Time for us to move on...Thank you for your years of support!

NGI_TOM

New member
Dear Predator Masters Family,

It is with a heavy heart that we formally announce that TNVC and Night Goggles will be leaving Predator Masters. We will no longer be participating in sponsorship of the forums, the Predator Masters, Hunt and Convention, giveaways, or any other capacity.

TNVC and Night Goggles have been a top-tier site sponsor for the past decade. We have donated over $100,000 in sponsorship money and prizes for the convention. We have donated countless hours of our time, knowledge and experience to the forums as
well as conducting seminars at the convention.

Without getting into too much detail, with the recent “changing of the guards” here, we were not given an opportunity to be a top-tier sponsor any longer. In fact, we were not even considered. Without explanation, no less. We cannot dedicate any more time, donate any more prizes or spend any more money with an organization that doesn’t show any loyalty to those that support them.

We want to thank all those individuals who have made Predator Masters such a great place to hang out, and for me personally, a home for the past 20+ years. I have made some incredible friendships that have developed into lifelong relationships. I appreciate all the support and love that you have shown to me personally. I would not be where I am today without Predator Masters and I will never forget that.

To our customers, friends and supporters, we love you and thank you for your business and support.

Tom Austin Director LAWDOG, PredatorStrikeforce, NGI_TOM (recipient of The Will Craig Award 2016)

Victor DiCosola CEO Victor_TNVC (recipient of The Will Craig Award 2017)

Korey Kirschenmann Product Specialist Kirsch

The Will Craig Award, Predator Masters Convention 2016
 
I want to thank Vic, Korey, Tom and TNVC/Night Goggles for all their support over the years.

I wish them all continued success. Hopefully at some point there will be another opportunity for them with PM and I hope to keep that door open.

I welcome them to stay on as members of PM and continue to contribute in any way they see fit.

Mo
 
I certainly hope there is an explanation to all of the members here as to what the heck is going on pertaining to this post by Predator Masters
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Tom, Korey, Vic a big THANK YOU for your many years of participation to this site ! The knowledge you share here has been enjoyed by so many ! I will truly miss you as many others will too !!!

Kind of reminds me of when Torry Cook was black balled from here many years ago & look at him now ! One of the leaders of our sport that so many enjoy learning from, the knowledge that Torry, Torie Lynn & friends & company share with our sport.

It was never explained why Torry was banned & I doubt there will be an explanation now why you guys are being treated like this now !

I wish you great success in the future & happy hunting to you too !
Mick
 
Guys I would expect to here more from the leadership here soon as there is two sides to every story.
 
I would like to thank them for all the years of support. It is unfortunate that TNVC/Nightgoggles has chosen not to be a sponsor and will not be making any posts. I have enjoyed reading Korey and Tom’s posts. Tom has always been a friend and will always be. Hopefully at some point they will chose to come back and post and be a sponsor.
 

Well regardless of “why,” I will miss you guys. You have contributed greatly to my education.

Vic, I appreciate your faith in me enough to trust me with your personal PVS14 for testing that time. Tom, was nice to meet you in person at the Bland County, Virginia calling contest, and Korey, man I have thoroughly enjoyed your posts and conversations. You guys keep well, and God bless.
 
This is an interesting post. First, there is an issue between a website and a paid sponsor. We now understand that the sponsor has withdrawn. The website has shown remorse for the sponsor action. That is all we know.

The details we all want to know is what really happened. Not the edited version by the public relations person that edited the real truth out. Reminds me of the White House spin doctors telling us we are doing just fine, all the while our country is being invaded by foreigners.

So, what is the real truth, and when will we know it? Injecting common sense, here is one take on it. The sponsor may have bought some special favor from the previous administration. Maybe, by special gifts to them. I could go on and on in speculation, however I tire easily when it comes to possibly making things worse that they already are.

Someone needs to explain this, as it looks pretty [beeep] bad. Transparent?

 
Folks, recently a situation came up regarding sponsorship and advertising, and as the membership you asked for and deserve an explanation.

As you may have seen, in January we lost two of our long-time directors, Jeff Mock and Redfrog, with very little notice. At that time, our first priority was on reforming the board. The first new director we brought on was our long-time webmaster Stu Farish. From that time on, Stu and I have done things by vote. We discussed and decided to ask Troy (DesertRam) to join the board. Once we had the board back to 3 we voted to expand the minimum size of the board to 5 directors. We also voted to expand the board to 7 members total and continued to ask for nominations and we discussed every potential board member. Some of you got pm’s from regarding that opportunity. Some accepted, others did not. We eventually got Dave (DAA), James (Skinney), Mark (Reb8600) and Kerry (carvercalls) to join the board.

