Thoughts Please ...

[Sid85]

My opinion

Wow....this is what it feels like to post again....I'd forgotten.

My opinion is simple. Paintballers are lazy and will talk the talk, but through experience I know all the talk in the world will not change a thing unless you step up to the plate and stick to your word. My opinion on one National League, it won't work, simple as that. Paintballers want to play with as little fuss as possible, end of. They don't want to drive 8 hours, sleep for 4, play for 10 then drive for 8, unless they have no choice, like we did for 10 years!!!

So, how would I do this if it was me. Simple, you create a select league rather than a national one. Teams are approached by the league organisers and selected to play. So, teams aspire to playing the "by invitation only" National Paintball League, so it's not a case of oh we have nothing on this weekend let's play the NPL. It becomes a prestigous event.

You run 2-3 Divisions of 8 teams, do we lock it for the season, no, we allow teams to move up and down division according to their performance. So, top 2 from Div2 move up and bottom 2 down etc, so that we don't have a team mowing all other teams for a year. And also gives teams something to push for month to month, if this is the scenario.

So, do you select the BEST in the UK....hmmm...tough one, would the BEST commit to playing it? This is the question and what makes them the best, winning local events, we can't take European standing into account because you only have 10 teams max who actually commit to Europe and not just one or 2 events.

I would say, we have someone who knows their teams, i.e. Ledz, Robbo etc, someone big(and I don't mean size) to sit down and select the teams they want in the league. Then approach them with what the league has to offer, look after the teams and they will look after you.

I've always said I'd like to see an Eclipse National Paintball League because these guys know their stuff. And when they do something they do it right.

So.....hope this makes sense to you all, as I say I've not posted in a while so apologies if it doesn't make any sense...it does in my head.

Agenda

1. Location - Central UK
2. ECLIPSE National Paintball League
3. No locked Divisions i.e. Teams can move up and down.
4. Millennium Gun Rules
5. Excellent Refs
6. Teams contracted to season
7. Teams by invitation only

Good Luck....

Sid....

PS as for promoting paintball as a sport....A1 Paintball has an office on the hight street in a busy town, on our window we have a huge graphic for promoting paintball...is it johnny commando, no, it's a Clan player(me obviously) playing in the PA wearing bright yellow Evil Gear, JT mask, shooting an Ego....this is massive and promotes paintball as a sport. My car has the same graphics, and the busiest roundabout in West Lothian also uses the same graphics, we promote paintball as our business, but we use the sport as our marketing tool.

 

[Ash - GI Sportz]

So, how would I do this if it was me. Simple, you create a select league rather than a national one. Teams are approached by the league organisers and selected to play. So, teams aspire to playing the "by invitation only" National Paintball League, so it's not a case of oh we have nothing on this weekend let's play the NPL. It becomes a prestigous event.

We had this in the form of the DYE Pro Tour, an invitation only league, which after the first year was looking to expand, and promote regional champions into the Pro Tour which appeared at select events within the feeder leagues....

Sadly no one wants to foot the bill for this anymore...

I do agree with your point, having a league like that really drove up the quality of the invited teams, and definitely pulled up the quality of the teams who aspired to be promoted into it, plus it was a great spectacle for the players attending the feeder event, the camaraderie between the ProTour teams was awesome too...

Ash

 

[Sid85]

Pro tour was a great venture, but I'm thinking more one set location for a National League and not a tour at other events. More a National Invitational League at the National Venue.

 

[evoonline]

something central i.e. birmingham(ish)?

 

[Robbo]

We had this in the form of the DYE Pro Tour, an invitation only league, which after the first year was looking to expand, and promote regional champions into the Pro Tour which appeared at select events within the feeder leagues....

Sadly no one wants to foot the bill for this anymore...

I do agree with your point, having a league like that really drove up the quality of the invited teams, and definitely pulled up the quality of the teams who aspired to be promoted into it, plus it was a great spectacle for the players attending the feeder event, the camaraderie between the ProTour teams was awesome too...

Ash

I ain't surprised nobody wants to support a series like this again, Dave Youngblood invested a lot of hard earned cash into the last one only to see that fat phuk andy scutt divert a disgusting and totally unwarranted amount of Dave's money into his own back pocket ....made me kinda sick he got away with that really ....still, what goes around.......


