Poppycock. Almost every sport if fragmanted. How about racing? Surely the viewers must be incredibly confused between NASCAR, NHRA, Formula 1, and go-carts. Football, basketball, soccer, the other football, they are all different depending on where they are played. There's some fairly confusing differences between American basketball and Olympic basketball.
First of all, motorsports is not a valid example, as it is not a team sport..... and even so, the sport is almost always the same (except for weird hybrid formats like Le Mans): "1 guy driving 1 car for x distance, following x route, and be the fastest one".
Secondly, although there are variations between college football/basketball/whatever - and the Pros... they are still playing the same game with the same number of people on the field (PLEASE don't mention canadian football - nobody but the canadians care
).
How do you think Basketball would fare if college suddenly decided to play the game with 4 players on-field - or what would the effects to Football be if college decided to change the game to "QB can't throw the ball forward even when in the pocket"?
Those are the kind of substantial differences that we are apparently happy to be faced with in paintball.
Bla. bla. bla. "backyard games".... not relevant dude.... backyard basket is what we in paintball call rec.ball, and is not relevant in this context.... and is not really something anyone is trying to get on tv in a serious way.
And, even if you do not agree with all that, paintball is an extremely different situation, compared to established tv sports.... The established sports have a historical, emotional and social meaning to most anyone, even if they never played the sport or are interested in it....... we on the other hand are TRYING to make the general population understand a sport they know next to nothing about, and it does NOT help in any way whatsoever, that we are not able to even decide what our sport is about.
Finally - do you really think that the mergers of leagues in football, hockey, etc. back in the day, were merely because people were bored... and that they had no real significance to the development of those sports since then?
Nick
