Do We Need the Millennium?

[Mark Toye-Nexus]

I think the Millennium series are in good shape.

I do however think that they need to change a few things that can make it better.
The idea to ditch the entire series to "free up resourses" is just silly. I mean the teams that want to "free up resourses" can do that today by simply not attend.

European paintball needs a major series in major citys to make the sport grow. To present to sponsors and media and young people that may start playing. And a showcase for new products, new teams etc
European teams also need to play against each other to become better witch local events wont be able to produce.

Magued

At the moment the only people that are showcased to are the people that turn up to play the event in the first place, as it is a major series it presupposes that they have already decided to play competitive paintball. The youngsters decide this before attending the event not because of it.

As for showcasing products? To who? To the teams that turn up either sponsored or assisted and often loyal to a manufacturer anyway.

As for playing against each other to get better? Now c'mon Mag. You have personally created great teams from within using your own Nordic Series to develope players, train against and go kick arse. The MS hasnt done that for you.

I agree that the MS has served the players, on and off, very well for a long time now. They really need to sit down now and decide what their focus is. Creating a sport or serving the paying player?

 

[Mark Toye-Nexus]

Mag, Jay, we have all played at the top of our sports, it's hard to take a look outside of our boxes and seeing it from the average Joe paintballer's perspective immediately changes our considerations.
It's big picture paintball from now on maybes and the big picture doesn't have the pros in the foreground, it has the masses.

Therein lies the truth

I paid and played and have had the great good fortune to have been sponsored to the hilt - I have seen both sides of the fence, so;

The way teh MS has developed seems to me to be driven to serve the privileged few, those that liked to aspire to top level paintball. The truth of the matter is that that is only 10 to 20 teams. The other 100+ teams arent in it for that - they want VFM. They want an event to get excited about, to look forward to and spend their hard earned cash on and use their hard earned holiday time on.

Thats the perspective that needs to be viewed, they pump the lions share of the money into the event, spend money at the food stalls, drink the beer, cheer on the finalists even buy kit at the vendors.

Serve them, create something that they consider worth spending money on and survival is assured. This doesnt exclude top end competitive ball - it focuses it. Then maybe they will benefit too.

 

[Robeenio]

having read what has been written it seems that the top brass in ball have seen what is coming.
unfortunatley a lot of people in the industry/tournament game dont see the forest for the trees and as such means they are happy to plod along the way they are.

i dont have any delusions of grandure or rate myself as an amazing player, but i like to feel i know what its like to go from grass roots and to be able to compete and thankfully i've had a great coach/manager who has opened my eyes to what really goes on in the sport/game/industry.

i think that the idea put forward by chicago is a great one. and i think that with multi formats and various rule books and such likes means that there is no unity within paintball and despite what people say a lot of tournament organisers wouldnt be doing it if they were not making a decent profit.

as said in a previous post in another thread, when a business is failing you cut back and start afresh in a new way that will help flourish e.g if you have a nice rose bush if you want it to bloom and grow outwards you need to prune it and maintain it and keep it fed.

i feel that in order to improve the pie that is paintball as a whole you need to maybe make a new 'pastry'
and that isnt going to happen unless the top brass of paintball stick thier necks out and say.... ok lets get this mess sorted and they have the full co-operation of the tournament organisers and players.

granted there are going to be people who dont agree, but for want of a better phrase we need to think of the greater good.

and that means change!
and we know how paintballers take to that!... cue death knell of ball ... no skill anymore....it will kill us all etc etc etc

for damage limitation it needs baking by popular faces
and it also needs to be agreed and set in stone..

hell even a f*cking commitee of the who's who of yester year and present without the bull**** or ego's etc

cos unless sh!t gets done we are gonna be talking about the saaaaame thing for years to come! with the occasional i told you so!

and i wish for gods sake that we could sort out this sponsorship/support/discount saga!

a lot of teams are deluded and dont know the meaning of the word and it has cheapened its meaning, so when teams are REALLY sponsored they dont get the credit they deserve!

\rant over until i catch my breathe lol

 

[Robbo]

i dont have any delusions of grandure or rate myself as an amazing player, but i like to feel i know what its like to go from grass roots and to be able to compete and thankfully i've had a great coach/manager who has opened my eyes to what really goes on in the sport/game/industry.

Such as?

.......... and despite what people say a lot of tournament organisers wouldnt be doing it if they were not making a decent profit..

Since this in the Millennium Series thread I presume you are referring to the Millennium and if you are implying the Millennium make money...they don't.
The small net they make goes straight back in.
I ain't saying they wouldn't like to make a profit but I'm afraid 'liking' and 'getting' are two different things and so I don't really know where you are getting your information from.

and i wish for gods sake that we could sort out this sponsorship/support/discount saga!

a lot of teams are deluded and dont know the meaning of the word and it has cheapened its meaning, so when teams are REALLY sponsored they dont get the credit they deserve!.