PS Ash, I fail to remember much camaraderie, or maybe I ain't looking thru rose-tinted glasses mate.

 

[Sid85]

Why Birmingham?

I was thinking Manchester area....but I guess it comes to location of event and where can you get the best profile for this event and not some field in the middle of nowhere.

If we look at Manchester or even between manchester and birmingham it is around the same amount of travel time from London, Edinburgh if we are invited etc.

Dunno location is a small part to be honest, the bigger picture is having the teams and quality venue/event. Location, well, if you build it they will come.

 

[evoonline]

no reason why it should be birmingham but you said central and birmingham is pretty much there within england itself. as you say though manchester is only 60ish miles north of birmingham so anywhere there isnt a bad stab at the middle.

 

[Dark Warrior]

Premier Division - 5 (+1) events - Top 10 UK teams playing X ball lite or M7 - Events played at 3 venues around the country - venues must be up a a recognised standard - Teams must play 4 of main 5 to qualify for event 6
3 Regional divisions - 5 x 5 man events - relegation and promotion strictly scrutinised - top 5/6 teams in Division go forward to play at Premier Division event
Event 6 would be a big showcase tournament @ one of the sites with Premier division playing their final game and the Winner being crown UK X-ball lite (M7) Champion and Regional divisions fighting it out to see who is UK 5 man Champion
Monetary Prize for the top 3 teams to go with series trophies

Just an idea

 

[Robbo]

If we look at Manchester or even between manchester and birmingham it is around the same amount of travel time from London, Edinburgh if we are invited etc.

Invited ???
You kiddin' me, Hadrian had the right idea !!!!!










Jk Big boy

 

[Ledz]

I have had many a conversation with players and organisers about what I feel are the basic issues. I have seen many people looking far too deeply into the problem behind this, so rather than me going over every single point that has been written I’ll just give you my opinion.

As my opinion is built up from my experiences I have to look back to what we had back in the day; Why it was so good back then? What went wrong and what we can do about it?

First up: Leagues... I’ve never been a great fan of leagues. My reasoning is that we are NOT playing football where I buy one pair of boots a season and then pay £5 to play the local Sunday league on a skinful of ale. We are playing a sport that costs a LOT of money to play.

I think I was involved in playing some of the first ever leagues in the UK and the big issue was that the lower third of the teams used to stop playing after a few events when they decided that it was costing them a load of cash to have their asses handed to them month after month. A correctly run and structured league might be a good thing but I don’t think it’s going to be our saviour. If we managed to get every tourney organiser together and arrange a national league then it might be a good thing. But do we really think that will happen?

Format: Let’s look at this from a first time player’s point of view. You go down to your local woodland venue on a stag do and get hooked. You start playing more and more and then you fancy yourself as a bit of a Rambo. You get yourself your first gun and two or three of your mates do the same. You play as often as you can. You now want a bigger challenge so you look at the next step forward in your Paintball career...But what is that? Ten or fifteen years ago you could go to many a woodland venue tournament, be it Two-man, Five-man, Seven-man, Ten-man or even Fifteen-man. There were always better teams there but you had FUN. You got to run around, get involved, hide if you wanted too, whatever. These days your options are pretty crap (I know there are a few woodland events but they’re not that well publicised). You have to go to a Supair event where the fields have become considerably smaller. Rate of fire is an issue but for not so much as the size of the fields. To encourage new blood we need to make a format that is something FUN. Having to spin on the break and empty you loader down field in five seconds isn’t everyone’s idea of fun. It used to be a skill to shoot corner to corner, now it’s so much closer that it’s become easy. Making it out to the corner in the first place is the issue these days! Don’t get me wrong I don’t think the current format is all bad but it needs to be reserved for the teams and players that want to play that; The balls to the wall, in your face, super aggressive style of paintball. If you’re that person, great. If you have just come out of the woods for you first taste of tourney ball then… Oh My God! I would make the fields bigger and put more bunkers on them.

Going on from the general format to what a lot of you have mentioned, I think at this moment in time the best way forward is to try and offer as many formats as we think will work. If a ‘Four-Man Pump Only’ event will work and event organisers can run one, then run it. If a ‘three-legged event’ works, then run it. But run them at the same time as these other events. These mini side show type of formats might be the difference between an event making profit or not bothering at all.

