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Originally Posted by 1ntCobra
Ah, yes. What if I had a business venture. And there was some "club" out there that essentially is like free advertising to my company. Maybe that "club" is really a business and their "members" are really customers to that club, but those customers are actually funding the free advertising for my business venture. What if there are 2 guys that run the club and might split the profits from their company that are probably less than 200k per year. Now lets say that I hire another company with part of my advertising budget that costs me 200k per year to essentially run another "club". Should I upset the first company that provides me with free advertising and cut them out of the picture so they cannot get the 200k that provides my free advertising?
I guess it might come down to, do I trust the "club" that provides my essentially free advertising that is not really under my control? If I don't trust them to do what I want, maybe I should try to stop them. But then again I might alienate some of the "members" that were happy customers to the "club" and you know what, those "members" are also my potential customers that I might be alienating.
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If I may quote myself...
I think a made a bit of a bad analogy here.
My post sort of implies that SAAC was a business that promoted Shelby sort of independent of Shelby. But the SAAC and Shelby businesses have had business relationships with each other for a long time. We just don't know what the details of those arrangements were.
From some of the posts that I have seen, I was getting the impression that some people here think that SAI is going after SAAC's revenue, much like SAI is going after other replica manufacturers for not having a license for making vehicles that look like Cobras. I don't think that is the case. Unlike the replica makers, SAAC was licensed by Shelby. Amy has said that the license is not being renewed. Not only was SAAC licensed, if you go back in time prior to the current SAI, I believe SAAC used to be Shelby's licensing organization.
I believe Amy when she says SAI is not doing this for the money. I suspect that if SAI could get all of the SAAC members into the new club, SAI might be able to pay 2 or 3 employees with their increased revenue, but those people would have to do all of the same things that SAAC does and SAAC uses volunteers to do many things. However, it looks like SAI has outsourced TeamShelby. So I guess the new club has to find enough volunteers to make the situation work for them.
Maybe this is just what Amy mentioned earlier about some arguments between SAI and SAAC, and now SAI is cutting loose a long time business partner.
I'm sure that without the Shelby license, SAAC will continue, but will need to make some changes, probably like changing the logo so it is no longer a cobra badge, and perhaps the registry name will change from "Shelby American World Registry" to "SAAC World Registry". Maybe the t-shirts will not have cobras or shelby mustangs on them anymore. With that being the case, it actually seems like SAI is perhaps a bit foolish in not renewing SAAC's license as SAAC will continue to make money off of their members, their convention, t-shirts, posters, etc. and we'll all know that SAAC is still a Shelby enthusiasts club. Why not renew the license and get some percentage of the money that SAAC makes, however small that is.
Perhaps SAI and SAAC just cannot get along anymore. I doubt we'll ever know what the real reasons are behind this.