I don't really think this is an issue to be sorted out all, it's an extremely minor and unimportant misunderstanding and certainly doesn't warrant any consideration past that of mere acknowledgment.

 

[Robeenio]

alas i was refering to uk series (my bad)

but i stand corrected on the milleniums if you say they dont make a profit.

but by that rationale (sp) and with the way that people view the milleniums surely its in thier interest to

1) make a small profit
2) provide a more consistant and enjoyable series

scientists say that for every bad thing that happens it takes 10 good things to counter it, as we tend to remember the bad, it's how our brains are programmed to learn etc. With that in mind the good events/locations that the MS do put on are over shaddowed by the few bad and a greater feeling of ineptitude is aparant

and alas yes it is a small and minor point regarding the sponsorship/support but its one that irritates myself personally

no its not going to make the world change or sort out anything major but i feel it may be a tiny baby step in the right direction

 

[Robbo]

alas i was refering to uk series (my bad)

but i stand corrected on the milleniums if you say they dont make a profit.

but by that rationale (sp) and with the way that people view the milleniums surely its in thier interest to

1) make a small profit
2) provide a more consistant and enjoyable series

They would love to make a profit and 'yes' it would be in thier interest but at the moment, it is not really the best time to increase the prices to a point where they could ensure a healthy profit, there would be just too much of a hoo hah for sure.
Maybes that making a healthy profit might provide a more consistent event promotion but I'm afraid we have entered a contraction period in the industry and so the Millennium guys won't be looking to be too adventurous at the moment.

scientists say that for every bad thing that happens it takes 10 good things to counter it, as we tend to remember the bad, it's how our brains are programmed to learn etc. With that in mind the good events/locations that the MS do put on are over shaddowed by the few bad and a greater feeling of ineptitude is aparant

I'm not so sure I have heard any scientists say this unless of course it was a psychologist commenting on the frailties of human behaviours.
This is because people's misconceptions re the perception of good events related to bad is anything but scientific.
This lies more in the realm of a subjective quirk than it does anywhere near real science.

and alas yes it is a small and minor point regarding the sponsorship/support but its one that irritates myself personally

no its not going to make the world change or sort out anything major but i feel it may be a tiny baby step in the right direction

I'm all for baby steps mate but I think there are many more important candidates that would qualify I think.
Still, we live and learn SickPsycho, we live and learn.

 

[Russell Smith]

Well Pete's original question was do we need the Millennium! well obviously not! but if you allow me to change the question slightly to do we need a major European series (Millennium or otherwise) yes we do.
But I also believe we need something else a little bit more.
We need to stop pretending this game is a sport and work on getting it recognised as such, the current set up of the Millennium Series prevents them from doing that. But it would not take a major change to do it and I think the current personal are capable of doing it.



Russ

 

[FabO]

big international events are important to affect attention by outside-sponsors and media. one giant event would in this case be more economic and representative than 5 charleoroi-like ones.

but there is no guarantee that media-attendance will work out as we are all dreaming of, if once achieved. downhill, agressive inline-skating and others are examples where it didn't.

in this case events would be still financed in majority by players and the inside-industry (which is financed by the players). how many international events are optimal then will be regulated mainly by players-demand.

the most affordable system to masses of ballers would be from my p.o.v. a homogeneous league system across europe (national premier league, second, regional,...) with strict relegation rules and so on. the national champions would compete in a kind of champions-league.

as to the yank-teams. i think we won't be able to beat them in the short run. but even the us all-stars in basketball do not achieve olympic gold every time.

 

[go-one]

I think part of the responsibility lies with us players. Rightly or wrongly bouyed by the words of the media we have all come to expect to much.

Look at the imidiate slaging Belgium and the recent psp (i think) got for being in the middle of no-were, yet Mark T eluded to the fact its only us ballers who turn up anyway. So if we are to get back to the VFM / enjoyment side of things do we realy need to be at a race track. Toulouse is always held as a great event but it was hardly on the high st. The fact people came had more to do with the event than the location cos that kissball ground was not on a through route to anywhere but a toxic industrial estate.

So if we worry less about location (which I imagine is a large overhead) it surely frees up resources to put into the things that matter. And by moving away from ready made locations will reduce the likely hood of restrictive food / water policys that sees bag serchs for m&m's and people 're-hydrating' with beer cos they can't aford the on site water from the one official vendor.

But I digress, the question was do we need the MS. I'm going to buck the trend and say we do, there's just no one else out there crazy enough to put on the events ! However we NEED the MS to take a hard look within and decide WHAT it is they are trying to achive. As robbo points out, times have changed and whilst the industry can not afford to shell out like days of old, neither can the players afford or justify spending £3k to 6k for 40 games of ball which probably amount to less than an hour of trigger time.

I like'd the 'show' feel of old, but I'm no longer willing to pay for it. Now I just want a well run, propaly infrastructured tourny with plenty of games. And I don't care if its in a field in Brighton. The sooner a few more people start to realise that the present style of series is unsustainable, and prehaps focus on what actualy matters the better. (Thats paintball by the way