illegal no. imoral... maybe!
Don't forget that Head probably makes 10-20 different racquets all with the marketing name of "MG Extreme Pro", only one of which they sell to the public. So, yes, Gasquet does indeed use A "MG Extreme Pro", just not the same "MG Extreme Pro" as the one we can buy in the stores. So unless a company specifically says that a certain pro uses - "the SAME racquet at the one sold in the stores", like Wilson has said about Federer's K90, just saying that a pro uses a certain model name doesn't really mean anything because there could be many different racquets all given the same marketing name. Internally, they have no model names at all, just code numbers to differentiate them.heres some interesting read from head and richard gascquet enjoy !
[B]You play with the MG Extreme Pro. Why do you like that racquet?[/b]I really like this racquet because it’s powerful, and that is important for my game. I can play with a lot of topspin which is crucial for my backhand. The MG Extreme Pro helps me to improve my game.
what a joke everyone knows that he plays with the instinct tour xl including himself yet he keeps the consumer believing otherwise lame !!
when a player says "i'm using so and so...", it's HIM lying, not the company falsely advertising. and lying isn't illegal!
But even almost 40 years ago, Rod Laver painted his wood Dunlop Maxply Fort racquets to look like aluminum Chemold racquets (who was sponsoring him at the time). Yes, he painted wood racquets to try and make them look like they were aluminum! Not easy to do.This practice seems much more widespread nowadays than it did 20 years ago, though.
Isnt this false advertising ??
http://www.babolat.com/english/tennis/rackets/index.php?idproduit=202
' used by rafael nadal ' .
No, it's not. Because, again, it doesn't say that Nadal uses the SAME Aeropro Drive as the one sold in the stores. But he does indeed use an "Aeropro Drive".Isnt this false advertising ??
http://www.babolat.com/english/tennis/rackets/index.php?idproduit=202
' used by rafael nadal ' .
But even almost 40 years ago, Rod Laver painted his wood Dunlop Maxply Fort racquets to look like aluminum Chemold racquets (who was sponsoring him at the time). Yes, he painted wood racquets to try and make them look like they were aluminum! Not easy to do.
But McEnroe always used a real Max 200G, the same one we could buy in the stores. He never had it paintjobbed AFAIK.And Lendl with his Kneissl/Adidas/Mizuno or McEnroe and Navratilova with the Max200G or Becker with his Puma/Estusa.
Yeah it says "Aeropro Drive" (which is what he uses). It doesn't say "Aeropro Drive Cortex", which is what he has a PJ of..Isnt this false advertising ??
http://www.babolat.com/english/tennis/rackets/index.php?idproduit=202
' used by rafael nadal ' .
But McEnroe always used a real Max 200G, the same one we could buy in the stores. He never had it paintjobbed AFAIK.
Yeah it says "Aeropro Drive" (which is what he uses). It doesn't say "Aeropro Drive Cortex", which is what he has a PJ of..
Don't forget that Head probably makes 10-20 different racquets all with the marketing name of "MG Extreme Pro", only one of which they sell to the public. So, yes, Gasquet does indeed use A "MG Extreme Pro", just not the same "MG Extreme Pro" as the one we can buy in the stores. So unless a company specifically says that a certain pro uses - "the SAME racquet at the one sold in the stores", like Wilson has said about Federer's K90, just saying that a pro uses a certain model name doesn't really mean anything because there could be many different racquets all given the same marketing name. Internally, they have no model names at all, just code numbers to differentiate them.
I don't think there's a law against companies giving many different variations of a product the same marketing name when they're only selling one of the variations in the market.
Actually, many amateurs such as juniors and college players use paintjobs, too....amateurs... that's about it.
Yeah it says "Aeropro Drive" (which is what he uses). It doesn't say "Aeropro Drive Cortex", which is what he has a PJ of..
Is there any players that don't use paint jobs?
But even almost 40 years ago, Rod Laver painted his wood Dunlop Maxply Fort racquets to look like aluminum Chemold racquets (who was sponsoring him at the time). Yes, he painted wood racquets to try and make them look like they were aluminum! Not easy to do.
i called the the head manager of australia last week and threatend to sue as i brought a micro gel prestige as shown to be used by safin in fact its not and its a head prestige classic, they said just take the raquet back for a full refund. THEY ARE ALL SCARED!!! they know we will win in court and they will have to pay all court costs, lets all stick together and keep harrasing them and maybe this will some day stop! the reason they do this is because they sell us the junk at a top price and the pros get the real deal because it costs more to make as qaulity control and materials are very strict. i know most of us arnt at ATP level but we deserve to buy what we see not what they want us to see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i called the the head manager of australia
im not sure i get it right. please explain otherwise but i understood this: you are claiming over getting a better racquet than the one you were suposed to get? if anything you should pay more!
