Honestly, companies should kick the weak links off of their teams more often. It seems like they don’t because of the negative nature of kicking someone off, but there could be some tangible benefits to having smaller, stronger contest teams.
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i think that’s true in most contexts, but i don’t think it applies well here.
paul escolar, takeshi, drew tetz, gabe lozano, brian cabildo, mark hayward, mark mcbride, dimi, rafael matsunaga, jake maloney, chris makita, bu-ko, jeff coons, lim aik hwee, shingo terada…
those aren’t “weak links”. that’s a hall of fame.
it’s not like duncan had to shell out serious cash to keep those players on the team. they stayed with duncan because they believed in the company’s legacy, and they would have continued to represent for next to nothing. it doesn’t even matter if some of them hardly played or had minimal exposure. all of those players are skilled ambassadors for yo-yoing, and kid starting out could easily lose himself in the grandeur of duncan’s recent history.
i’m NOT saying duncan didn’t need to do something, or that rebooting their strategy toward the crew was unnecessary. but duncan is different from most companies in that they have ALWAYS been the company that people first connect with as they start to yo-yo. their crew has never been so much a stable of “contest studs” as it has been about personalities that draw you in and make you think yo-yoing might actually be cool. for so many of those personalities to be excised in one fell swoop feels stunning, and (to someone who has idolized a lot of them and called more of them friends) like a betrayal of the company’s legacy. even bloated and outmoded, i still felt that DCW among the best things duncan had going for it.
(i admit that this is, in part, an emotional response to something i know several of my good friends feel raw about, and that duncan is absolutely NOT making a move like this to win over MY demographic. even so, i think it kinda sucks.)
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I suppose the “weak links” part may have been Owen’s way of saying that some players were no longer serving the purpose that the company needed. It doesn’t mean that they are less than great in their own right. It just means that the company has goals, and maybe some players did not “fit” with the overall goal anymore. The needs of a company change over time.
I think some good can come of this in the long run. The great players left without a sponsor have several options:
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Enjoy being a free agent, and continue to be an ambassador in yo-yo without a sponsor. There is still a lot of good they can do. And, they can do it without rules, regulations, restrictions, or checking in with the team manager first.
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They can seek opportunities with another sponsor, where they might fit in better with the goals of the company. They may find that it’s something they should have done long ago. You never know what possibilities are out there.
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They can extend the offer to Duncan, to continue to represent Duncan, for free. I think when you really like a business, you’ll promote it for free, at least to some extent. If they want to continue to represent, maybe they can offer to stay on for free.
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Yeah. I think that my statement was more of a realization that applies on a broader scale rather than to Duncan’s particular case.
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The difference is that when most players leave a team, they do it of their own will. I’ve only ever heard of one company kicking a player off the team, and it was for a good reason.
I’ve heard of a lot of companies removing players from their teams, for a lot of reasons. It’s never easy, but it’s frequently necessary.
I’m a latecomer to the yoyo world, I wasn’t around during the Duncan Crew days so rather than comment on the actual event, I’m just going to comment on the issue in general.
Personally, I can understand companies removing sponsorships from players that no longer contribute to the community. CLYW retired the Bear.vs.Man 2 (much to my lamentation…) because Boyd Seth/Seth Boyd hadn’t really shown himself in years, and so I can understand that. Producing a signature yoyo for someone who no longer promotes the brand at all seems kind of like paying alimony to an ex-wife that you never see.
I think it would be unfair to be overly proactive in this respect and start removing people who haven’t been seen for a couple of weeks or months, because we all know that sometimes life gets in the way and we don’t get the time to do the things we wish we could. However if someone has pretty much fallen off the face of the earth, then I can see why a company might think about removing them from the team after enough time has passed.
A lot of it depends on the sponsorship agreement of course, if your sponsorship is a “you get rewarded if and when you promote the brand” kind of deal, then I can understand holding onto inactive team mates, since it isn’t really costing them anything. In this case I think it’s cool that the companies still let their team stay on board despite inactivity.
However, if a company is actively paying these people or rewarding them in some way despite the fact they haven’t made a video or attended a contest in years, then I can fully understand that the company might want to think about passing them on.
Personally, I feel that if a company is actively giving you stuff/money for being on their team, there is an obligation there for you to promote that company, even if you can only manage a little here and there. It just seems like common courtesy to keep up ones end of the bargain if at all possible.
Again, no hate to any of the Duncan crew, and my heart goes out to the guys who have been dropped so suddenly. It would have been courteous of Duncan to at least message these guys and let them know that there was a chance they would be cut if they remained inactive, rather than just a “hey, thanks for the memories, don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. Hopefully they’ll be able to find a company out there that’s a better fit for them. 
For the record, I don’t think it was all that sudden. My limited understanding is that there have been discussions for several months now about restructuring the team, and that a fair chunk of players had already been moved to “alumni” or something, and were no longer active Crew members. I think the announcement just seems sudden since we heard it from the team before we heard it from Duncan, which made the whole thing seem more dramatic than it actually was.
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So, I have no idea what’s going on here. Did Duncan just drop a bunch of players from their team? Somebody please explain EXACTLY what is going on here.
YoYoJam for all intents and purposes did that with their Legends team last year. We’re still on the website and the Christmas card list but that’s it.
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So you’re saying that people like Paul Escolar, Takeshi Kamisato, and Drew Tetz aren’t contributing to the community? Takeshi puts like 5 instagram videos every day, Paul is a frequent yoyo judge at contests, and Drew has been on-par with Ed when it comes to fixed axle for a while now.
Anyways, until I get a good explanation from Duncan themselves (even though Steve’s yoyonews article explains most of it), I won’t be very happy with Duncan.
Not to mention Jeff Coons still competes and places!
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But I really do understand the need to re-focus a team. If that means cutting some positions, I can understand that. I don’t know enough details about what’s going on to be much of a judge of whether it’s a good move (including how well it was handled) or not. Certainly some tough decisions were made.
I don’t know how many yo-yos Duncan sells as a result of contest wins, but the crew had a large influence from the start with all the great DVDs, tutorials, and tours. Sorry to see that go, because it reminds me of the old days when the yo-yo demonstrators would go around. Duncan did an excellent job doing that, and I never thought any company would ever come close to having that kind of impact, although YYF seems to be stepping up to the plate now in the same kind way.
From what I’ve read on YoYoNews and Duncan’s Facebook, they are reducing the team to a core group of players that regularly compete. They are also planning a Hall of Fame sorta thing to commemorate the old members with classic videos and pictures so the “Golden Age” of players aren’t completely forgotten on their website.
YoYoNews Article: Opinion: Goodbye Duncan Crew
DuncanToys FB Post: Duncan Yo-Yo
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