Setting things Straight
My name is Scott Taylor. I am the President of Sterling Gaming, Inc. We are a manufacturing distributor of billiards supplies. We currently supply, in addition to "traditional" brick and mortar establishments, many online stores. Generally, a customer of ours (such as InsidePOOL.com) will promote our products, take an order from a customer, then send that order to us for fulfillment. Most items ordered this way from most of our customers ship out the same day, then we bill our customers (the reseller) weekly. Each day we ship hundreds of orders to hundreds of players on behalf of dozens of online suppliers.
We are the exclusive dealer of Fury Cues in North America. Fury is a partnership between three distributors and a manufacturer. Our company, as part of the arrangement with the other three companies, is responsible for the marketing and promotion of the brand.
Neither Sterling Gaming, Inc. nor Fury Cues have ANYTHING to do with InsidePOOL or InsidePOOL.com, except for being an advertiser in the magazine, and being a supplier for the website. We have NEVER had any equity position in InsidePOOL, despite rumors that were floating around a few years ago, and ones that have recently surfaced.
It is true that in InsidePOOL's early days, JR Calvert moved to Charlotte where we could help consult him on certain aspects of business in general (I personally helped him set up his subscriber database, while my wife Heidi - of "Slippy Powder" fame - helped him with his accounting.) JR introduced us to a lot of his previous dealers from when he was a distributor for Falcom, and helped us out in other similar ways. After spending several months together, helping each other to grow, JR moved back to Pennsylvania, and we were both better off for having had the experience together. Note that this "I scratch your back" thing simply WAS NOT financially related! JR has made for himself the best billiards magazine in the industry in my opinion, but he did that without any financial backing from us. He deserves all the credit for that.
Now, currently, I do believe from what I see that InsidePOOL may be having, at a minimum, some growing pains. It should be made quite clear that JR himself is again fully responsible for the situation he is in.
I believe that there will continue to be speculation on these boards about the future of InsidePOOL, but those of you who have been around since its inception in (I think) January of 2001 know that there has ALWAYS been such talk. Time and time again, the magazine ships each month. Most of you will agree that it is a great magazine, and worth the wait. JR is a good friend of mine, yet I do not always agree with some of the decisions he makes. However, I have grown to know that you can never count him out! There once was a time, back around June of 2002, when I'd have placed a bet against the magazine surviving through the rest of the year. That was a bet I would have lost, and I'm not so foolish to ever place a similar bet. When you have the best product on the market, it is hard to fail.
Regarding Fury Cues, I would like to thank Kay and Jennie and whomever else for saying the nice things you have about our cues. Despite our marketing efforts, though, it still seems that some people are a little confused about the cues themselves. Yes, our DL line of Fury cues retails for $115. Yes, this is a decal cue. NO, this is not your "typical" decal cue. Take a good look at a friend of yours' Fury DL. You will note that the shaft wood is some of the nicest maple you'll see on any cue under about $500. This includes your Vikings, your Falcons, your McDermotts, and so on. The materials, craftsmanship, construction, and hit of the cue are all quality. Sure, the DL's are made with decals. Guess what? That helps to reduce the price of a cue, ensuring that a player can spend their money on a quality hit over quality doo-dads. We do offer high-end cues with some of the finest inlays you've ever seen, designed by Kaz Miki of Mezz Cues (high-end Japanese cue maker -- and don't forget that a huge number of American-made custom cues go to the Japanese market!) To any that would question a Fury, all I have got to say is pick one up and hit with it, without prejudice.
To further set the record straight, when players like Rodney Morris, Keith McCready, José Parica, Francisco Bustamante, Ramil Gallego, Shane Sinnott (former sales manager and 8-year employee of Predator Products), Kelly Fisher, and so on tell me that our cues feel great in their hands, I'm going to take that at face value. There have been so many others, amateurs and pros alike, that have made me feel so good about the products we create.
Now, about the whole "name change" thing. When these cues were first designed and created, the name was "Rage". After they were introduced in Japan at a show, a shrewd competitor of ours decided to throw a monkey wrench in the works by registering the trademark here in the United States. Well, for those of you unfamiliar with intellectual property law, in order to federally register a trademark, that mark must have been used in interstate trade for one year. This is not something that must be proved to the US PTO, so our competitor was able to "sneak it through". Unfortunately, there is a "presumptive" aspect of IP law, which means that it is presumed that someone having a trademark has it legitimately, making it more difficult to fight. Although I feel we could have waged a legal war to retake the name "Rage", it would have meant spending a lot of time and money that could be used to promote a different name altogether. Since only a handful of these original Rage cues had been sold, it was no big deal to change the name. The most reluctant person to make the change was Gregory Koblenz of Dynamic Billiard in Germany, since he had already heavily advertised the Rage name. Anyway, we convinced him to go along with the name Fury, which I actually personally preferred! I do not know what things you are mentioning as far as "foreign websites" go, but I'd like to see what you are referring to so I can aid in setting the record straight there, too.
I'm sure I missed some things, so please poke me again and I'll respond. I do not regularly check these boards, but send an email to me at "scott at sterling dash gaming dot com" and I'll respond either by email or on the board itself.
Thanks to all of you that have been supporters of our company and our many brands. We appreciate you very much.
By the way, might I suggest ordering from
cuesight.com ? I can personally guarantee that you won't have problems there, or that any problems would be quickly and professionally resolved to your fullest satisfaction.
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