I gave Wendy (Masters) an idea last year which I personally think is a great half way house. Places like Ancaster are a nice permanent Supair site (Four fields I think) with a Woodland paintball site attached. Wouldn’t it be great to have half your games in the woods and half on the Supair field? OK, this may not be for everyone, but isn’t it a great way of introducing much needed ’New Blood’ to the tournament scene?

Limited Paint, no battle pack or Atlantic star, etc are great, inexpensive events and I’d encourage them to come back. If the fools at the other end want to burn their paint off in thirty seconds that suits me. The baptism of fire in a limited paint event is a lot less harsh and also creates a more level playing field.

I had a good long chat with Wendy the other day. I don’t think I have my fingers on the pulse of UK ball as much as I’d like but from what I can see, Wendy is doing is a great job. She will be the first to admit that she needs help and advice. She has ideas but she’s trying to make everyone happy and that just isn’t going to happen. Wendy is very interested in getting the so-called UK Pro’s involved in her events as she has been approached by them. It was great to have these Pro’s playing against each other in the Pro Tour of old, and something that Nexus did often. We (Nexus) weren’t 100% behind it as we had other agendas but it was something that I enjoyed and was great to play. If these events can be organised for the Pros to knock heads, that’s a good thing, but they are going to have to pay like everyone else. We need to concentrate on the core of stable average teams in the UK and bring in ‘New Blood’. If we do that then the UK Pro scene will start to flourish again. However, Pro’s are the ones that need the least help at the moment and the ones that will be the least loyal, if something better comes up for the Pro they will be off...

So how do we get this ‘New Blood’? I have already given this idea out to a couple of people and it probably needs tweaking but it goes something like this: First up the issues. Site owners want their players to continue to be punters for as long as possible (That’s how they make their money). Players that get hooked and buy their own gear (Or want too) will look around and if serious leave there local site, and the site owner will lose them anyway. If we don’t give these players the entry level events to play they will quit in a very short period of time and we will have lost that player FOREVER. So, how about getting the sites involved? Let’s use the Skirmish Network as an example. We speak to the local fields and we offer them a big discount on their ‘Site’ team entrance to an event (As long as we have already sorted out the event’s format). We could even have something like the Skirmish Challenge Trophy around the UK. We get, say ten or twelve teams from the Skirmish networks that play alongside the other teams at an already established event. These teams (I’d bet my bottom dollar) will be either ref’s, owners or regulars. They (hopefully) will have a great day and they’re the ones that will spread the word and then suddenly teams will start to form. You can then make this a regular thing with the site owners getting a kick back from the event organisers for every team they book in. We could start to make posters that get put up around the sites; you know the sort, the ‘Are You Ready For The Next Challenge’ type of thing. Site owners might get behind it if they can 1).... Sell these teams paint, 2).... Get paid a little for booking them in, 3).... Get these good players away from the punters (as a good player with his own gear costs sites money coz every person they shoot stops shooting paint at 6p per ball), 4). Sort out some kind of deal for reffing (most sites needs ref’s) = paint or entrance fees. I know BTW that there are counter arguments for most of these points but the point is we are looking for ideas, no?? We need to get new people talking about having FUN!

As for the more established teams I believe one-off events for teams to aim towards are also great. With Banzai’s we always had a goal for the season. The leagues we played might have been going well or badly (Mainly well ) but we always had the goal of the Mayhem Masters or the World Cup or the UK’s Gold Cup Etc. It means that even if things are going badly you can still pull it back and become the ‘Blah Blah Champions’ you could also have the Spyder Cup type events or the Skirmish Challenge like I mentioned at these one off events.

There are so many other points that we could discuss but the core point for me is the FUN. Small in your face Supair fields just isn’t fun (for everyone).

Wendy (Masters) had some real good ideas yesterday when we chatted and if she can pull them off then that’s good for the sport. Bully I hear is starting the No Battle Pack series again which is a good thing. We have to make it FUN and we might lose some of the whistles and bells that make them super special events. But in day gone by we never had that, like Pete said we went and competed because we wanted to win!

I know the answer isn’t in this post and the answer as I see it means a lot of different people pulling in the same direction, I have very little to do with events but I can see what is right or wrong and I’m here if anyone needs help and advice. BTW it sounds a lot better when I say it rather than type (remember I’ve got pizza all over my hands).. And like Pete said the scene in the UK isn’t dead the Tourney scene is just a little lost......

LEDZ