Is Reunification still in the cards?

[SPHEREPOINT]

Robbo- You can safely scratch SD off the list. I love the fact that you are bolloxed; I always enjoy inducing the use of a language nuance not commmonly found stateside. I may miss a few of the deepest circle discussions within the industry, but let's just say I can put enough pieces together to get the picture for all the things I don't hear or know directly. Thank you for calling me eloquent, intelligent and knowledgeable-you just may make me blush should you keep up such complements You may get a limitation of content, maybe, but never a limitation of style. Here's a tiny clue for you: I not well know, but I am known. Secondly, we've met once before, and were introduced by a man who supposedly fainted in your presence when confronted by you for misdeeds years ago, in the early days.

Muskrat- A single format is needed. I think that's what the bomb may be in San Diego. My uninformed guess is that the NPPL will bond to the Millennium, going to the CPL format, etc... My enemy's enemy is my friend indeed! Rate of fire/modes is a bit more complicated issue, but everybody needs to get on the same page.

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

I meant to say I'm not well know. Typing too fast....

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

well known damn!

 

[Baca Loco]

Paul- I'm not back tracking, I'm merely stating that although Gillette is not in actual Boston, people can easily find the local NFL Super Bowl winning team's stadium. Anybody can. There seems to be an overwhelming idea floating around that high profile implies jamming an event in Central Park so as many otherwise unknowing bystanders walk blindly into our mousetrap and find tournament paintball as the cheese. High profile means easily found, quickly recognized, and heavily, heavily promoted.

Hey, even semi-literate Americans (and most Canadians ) know where the Grand Canyon and Mt. Rushmore are. Doesn't make them ideal venues tho. And yes, I'm just being difficult but you still haven't addressed the difference between a high profile venue and a high profile event. Nor have you offered any glimmers as to just what the NPPL has managed to accomplish with the stadium venues. Other than create a baseline of expectations that now must be, at a minimum, repeated again and again.

 

[Baca Loco]

Lets stop saying a place such as a football stadium is the best place to hold a event or that a event has to be held within the city limits to use the name. This game should alway played on grass not astro turf. turf will shorten the avarage playing career, and if don't belive me ask guy's like Earl Campbell who barley can walk now from playing football on turf.

And for that it needs to be in the city proper i've bet none of you have ever been to Michigan International Speedway which is out in the middle of freking no-where but manages to get 200,000 people to show up for a nascar race. Once paintball gets that big it won't matter where the fields are the people will show.

The leagues need to get it together adopt the same format (7man X-ball) and the same gun rules (10bps ramping) and about 6 maybee 7 events total spread out across the country (not 4 events in cali) and form a true non partisan PRO REF org.

And remember we are the customer and the supplier of talent and no matter how much they think they are in charge we (the players) really do have the power to decide it is our MONEY.

Or you might have said Gilette Stadium in Foxboro. But if Paintball were as popular as football or NASCAR we'd not be having this conversation.

Have you ever tried playing 7-man Xball or are you simply splitting the difference? And 10 bps? Another compromise suggestion? While the reunification thing sounds good to lots of peeps for various reasons the devil, as they say, is in the details and some of those details aren't small matters.

And I hate to break the bad news to you but nobody cares about the talent. The customers, yes, to a degree, for now, but talent is a commodity and replaceable.

PS--I not only know where MIS is I used to fish on Whitmore Lake with my grandfather when I was a kid. Small world, huh?

 

[Chicago]

I don't think 7-man XBall works because the fields are too big. It gets glossed over, but one of the big differences in play between X-Ball and 7-man is the field dimension. Compared to the number of players, there is a lot more lateral field space in XBall. If you scaled an XBall field to accomodate 7 players, you'd just be making it even harder to fit into venues. (I realize total area probably isn't much different, but the rectangular dimensions of the NPPL field makes it easier to lay out.)

The right compramise is semi-auto XBall.

