afford to sponsor such a big stable of talent, even if it may be a superior product. CLYW, anyone? One Drop?

The sponsored players DO drive sales for us “in the community” folks. No question about it. Maybe not signature models, but certainly their brands. The key part about sponsored players is the high profile at events where “non-throwers” are exposed, and they see “logo-X” throwing down and kicking butt, and they(the non-throwers) are like “oh man, I wish I could do that” and they go buy a yoyo, then they start tearing it up and being awesome(or not, there’s no guarantees in life).

So, I say why mess with something that works? Yeah, maybe YYF has a large number of sponsored players. So what. They help expose more people to yoyos and get more people into yoyos. What if all these sponsored players actually accomplish(besides accolades and awards) is to motivate 1000 kids a year into getting off the couch and off the video games and away from the computer a bit and get moving and do something that involves moving around a bit? No offense, but there’s too many fat kids, and for that matter, too many fat adults. I am a bit over-weight myself and am trying to lose like 30 pounds My motivation for yoyo was a hobby to have fun with. I’ve quickly become addicted to it and am using it for whatever I can use it for. I get out of the house more often, I try to get away from the computer more. My kids are pretty much off video games. Granted, sponsored players had nothing to do with my situation, but how many kids wandering through these malls where contests are held end up choosing to not spend their candy or video game dollars and end up buying a yoyo instead?

I started out knowing Duncan and Yomega. I was quickly overloaded with technology, brand and models. I had NO clue there were any other brands, or how big yoyo actually is. Now that I’ve absorbed it and been exposed to it in a very big way, it’s no different than anything else, just scaled down due to the smaller community.

Let’s let the companies handle their business. We as a community will continue to buy as we have been. My main concern is that GOOD quality products survive and bad products are removed from the market.

So, I guess I don’t really care that YYF has such a large stable of talent to draw from. I guess I’m more concerned about the positive impact they make to the community, as do the other sponsored players.

2 Likes
23

Woah, Talent there ^.

24

Haha yeah.

25

Why not? Supporting more players = supporting the community more = more publicity = more new Yo-Yo’ers

26

That.
Since I live in a ‘Yoyo Wasteland’, I think YYF is epic in the fact that they are supporting yoyoing. I just wish they would do it in my town. Of course, I’m not saying that YYF is the best company or has the best yoyos or something like that. Just really really good at supporting yoyoing.

27

No. I don’t think so :slight_smile:

1 Like
28

I’m not trying to bash YYF here. I love YYF, the team is full of pretty cool people too.

But what I’m trying to say here is that the amount of players on one team is quite unbalanced. I absolutely do not blame anyone for joining YYF or anyone recruiting people into YYF.

I also agree that it’s good that there are a lot of players, there is nothing wrong with spreading the love of yoyoing around.

My main point is that YYF has a large majority of the professional/famous yoyo players out there and it kind of bugs me.

Also, about the Duncan thing. I honestly didn’t know that Duncan had a lot of players due to the fact that I don’t see a lot of them ranking high in contests (No offence to Duncan). I can remember 5 people. Sorry

1 Like
29

It’s business. It’s like buying commercial space during the super bowl or buying billboard space in Time Square. You can’t expect everyone to advertise the same way and to the same extent. I still say it’s their business, literally. When you run a business you do what you can to promote that business. It’s not like YYF wasn’t one of the little guys for a while. It’s about seeing opportunity, making opportunity, and capitalizing on opportunity, it’s making good decisions, working with the right people and still getting lucky occasionally. It’s not easy to make it to the top. It’s so much more than just having some great names on staff. So in short, no it doesn’t bother me at all that YYF has so many great players. It took a lot of work to get where they are.

1 Like
30

It bugs me we can’t support more players who already use our product by choice. I am sad when I see players who have been long time yoyofactory users take sponsorship elsewhere, but we can’t support everyone and I’m thankful if we do get the opportunity to work with those players in the future (like gentry, jonrob and Clint).

2 Likes
31

The only drawback I can see is maybe less signature series yoyos out there. The team is basically for promotion as far as I know. The fact that they dominate has a lot to do with it too. I think Duncan players are more exhibition players more than competitive but I could be wrong. Still, as long as they support the players and dont hold them back, I see no problem at all

32

hmmm

1A World Champ: Turning Point player
2A World Champ: YYF player
3A World Champ: Duncan player
4A World champ: ??? (not sure where Okada is)
5A World Champ: YYJ Player (4 times world champ)

European 1A champ is OneDrop

Also, some YYF players are not of the competitive type (at all or anymore) Steve Brown, Seth Peterson for example

and I believe for players like Miggy, Augie or Tyler Severance, there’s much more to them than just being good players.

And the same can be said about other big companies sponsored players, each sponsored player is an individual who stands out and brings something different to a team. They’re not players breed in captivity and formatted to a given standard.

and as said above, this doesn’t affect me in any negative way, it doesn’t affect the community in any negative way. Smaller brands sure don’t have the same means to send players around the world, but some are getting there. And most smaller brands have their loyal fanbase where their players come from. I don’t think YYF “steals” players, some players just want to put the time and effort to travel around the globe to promote yoyoing, others don’t. And it’s nice, for those who do, to have the opportunity. Not everyone would do it, some players are passionate about yoyoing but still have it as a hobby and nothing more, something they like to do at home or with close friends, maybe take a trip every year to some big contest and that’s it.

But I think it’s amazing that YYF and other brands are actually able to offer such great opportunities to travel all around the world, to young players. This is an amazing, life changing experience. In these times we live in, it makes the world of a difference for someone to be able to do that and be paid for it. The team members get to build a world wide network they will be able to use to make a better life for themselves later on.

as said above, they put money where their mouth is. And I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “sure investment” in the yoyo business.

3 Likes
33

I want a sponsorship :stuck_out_tongue:

34

yea, me too, actually. I’m not sure if we have to be champions, but I’m pretty sure I’m still far from being good enough :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: maybe next year :wink:

I know I’d love to represent a brand and be even more active at building the european community. but as opposed to many, I don’t really care about which brand I would represent, as long as it has some meaning to it and that I’m actually contributing to something bigger. I had the chance to chat with several brand owners or “executives” and they all bring something different to the table, they also all look for different things in their players. But to me, being sponsored would mean much more than just getting free throws and plane tickets, more about developing yoyoing as a sport and as an art form, teaching kids, making vids and collabs with other artists (musicians, dancers, painters etc…) to bring yoyoing out of the “underground” and into the mainstream light.

35

Okada is yoyrecreation I believe. Could be wrong though.

I agree with you. YYF’s goal is to promote yo-yoing with their players and promote their company. It’s just business and we can’t bag on them for that. Other companies don’t have the money to send players on tour but YYF and Duncan do. We need to appreciate that.

36

If you guys noticed unlike yoyofactory the people on duncan or yoyojam have been throwing that company for a WHILE. I think I can name… at least 6 players moving to yoyofactory. No disrespect to them.

37
38

Who cares how many? If they have a lot, good for them. If the sponsored person spreads yo-yoing, good. They’re just expanding the community by yo-yoing . . . Am i talking too fast?

39

Why did we necro this? I thought we’d kinda said all there was to be said.