Why pulling has reached it's plateau I believe October 18, 2009 02:08AM
You really have to look no farther than sports. If you look at HS sports you have freshman, reserve, and varsity. If you look at the next levels, you then have college and pro.

In all instances the lowest of the levels can move up. Maybe you have an outstanding freshman who is good enough to play varsity, maybe you have an outstanding college player who leaves for the draft early. But NEVER, NEVER, do you allow a Senior to come and play in a freshman game, or allow the Green Bay Packers come and play in the college ranks just because it would cut down on travel. Also in all 3 instances, you have to pay for what you're watching. Here in Ohio, well that may be a bad example because of OSU football, but in most places a local HS Football game will cost $5, a college came $15-25, and a Pro Game $25 on up.

Pullers themselves are their own worst enemy. They have made the product worthless. Take Ohio for example. What incentive is their for a fan to travel to a National pull, if they can show up at their local county fair and most the time see Larry Roberts, Jeff Hirt, and Frank Keener, all very capable national tractors?

With that being said, what incentive is their for new blood to build? You take a young man in his early to mid 20's who is in love with tractor pulling, what incentive is their for him to build? Knowing starting out he is going to have to spend 100,000s of thousands of dollars just to even be able to compete. Pullers have to make the sport worth something, and the way to do that is to say hey, if you're a GN guy you don't come down into the state levels. Why...... BECAUSE IT DOES DILUTE THE MARKET! Fans don't have to travel to Tomah, BG, etc to see the best when they know year in and year out the best are going to be 15 miles away at the local county fair.

So how do you fix the problem? Well at some point the powers that be have to see value in the sport as well and say enough is enough. We're not going to allow this to happen anymore. We have a viable product and people are going to pay to watch it.

The first step in doing that is making 3 distinct divisions of pulling. Right now we would know those as State, RN, and GN. At your GN events you don't allow everyone with a liscense to show up. Maybe you take all of your GN pullers plus your top two from each of the lower divisions. This then means that you're going to have to travel and pay to see the big dogs of the sport, but allowing the top 2 from each of the other 2 divisions provides that underdog element.

Now onto another idea on if this is as good as it gets, is this. When you look at why pulling was so popular in the 80's and 90's I can point to one thing. There was something tangible for a kid to take home. You had Micro-machines, you had the Meister Brau AMT Model, you have BigFoot, Black Gold, and Orange Blossom that had a pulling sled, you had table top pullers with the foam wheels, Hot wheels had their version of pullers, their were remote control pullers at the toy store. This allowed something tangible to be put in a child's hands, something to go home and play pretend with, and it kept a top of mind awareness that doesn't exist in our sport today. I know more adults that collect gottman toys than I do kids. So if Gottman really wants to make money, put something tangible in the hands of a child, something that is durable that they can play with and beat up.

In order to get these type of toys made it would take a liscensing agreement from manufacturers. Right now Agco and CNH seem to be on board, I'm sure Chevy, Ford, and Dodge would jump on board.

Pulling also needs to target a new market, yes, the heartland of America will always provide the base of our fans but as the times change and more people are living in the city as opposed to small family farms we need to target suburban america. Many of these people went to pulls growing up but if you talk to some of them, alot don't even know the sport still exists, let alone how much it has developed in the past 20 years. This is why PPL being on ESPN and Versus is a better than being on RFD-TV. It is main-stream television, where as RFD-TV, while it's good to be on every week, if you're not a farmer chances are you don't know that it exists.

Part of the reason the sport has never progressed and many of you have commented on it down below is puller's themselves. Very few (I'm not saying all) but very few ever look out for the good of the sport as a whole. Instead it is constant agenda pushing from the haves and have nots and more times than not it is the have nots that are winning the battle. The past 10 years of pulling has been more about restriction than innovation. What can we do to restrict the competition so I can win seems to be the question on most puller's minds.

So how do you solve all of this? Well first you have to understand that the problem wasn't created over night so a quick turnaround wouldn't happen over night. I believe PPL and some others that have come and gone through the years could have done a better job of taking the sport to higher level, but the reason they have failed is this, they follow what NTPA does, I don't care how you slice it, they copy NTPA rules.

The rule-book needs to be re-written and in that process 3 distinct lines need to be drawn of. Beginner, Intermediate, and Pro. State, RN, and GN. So how do you do that.

This is critical to the success of the sport, having 3 distinct levels. Tell me what value is there in a GN show if I can book a state show and know that I'm going to have several GN competitors show up? As a fan what incentive is their for me to travel to watch a show if I know I can pay 5 bucks to get into my local county fair and see the big boys? I'm telling you and I will preach it as long as pulling exists. YOU CAN NOT ALLOW THIS IT IS KILLING THE SPORT! This mentality of I can pull anywhere any time discourages new competitors from even wanting to build. How many times have you talked to a fan and they have said, I'd love to do this just can't afford it. Yet we keep trying to invent classes that are so called beginner classes. Really, what is beginner about a 150,000 dollar super farm? Or a 150,000 dollar light super? Instead of creating classes, take the current classes you have and split them into 3 divisions. For instance maybe in the light super you allow components at all levels, that would provide a base to move up into other levels. But at the state level it's all stock heads, stock rods, single charger on alky with no billet wheels allowed, and 2 charger diesel with no billet pumps allowed. Then at the RN level allow the alky's 3 chargers but keep the stock head rule, allow them to update the guts of their motor. Allow the diesels 4 chargers but still keep them away from billet pumps.
Then at the GN level allow the billet heads, billet pumps, etc etc. But instead of creating classes that are so called beginner, take the classes you have and disect them so their is an entry point for each class, and a circuit for each scenario. State, RN, and GN.

Also at the big shows you have to stop allowing everyone with a membership to pull. That is hard to do though considering all the entry fee money goes to WPI, that is why that will never happen, it is important to them from a business perspective that they get all that entry fee money to pay the year end points. This is why a title sponsor would become necessary at that point.

Again pulling's problems didn't happen overnight and they won't be solved over night. What you need is a group of individuals who are willing to say, I want this sport to be around for my children's grand-kids, and no matter how hard the decision is we're going to turn this thing around. Until there are people in place that recognize change needs to be made and start making those changes, I believe pulling has reached it's plateau and the golden years of our sport are long behind us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2009 02:08AM by HeyIt'sAnOllie.
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Re: Why pulling has reached it's plateau I believe October 18, 2009 08:27AM
I agree with you on all but one subject. I think your right in saying the GN guys shoud not e dropin dw to your state level pulls. I agree with that and your reason's. But i think that saying a state level guy can't go to a RN or GN pull is wrong. Take my tractor for example i pull with PI puller's in wisconsin. It has always been my dream to pul at tomah. I know that the dd's of me winning are slim to none cause let's face it i cant run with some of those big gun's. Nor will i probably ever jump to a higher level due to money, but its the concept that i got to pull on the big stage, and fulfil a dream.
just my 2 cent's.
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