I'm glad you posted this and I'm surprised that he admitted that.
He's giving the players some shirts for free and jacking up the price for the consumer, so that he can recover his lost profits. Good for him, bad for the consumer. He openly admitted that he is making a larger profit to cover lost profits. Giving the team members a free polo shirt does not support the team. It's free advertising for Universe Clothing. I'm gonna take my business elsewhere :thumbup:
As I'm more than aware of a few things about this subject, let me just try to give you some pointers about how this works:
- Universe is a sponsor of the event, as are Diamond, Aramith, Simonis and Predator.
- They provide the shirts for the players as part of an agreement with the tournament. Diamond provides a table, Aramith the balls, Simonis the cloth, Predator chalk and bridges (plus a cue for the MVP in 2013). They probably all pay a fee to be official partners (which is a casual sponsoring deal), and to avoid anyone else from claiming they are Mosconi Cup partners.
- Universe uses the official logo with the official sponsor without whom the tournament wouldn't exist.
- Matchroom pays all expenses related to the players and coaches, as they always have. People often oversee this in the real cost of the tournament, too.
- Price point could be discussed, but for the quality I think it's fair. I've seen these first hand on the players many times and the fabric and crafting all look excellent.
Now, about the logos: Universe, Partypoker... How is this all different from buying any Nascar driver's replica shirt with dozens of sponsors on it???
Anyone of you ever too the "Camel" out of the "Camel Pro Billiards Series" shirts??? I'm sure not. So why would you want to take the Partypoker out?
There's no such thing as "free advertising for Universe". They make and give more than 50 pieces of apparel for this year alone (10 players + 2 coaches x 4 days - that's without counting the added coaches and players on USA's side).