Katie Thompson Free Agency

thoughts?

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Both seem like cool/nice people I assume it’s just time to move on. Going to take Ross word on this one unless Katie pops up contradicting anything. Hopefully the reels keep going

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Is my comprehension off or does it sound weird to say " and will find a company thats large enough to give more than it receives."

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She’s probably going to get picked up by Yoyofactory to be honest.

I remember being surprised when committed to a sponsorship from a smaller company in the first place.

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i hope not, yoyofactorys getting a dangerous grip on the player market

Yeah I kinda feel bad for modern yoyos though. It’s probably hard to keep players being smaller companies.

It’s been this way for decades lol

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In terms of the North American scene though they’ve always kinda had the lion’s share. I don’t blame anyone who wants to join them. They’re always pumping out signature colorways or yoyos for their players and I know of some people who aren’t getting (or just can’t get) that attention from other companies. Whenever I think of signature colorways or yoyos I think of YYF… they’re definitely a players’ team.

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Although I think that YYF has a monopoly on players I would be surprised if they didn’t sweep her up since they dropped Nagao

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most likely its yyf since she started using shutter 4 days ago in her recent vid

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yeah sorry, fairly new to the competitive community

How so?

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people that come to mind are mir and miri kim and bella, also people like eric koloski and gentry who’ve been there for a while and are super popular. could be wrong though, just how i see it

A sponsorship is an exchange, I think there is nothing all that weird when folks decide to part ways. Sometimes the vibes are off, sometimes drama happens, sometimes it’s just not working out or a better offer comes along.

Most of these things are not super set in stone contracts.

Expanding on this a little more:
If it was a bigger company there are probably some major incentives. Most companies cannot afford much more than a free yo-yo. And for a competing player that’s a pretty mediocre deal.

I know CLYW (for example) helps fly folks out, cover rooms/board, contest fees and this is to add on top of digs and yo-yos. YYF has/had mentorship within so that players get trained up to a caliber, and I’m sure there is more but it also varies from player to player.

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Yeah I’m unsurprised. She’s got a super sick comp focused style that is just so different than Ross’s flow art style. Ross is cool tho and it was hilarious but a bit cringe when he had the audio for his us nats freestyles be just promotion. She grinds hard and deserves a super sick comp Yoyo that is exactly what she wants to compete with and I just don’t know if hmy can deliver that or would want to.

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yeah definitely, there’s nothing weird about this at all but it makes me sad when a player leaves a smaller company for a bigger company. just how the games played though :frowning:

I understand from a benefits standpoint wanting to be on YYF if you’re a top tier 1 player, like a world champion contender like Evan, Gentry, or Hunter but I wonder if it’d be more worthwhile for someone that’s like a tier 2 player (like national final or world semis level) to be sponsored by a smaller company since I don’t think the benefits are AS great at YYF for lower tier players and with a smaller company there’s more focus towards you and likely you’ll be a lot more intimately involved in making a sig that perfectly suits you, etc.

Kind of like how Steph Curry chose to sign with Under Armour as the face vs being just another guy on Nike when he was an unproven rookie.

Just thinking about it in general, not necessarily towards Katie cuz she’s obviously in the unique position of being the US Women’s champion.

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talked to ross ab it, prototypes were all set and they were going to release the stimulant eventually

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