Opinions wanted!
While exploring various cannabis cups, I noticed many of them don't have a sponsor-entry conflict policy, which are a terms and conditions clause that prevents individuals with ties to the sponsor from entering or winning, which deters the "pay to win" mindset.
How would you feel about entering a contest where a company also was providing compensation to the event as a financial backer or sponsor, but that company was also allowed to compete?
Especially if you saw that company win multiple awards or categories?
To sum it up and make one thing clear, a pay to win concept is fcked up, and completely rubbish. If I put myself in the eyes of the grower/breeder I am why would I want to win something that is setup beforehand? The prize would mean absolute shit to me...
But in the eyes of the company behind me... well yeah they could maybe see the benefit, since prizes boosts sales, simple as that.
That is also the reason why some cup organisers work like that, the biggest contributors 'seem' to often win, is it rigged? Well it could well be, it certainly feels that way sometimes, especially looking from the outside...
Where it all comes down to in my opinion is
transparency... are you transparent about the cup itself? The way it is being judged? Are you sharing the individual results from the judges? From the lab? Are the judges not somehow connected to the companies that compete? Etc. etc.
To give you all some perspective, some cups work with a handful selected 'Industry judges' that do get days/weeks or even months to sample
(and blind-judge) all the entries and make up their own score-card. Others work with the cup entrants being the judges, and they have to sample the entries on 1 day, or two days, smoking maybe even 20-30 samples per category... which is when you look at it, pretty undoable to judge properly, but on the other hand sort of fair, because it is sort of peer-reviewed, but also this type has it flaws in my opinion...
Should we, as a company, be allowed to both sponsor and compete at these cups?
Why the hell not?
Keep in mind that most of these cups can only be held/organised by the 'sponsoring' money from the bigger companies.. besides having your logo somewhere during the event, the biggest thing to gain is to actually win something, holding them from the right to compete would make no sense in my opinion..
As long as the process is done correctly and transparant I see no issue...
The only problem I see would be if we, Dutch Passion, would hold a cup ourselves, ask everyone to chip in, compete and then give prizes for winning with our own samples/entries... a bit like FB is doing with their AWC-cup/growdiaries site... In the Netherlands we have a saying that goes like, it is like the butcher rating his own meat.. Exactly like the example
@Son of Hobbes gave with AFN holding a 'cup' about holding the best forum site..
Hi
@Son of Hobbes
I was thinking about that myself. I can't say exactly what I feel about but to me if a company is the main sponsor it would be good if they don't enter the cup.
My main problem is the in transparency in those cups especially all the new ones here in Germany.
What makes a cup legit? What's up with the judging how transparent is it? How can you judge if you got 3 days to test all these samples?
I was thinking about to give my work a try at the cups but i feel not comfortable with all these questions.
Back in the days we were looking for the cup winners to grow them ourselves, but it was only the High Times cup we were looking for. This days a cup are more a marketing thing.
This is only my feelings when it comes to cups.
@FullDuplex @Antonio_DutchPassion let's hear your opinion about cups
@Son of Hobbes thanks for starting this conversation I was thinking about to do thread about cups too.
Have a nice day my friend
cu tobe
My 2cents above here bro...
What is the core perceived problem(s) with sponsors also entering competitions or backing contestants? Are cups biased, simply extensions of corporate marketing efforts (know whose likely to win up front) vs. being truly independently organized, financed and judged?
Sponsorships, corporate links to competing growers, don't bother me - as long as the entry rules are 'fair,' not overly restrictive, and judging is not biased (very difficult to attain).
Most consumers are probably more interested in who has the best among the market leaders, likely including sponsors, those they will buy seeds from vs. actual best including from no-name and even individual breeders. In most such public competitions, major players, ones more familiar, etc. have an inherent advantage. Such as it's much easier and a judge would have more confidence, all things being equal, to favor say a Dutch Passion or Mephisto entry vs. one from a no-name individual breeder.
What about (are there?) cup competitions where attendees vote for winners? Are there cups/competitions based on chemical analyses, such as delta9-THC content? Are these fair, not conflicted?
I wouldn't want the Autoflower Network Cup to be like the Cups I see sponsored by FastBuds!
Lol, that's what I mean
That seems like the really LONG way around that still doesn't address the pink elephant in the room, as we would be in the same boat of looking for investors.
If we host a cup event for breeders, would we let Dutch Passion or Mephisto fund the event (as an example,) then compete in it?
You seem to be missing the point. Is it ethical for companies to financially support an event that they are allowed to compete in, and does that create unfair bias if that information is not publicly disclosed?
Regarding the pink elephant, like I said here above, why the hell not?
Maybe I don’t understand shit about shit….but….
Isn’t a cannabis cup primarily centered around the producer of the judged product? (Grower, edible maker, hash/concentrate maker)… and the breeder is rather tertiary in the mix? I mean, if mephisto sponsored an event, they aren’t directly entering samples of their flower…. It would be grower X, with strain Y, with mephisto as the breeder… no?
It's one of the other options indeed, that actually happens quite often, a decent part of the cups we win (same goes for other companies) are being done via growers themselves, without us even knowing so we have nothing to do with it. But still I see no issue in sponsoring an event, helping the community/organisation with hosting and competing... it all comes down to transparency/judging.
Nothing. Because we likely would not invest in something that didn't create more value to our investment.
Now let's pretend we
did host the best forum competition, and we
did financially back the entire thing ourselves, and allowed ourselves to compete.
We invite Grow Diaries, RollItUp, UnleashDaGreen, and every person with a forum that can google.
Then, AFN wins many of the events for intents and purpose of this example.
Without there being some
trail to follow, or
transparency that allows people to know that we put on the event and backed the entire thing, it creates large perception of bias. Which is where I (in my opinion) believe that many growers create that skepticism, because without things spelled out or made see-through, it's hard to not draw your own conclusions.
As a financial backer, a competitor has a direct financial interest in the success and reputation of the competition, especially when winning the event can create positive publicity that drives more value to their investment, creating a motive to manipulate outcomes.
Smart guy
but you can bet your ass there will be talk inside the industry, because it is a small world!
...I don't get why we expect cannabis businesses to be any different.
.. #JustSayin ..
....
