Personally, I think this just demonstrates just how competitive, cut throat, and back-stabbing the NV/Thermal sales industry really is.

Other boards have had issues with vendors fighting and insulting each other for quite some time.

The gear is expensive and the target market isn't exactly that big... no wonder.

i would of won that bet.

Hard to believe that a long time sponsor and supporter got [beeep] on like that.

Originally Posted By: AdamT
I’m not much up to snuff on business dealings, but this is the thought I have.

Shouldn’t PM accept all sponsorship opportunities? If there are different levels of sponsorship, I get that. For example, Foxpro or Leupold or Savage or XYZ large company, shouldn’t be at the same rate as a guy making a few hand calls a month out of his basement or garage looking to sale a few calls here or there. But if Foxpro, Icotec, and Lucky Duck all want to be a sponsor, even though they offer the same type of product, that sounds good to me.

Competition drives the market, and if the traffic increases here and this is the place to go for predator hunters, I would think the companies in the industry would benefit from the opportunity to advertise here. PM shouldn’t limit that to one company per specific area of interest, but welcome all opportunities for business partnerships.

Again I’m no high speed business man, and not trying to point the finger one way or the other, just my outsider looking in perspective.


To the membership of PM.

I am posting just one of the responses that we have gotten, this one happens to be from Adam up above. I can't repost all of them but they have come from many of you and they say much the same thing as Adam.

The BoD made the decision of offering a Tier 1 opportunity to 1 sponsor in each segment of our industry based on what resources we have and what we thought we could do for our sponsors.

We will honor ALL agreements that we have made with sponsors and with prospective sponsors that we are in talks with now.

From this point moving forward, we will open the Tier 1 opportunity to ALL prospective sponsors.

The BoD won't get every decision correct. We won't make everyone happy. But we do listen.

Mo

It's good to hear other companies now can get on with tier 1. I called Tom at Night Goggles a while back and was just talking about thermals, hadn't mentioned any web site and he took 500.00 off the price of a scope I was thinking about. That's top tier service in my book.

We are excited to be the new Tier 1 site sponsor, and I want to take this opportunity to clear the air.

I propose keeping TNVC on as a Tier 1 sponsor, and having 2 Tier 1 sponsors in the Night Vision category.

Yes, this would make the sponsorship less benefit for UNV, but for me it is more about supporting and protecting one of the last communities that exists purely to support predator hunting.

We are here to promote Predator Masters and the forum community of predator hunters by offering a sponsorship, while also not censoring anyone who doesn't agree with us.
It is more important to me to promote freedom of thought and speech than to stifle competition through censorship on the forum for short term gain. I know that this will be good for PM members as well.

Tom, Vic, and Kirsch, I have much respect for y'all. I do hope you stick around and keep posting your content and sharing your experiences even if you decide you don't want to be a sponsor any more. That is fine by me.
A rising tide lifts all boats.

Tyler

Good guy here

I want to thank Tyler and to welcome him and the team at UNV to the PM community.

We are excited to welcome more industry partners to PM and are excited by the information that they'll be able to share with our members.

Mo

Sorry guys, I'm just an old Italian hunter 5000 miles away from you. I don't want to get into your polemics, which I don't even understand well... but going round and round, I think it's, as usual, squalid money problems... This is really very sad.... I naively thought that Predator Masters was a highly technical Forum... A place where shooters and hunters could exchange opinions, learn a lot and also, why not, be able to teach a lot. It will be a real tragedy for me and for you not to be able to read Tom, Vic and above all Korey's posts... I urge everyone to overcome mutual misunderstandings and take a step back. Everyone sit around a table and try to find a balance... so as not to deprive us, modest unrepentant hunters, of your indispensable advice and support.

I don't post a lot on PM, but can say that NG/TNVC have always given the members on this forum great CS and information on the latest thermal.

No offense to UNV, but why would you have any say in what PM does with NG/TNVC? It seems to me that you gave PM an ultimatum to be the only tier 1 sponsor.

This is a terrible business decision on a long time vendor that has supported PM and it's members. This news is not good and it shows that money is the primary concern for BoD.