Go ahead, take them to court, you are going to lose anyways they can get any decent lawyer and find either a loophole, or prove it's not false advertising. Seriously why are you all making a big deal out of this, it's not like any of you guys are going to take a company to court over a tennis racket paint job.
The paintjob is just advertising. When you see a city bus going by with a Coca Cola ad plastered across the side, do you expect soda to come gushing out when the doors open? Come on, people, give the whole PJ issue a rest.
I think some of you guys are missing the point. "False advertising" is when a company advertizes a certain benefit to be gained by the consumer from use of its product, such as, "Tide will get your clothes whiter than any other laundry detergent." If it doesn't, then you can claim it's a case of false advertising.
However, no specific claims of any consumer benefit is promised by the practice of pros using paintjobs. They never specifically claimed that if you bought a Head Flexpoint Radical, that you would be able to play tennis as well as Andre Agassi. Thus, no promises were unfulfilled because no promises of benefits from the use of the product were ever specifically made. In order for you to successfully sue Head in a court of law, you would have to prove that by using the retail racquet that you purchased, you can only play at best at a 4.0 level, but if you used Agassi's actual racquet, you would be able to play just as well as Agassi, since you were disappointed that after buying the racquet you were still not able to play as well as Agassi. Good luck proving that because you can't. However, if you bought the racquet just to look like Agassi, then that benefit has indeed been met because the retail racquet looks just like Agassi's racquet to anyone watching you play from a distance.
So I think people should just stop getting all bent out of shape over this paintjob issue. It's just marketing and they do it of course to sell more racquets. And if they didn't do it, they would sell far fewer racquets, and each racquet would cost twice as much as they do now. Do you guys want to pay that much more for tennis racquets?
I don't find it ilegal at all. As mentioned by some, they are not claiming you can play like the athlete. They are just using the athlete's image to attract buyers. Just like clothes and food products...Lebron can't play like he does drinking Sprite all day, Jordan and Bird surely wouldn't have been able to move like that eating McDonalds and Lays all the time. And you know Gatorade, they have special formulas for athlethes not sold in stores!
I think that the issue is not with the PJs, the real problem is that companies don't continue of make available products that athletes use. The Head Prestige Classic, is an example of a racquet that should remain in production...there seems to be a wide enough demand, with most reviews claiming it to still be the most superior version of the racquet despite there being about 5 incarnations of it afterwards. Racquets should also be available to the public if an athlete uses a common though now extinct frame with a PJ...again pointing to the PC, if say Safin is using a straight up PJ PC, it should be still available.
However, custom made frames, are a different story, since it wouldn't be possible, it wouldn't be cost effective to try and make each frame variety.
No, I never lost a minute of sleep over paintjobs because I don't buy racquets just because of the pros.They don't make a claim of increasing the buyer's performance, but they do make the claim that a certain pro uses a particular racquet. For example, if you go to the Babolat web page and you click on "Aeropro Drive," you will see the statement "used by Rafael Nadal." (Cortex technology is shown so we can assume that they mean the cortex version.) Now based on that statement, any reasonable person would conclude that Babolat means that Nadal used the racquet shown on that webpage. But is that true? No, if you believe that he uses the non-cortex version with PJ. This is false advertising! They lied. They didn't say he's using a variant of the racquet or a previous generation of the racquet. No, they are saying he is using this racquet!
And he is not taking the stock racquet and customizing it. He is using a previous generation of the current racquet, which qualifies it as a whole different racquet. The fact that Babolat is advertising the new cortex version as new means that even they see the cortex racquet as a separate racquet from the previous generation.
Just the fact that they feel compelled to try to cover up the actual racquets used by the pros with PJs means that they are trying to hide something. It's deceptive and it's false advertising.
Did you feel lied to when you first found out about PJs? I certainly did. I never bought a racquet based on that fact that some pro is using it, but I still felt lied to... by the players and by the companies. The bottom line is they're stating a fact that is false, and that is false advertising.
I don't think most Head shareholders care what technology Agassi used to get to a Grand Slam final. What they care about is how many racquets Head can sell. And if paintjobs help Head to sell more racquets, then its shareholders would LOVE paintjobs.I can't speak for US law, but your point doesn't hold in the UK. What are the laws on misleading shareholders in the US? Head claimed that there innovative technology was so good it helped Andre Agassi reach a Grand Slam final!
But it says in that press release that Nike is still fighting the lawsuit, so have they lost yet? And they claim that they were going to eventually release Wood's actual ball to the public anyway and it was not as a result of the lawsuit. So did the public really "win" this lawsuit?
Only days after this lawsuit was filed, Nike announced that the exact ball which Woods uses in competition would soon become available to the public, pending U.S. Golf Association approval, and be marketed as "Tour Accuracy TW". It is a decision which Nike maintains had been in the works long before the suit against them was filed. Nike also stated that the company would continue to defend against the pending lawsuit
Believe you me if a similar Law Suit was filed against the likes of HEAD, Babolat, and Wilson, you have the same kind of result.