If your sponsored by yoyofactory do u have to use there yoyos or can you use which ever one?
If you are sponsored by a company you must use their yoyo pretty much all the time when out at contests and stuff. What you throw on your own time is up to you.
You have to use their yoyo’s in competition and only promote their yoyos. Otherwise you can throw what you would like.
I think a lot of it is just good etticate as well. Not all companies are going to be militant and say “if you don’t throw only our yoyo’s we’ll send attack dogs”, but if a company is paying for you to go to contests or hooking you up with free stuff, it seems only the decent thing to do for you to do all you can to promote the brand.
That being said, behind closed doors you can throw whatever you want.
I’d even go so far as to say that when on your own, it’s encouraged.
How else can I, as a sponsored player, provide good feedback to Chris if he asks me about what I like/dislike in a throw, if I don’t have a wide-pool of experience to draw from?
At a contest though, yeah… you should probably use your company’s products.
If I sent someone a bunch of my strings to use for videos/ contests to show off my strings, and they used another type of string, I would be pretty upset.
That is pretty much the point of sponsorship.
I would say each Sponsor is different. Some may be cool with you using what you want and some may only want you to use their products. Most of it has to do with a respect factor. I’m sure most sponsors don’t specifically tell their sponsee that they must only use their yoyos and only speak highly of their yoyos and none else. It mainly has to do with respecting your brand and advertising it because you enjoy the product and the company, not because you’re forced.
I will add, that it makes sense to throw a yo-yo made by another company, if that company makes something your sponsor does not provide. For example, a YoyoFactory player, who wants to compete in 4A, might not have many available options from YoyoFactory, and find it acceptable and suitable to use a YoyoJam offstring during their performance. I think YoyoFactory has always spoken highly of the offstrings currently available on the market, so they have not found it priority to design a new one.
Also, One Drop and CLYW, before they made a plastic, I cannot imagine they had a problem with their players using plastics made by other companies. The issue here is whether the player is using a competing product at a contest. Just because all the companies are making yo-yos, does not mean that they all have the same kinds of yo-yos available to their players.
I agree that sponsored players should play their sponsor’s yo-yos at contests, unless their performance requires something that is not offered by that sponsor. On their own time, they should buy and try what appeals to them, like the rest of us.
It really depends on company. For example, I know one player, who won EYYC division with yo-yo from different brand than he is sponsored.
I think most companies(Yoyofficer included) dont really care what their players use when they are not on stage or in video. But if you use different brand on stage, I think company will have some discussion with you.
Another thing that is more interesting to me, is that some players don’t use t-shirts of their sponsor at contest. It’s nice they use companies yo-yo, but they should be promoting it VISIBLY on stage.