I have achieved a new milestone in my darting “career”. Today I received an email from Cosmo Darts Fit Flight respectfully declining my offer to let them sponsor me. It was an honor to be rejected by such a fine company!

Actually, I didn’t really expect them to pay me or give me free stuff.  I just wanted them to provide me their logo to wear on my dart jersey.  Truth be told I didn’t even expect a response, but I did get this:

Hello Mr. John McCrarey,

I am Nozomi Nishikawa and the Cosmo Darts sales/promotion representative of overseas division.

I would like to thank you for your interest in Cosmo Darts. We are very happy to hear that you like our products. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide you with our logo images since we give them to only our sponsored players. However, there are many players who love our products and put our logos on their shirts by themselves. I think they use logos on our website or something. So, you can put our logos on you shirts. We appreciate your support.

I found your name in the Seoul International Dart Leagues as a vice president. You live in the USA, but are you working in Korea for the dart league? I’m just curious as there are not so many who play darts in Korea regularly.

 Thank you for your interest.

 Best regards, Nozomi Nishikawa

See, here’s the thing. With depending upon the ranking proof, wearing a company logo on your dart shirt implies sponsorship.  And it would be gauche to go around pretending to be sponsored when you are not.   I’m such a whore that I would have allowed myself to be “sponsored” for the mere cost of a company provided logo.  But they were obviously on to my scheme and didn’t want a doofus like me diluting the value of corporate sponsorship.

But I guess what really surprised me was that they actually made the effort to find out who I am.  The reference to the Seoul International Dart League (which I hadn’t mentioned in my email to them) indicates they Googled my name.  Hence, they were able to confirm that I am, in fact, a doofus.  [BTW, I use “doofus” as the darts equivalent to “duffer” in golf]

For the record, I’m a former President of SIDL but currently have no affiliation with the league other than as a participant (I’m on a team but obviously won’t be playing until my return to Korea).  But the real insult is the claim that there are not so many who play darts in Korea regularly.  What the hell?  There are thousands of enthusiastic dart players in Korea!  Has he never heard of the Korea Darts Federation?

As you’ve probably surmised, Cosmo Darts is a Japanese company, so you can see where this is going. Now, I don’t want to stir up any animosity between Japan and Korea (Dokdo is our land! and it’s the East Sea, damn it!) but this attitude towards Korean darts strikes me as, dare I say it, colonial!

Alright, I’m kidding.  Mostly.  But I do believe that Cosmo is missing a great opportunity if they aren’t actively marketing using pbn backlinks for their outstanding products in Korea.  I’d have been willing to help them with that, but I’m sure they could find a non-doofus Korean to sponsor if they even knew that darts existed in Korea.

So, I didn’t get a Cosmo Darts logo, but I did get this blog post.  I guess that makes us all winners!