 

[dirtymik]

hey baca,
thanks i meant mohegan sun not foxwoods. casino was in my head as i was writing and mohegan isn't the place i think of.

it was on the show they were calling it four minutes? oh, i thought it was something espn was pushing for. it may be something yet that happens. and thanks for saying the NPPL is blushing at the sweet words of ESPN.
ESPN is playing both sides and anyone else with an idea for paintball on tv. which leads me to believe we'll have a 'sports entertainment' type of paintball [in the vein of roller derby or dodgeball] rather than a true sport on tv.

and for something you said earlier about the difference between high profile event and venue.
HPE is an event that lots of people know about irregardless of the venue. say a free concert somewhere in a city by a high profile band.
HPV is a venue that lots of people know about [ie. gillette]. though there are events that go on there that the majority of people wont know about.

holding a paintball event at a high profile venue is trying to glean some credibility for the event from the status of the venue. it is a good idea.

baca you're another one i would have liked to meet at boston for a minute.


i have some more to write to you and chi-town but i'll leave it for the weekend.

 

[Baca Loco]

holding a paintball event at a high profile venue is trying to glean some credibility for the event from the status of the venue. it is a good idea.

baca you're another one i would have liked to meet at boston for a minute.

Okay, I know I'm sounding like a broken record here but if it's such a good idea can somebody, anybody, point out any positive effect the high profile venue has had to date? I'm just asking.

Sure, you ignore me in Connecticut. You blow me off in Boston. At least you're trying to soften the blow by lying to me and I appreciate that. No, really.

 

[SPHEREPOINT]

One benefit is intangible legitimacy. Others (i.e. venue owners, casual paintball players, not comprehending family members of paintball players, general public) invariably see a certain level of organization, class, and dare I say professionalism in our sport when we have our events at professional sporting venues. We seem as though a well organized, unified, professional, growing sport in our bright colors on our bright fields with our high energy pace and swells of young kids dying to be where we are. But if we keep everything else but the venue- we just look like another "game"-bright, vibrant, and energetic still, but plopped wherever there's an open grass field. It just doesn't have the same zip to it. It's the difference between buying your sweetie a dozen roses at a clean, brightly lit, professional floral shop the day before and picking up some half dead carnations from a bucket in the back of a van at the corner gas station from some shady character, late at night-because YOU forgot that it was Valentine's Day. Sure, they're both flowers, but it's really all about intent and presentation.

 

[Baca Loco]

One benefit is intangible legitimacy. Others (i.e. venue owners, casual paintball players, not comprehending family members of paintball players, general public) invariably see a certain level of organization, class, and dare I say professionalism in our sport when we have our events at professional sporting venues. We seem as though a well organized, unified, professional, growing sport in our bright colors on our bright fields with our high energy pace and swells of young kids dying to be where we are. But if we keep everything else but the venue- we just look like another "game"-bright, vibrant, and energetic still, but plopped wherever there's an open grass field. It just doesn't have the same zip to it. It's the difference between buying your sweetie a dozen roses at a clean, brightly lit, professional floral shop the day before and picking up some half dead carnations from a bucket in the back of a van at the corner gas station from some shady character, late at night-because YOU forgot that it was Valentine's Day. Sure, they're both flowers, but it's really all about intent and presentation.

Just like a woman. What, you don't feel loved if I don't blow the whole paycheck on ya? Right, so you've told me why you (and presumably some other ballers) feel good about it but you still haven't addressed any tangible (or outside of paintball's little world) value yet. Here you've got a couple of leagues bleeding money and you advocate reunification as a necessity yet surely a portion of the NPPL's money woes come from the expectations formed by these venues but as yet I'm not seeing any positive cost benefit analysis that even hints at it being a worthwhile expense except to reinforce the sport and athlete fantasies of many of the participants.
Beyond that, and maybe it's just me, but setting up in the parking lot of a professional sporting venue isn't exactly the same as competing at a professional sporting venue.
"Where were you last weekend?"
"Playing an international paintball tournament at Gillette Stadium."
"Awesome, dude. What was it like? Is the turf soft or hard or what?"
"Well. Actually we played in the parking lot."
"Oh."

[Not a real conversation so Missy needn't get all bent out of shape and Chi-town is welcome to quote from it anytime. ]