When we began reforming the board, we knew that we were going to need income. At that time, we had had NO paying sponsors for over a year. We did not make any decisions about advertising until we had the board reformed. When we got the board reformed, we began figuring out what we wanted/needed to do for PM and what we needed in terms of marketing/advertising/sponsorship.

We began putting out feelers to see what we could/should do and what the market could bear. We got some idea about what we might be able to expect from the market and, while doing this market research, we had a company ask us about coming on as a sponsor. We began to discuss a potential agreement. At that time, we received an email from one of our previous sponsors about the changes at PM and concerns they had. Because we were already talking to a potential sponsor, we did not feel that we could discuss those negotiations with another sponsor.

When we got the details of the agreement ironed out, the board voted to accept the agreement with that new sponsor.

When that agreement was finalized, we did reach out to offer our previous sponsor a marketing opportunity. That sponsor decided that it was not something they wanted to accept.

We believe that the sponsorship level opportunity that we are offering is fair. It was on par with what they have had in the past, and there were some things in the agreement that were beyond what they had in the past. But it was not what they expected nor were willing to agree to.

We have to take ownership of this. We opted to maintain the confidentiality of the negotiations. It was not due to anything nefarious. We would do that for any sponsor/company or PM member. We had an industry partner interested in helping us to iron out things in our forum as well as become a sponsor and we felt that we needed to complete those discussions before we could reach out to another potential sponsor.

Some members may not want to accept our explanation. That's what it is, an explanation. We don't know that it will repair relationships or assuage fears but we as your BOD and mods agreed that you had a right at least to a basic explanation, and we appreciate your concerns and questions.

We are working to be as transparent as we can be with things like this, so I hope this helps you to understand the situation, and we want to let you know we are working to see to it that measures are in place to avoid situations like this in the future.

Mo
 
Thanks for taking the time to write that.
A couple of questions come to mind...

So PM has a "Main Sponsor" and the rest are "advertisers" ?
And if so, why is that ?
 
Thanks Direct Drive...we use those terms interchangeably. PM has always operated on a "sponsorship advertising" model.

Now that you point it out that might be something we need to address if it's confusing.
 
We want to continue the "sponsorship advertising" model where we work with our industry partners to try and promote our sport, our forum and our partners.

This kind of model also allows us to give our members exposure to a wide variety of industry partners offering products, services as well as experise in their respective specialties.

We feel that this will help us continue to grow PM in the vision of Will Craig.
 
There you have it folks.

Some missing info. We reached out to the board a few days ago with some concerns about a competitor, who isn’t a sponsor, advertising on the night calling forum. Which has never been allowed in the past. I was told at that time that they were revamping the sponsorship program. I expressed my excitement for the new board and congratulated them on their new positions. I also expressed interest in helping organize the hunt and convention, then I reminded the board of our support and loyalty and asked them to please consider us for a top-tier sponsorship when they are revamping the program.

We learned yesterday that the new board gave our direct competitor our tier 1 sponsorship spot. A company that has never been a sponsor of or supported this organization. Afterwards, we were offered a tier 2 position at best. Needless to say, we felt submarined after showing our support for so many years. Not sure why it was NEVER offered to us, and they cannot offer us an explanation to that either. We have decided to go somewhere else where the playing field is level and does not give advantage to a direct competitor.

We wish the Predator Masters members the best and we’ll see you in the sage…
 
I think I'll take a vacation from Predator Masters for 3 months and see what this place looks like then.

Good hunting people!
 
If PM is running a tier system, they seriously need to rethink that position. If you limit your sponsors to one per sporting goods type or gold, silver ECT levels, you will soon find no one wants to play. And will soon run out of prospective sponsors. If you are honest, you'll stick with the deal you have made. When the longevity of the deal runs out, change it to a level playing field. Never make an enemy over money.
 
I bought a Hogster 25 from Tom last year, they turned out to be out of stock, with a shipment coming in and he went out of his way to ship one directly to me before they even hit the shelf, great personal service. Couple that with Kirsch's help to many people here and great videos, it's just sad to see them go.
 
Originally Posted By: 204 ARI bought a Hogster 25 from Tom last year, they turned out to be out of stock, with a shipment coming in and he went out of his way to ship one directly to me before they even hit the shelf, great personal service. Couple that with Kirsch's help to many people here and great videos, it's just sad to see them go.



Same type experience for me as well
 
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