And so the downfall of the NXL begins....

[Nick Brockdorff]

Thanks PBStar

But, I think you are wrong.... when you can easily see canon fire in the news, which travls at much higher speeds (I think they burn Phosphor)... it is just a question of technology, not one of whether the human eye can reguster it.

You could easily solve it with a flourecent paint shell and the right camera... but that is much too costly a solution at the moment.... but I am certain the problem can be solved some way.

Nick

 

[Robin Hood]

I think those are tracer rounds your thinking of Nick. Every so many bullets there's a tracer round which can easily be seen by the human eye.

I'm sure there must be someway of highlighting the balls, even from a sideline view when they're technically moving the fastest across your line of sight, making them more difficult to follow. After all....they're not moving anywhere near speed of bullets.

 

[Baca Loco]

Getting off track here a bit, kids. Don't get Nick started on glow in the dark balls--oops, too late. If y'all wish to discuss the relative merits of one sort of production over another start a new thread.

The object for this one is to predict what will come of the Smart League adventure.

Whale--not overly interested in outcome of the event but s'okay to throw that in as well assuming everyone knows who the participants will be. You might find it interesting to know the divisional brackets. Philly, RL, Dynasty and XSV in one bracket. Raiders, Strange, NYX and Dogs in the other. I am told it's being done that way to ensure competitive exciting match-ups throughout. You might also find it interesting to check the current NXL rankings--not that that means a whole lot yet.

pbstar--less photography, more 3 league speculation. (Drop by anytime, Chris.)

Pete--you're just setting the stage. C'mon, one tiny prediction. You know you want to.

Forget the TV production and go bigger picture. Is the NPPL(?)/PP/IMG the standard representation of paintball on TV for the future? Should it be? What happens to the NXL/PSP if the Smart League venture fails or succeeds? Are the Pro ranks broken up yet again? Does anybody but the Pros care? Should they?

 

[Chicago]

You seem to mention a whole bunch of shortcomings of 7man, but leave quite a few of XBall's shortcomings out of the picture.

No, you seem to be confusing shortcomings in FORMAT with shortcomings in PRODUCTION. I already said that if they did the same things they did with the first NXL show and filmed it the way the NPPL films they'll either be screwed or have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on flashy graphics covering up the poor production.

When you say your friends thought xBall was repetitive, you mentioned that they couldn't tell the difference between the next point and replays. Why not? Because it was edited poorly - either because they let Jerry in the editing room of the NXL show or because they had a tiny budget for the college show. Viewers can tell the difference between new action and replays in lots of subconscious ways that we just plain havn't done yet: When you do a replay, you play it at half speed. Then the viewer knows it's a replay. And has an easier time seeing the action.

The XBall shows we've done so far have unfortunately been done for time. It's a format that really needs 2 hours of airtime to do right - to have BOTH the action AND the commentary. When you try and squeeze it into an hour time slot, which is 40-43 minutes of actual airtime, minus intros, etc, you can't even get in all 40 minutes of game time.

You watch a football game, it takes 2-3 hours to broadcast it. That's what it's going to take to do a full-on XBall match correctly, and I just don't think the people currently involved have the stomach for buying two hours of airtime.


As for the NPPL show, NPPL isn't paying for it, IMG is paying for it, and IMG is buying the airtime. They've got a department/budget that is spent on trying to develop the "next big thing". They havn't done very well with it so far - there were no out-of-industry sponsors at film-time (where you get a lot of your value with on-location/on-field presence, just look at a NASCAR race), and on the show they have Vault as a title sponsor. If some real out-of-industry sponsors don't shake out this year, you can bet that arrangement NPPL has is over.


Anyway, XBall is superior to 7-man. Most people I talk to prefer XBall to play, and it definitely has better potential to be televised in an exciting matter.


But, back to the topic at hand:


The most likely outcome is Smart Parts puts this show in the can and it never gets broadcast, or is relegated to the 2 AM time slot. That could be because they run out of the cash to edit it and put it on the air, because ESPN has better things to with their airtime, or because the rest of the industry makes a move to block it.

Less likely is they broadcast it and the same thing happens as wit the first NXL show: We all go "Wow, paintball on TV", and another industry player has a lighter wallet.

There is a remote chance that they broadcast it, a bunch of out-of-industry sponsors see what they were missing, and all line up to sponsor a whole season next year, in which case all the non-SP teams NXL teams will be in the same situation that all the NPPL teams currently are. (I do find it amusing that people say SP is screwing everyone over by doing their own show when that's what NPPL has been doing the whole time - it's not like any of the NPPL teams get any equity.)


I think worrying about a third league is silly. Neither PSP nor NPPL are profitable, so all creating a third league does is allow you to lose more money. If the SP show actually does well enough to stand on it's own, they won't have any use for a D1,D2,D3 etc, they'll just run the events by themselves or in a studio ala UAPL.

 

[Nick Brockdorff]

Don't get Nick started on glow in the dark balls

The object for this one is to predict what will come of the Smart League adventure

Well - if they had glow in the dark paintballs - it would be a success

Nick

 

[MissyQ]

"Anyway, XBall is superior to 7-man. Most people I talk to prefer XBall to play, and it definitely has better potential to be televised in an exciting matter."

That is your opinion Chicago. There are a lot of people that disagree with you, including, and most importantly - ESPN.

I sat with ESPN and listened to what they want from paintball in order to make a successful show. I think you can safely say that ESPN have more experience with airing sports than we do. Perhaps the question should be -
Who knows best how the American public wish to veiw sports?
Paintballers, or ESPN?
I think thats an easy one. While you may be ideally placed to tell an ESPN executive which bunker to stand behind if he was playing paintball in order to avoid being eliminated, I fully expect an ESPN executive to be able to do a much better job than you when it comes to filming the sport. If Xball was what they wanted, the NXL would be on TV. IMG looked at both, and the decision was not a difficult one for them. But perhaps you know best

The quote above from you is incredibly shortsighted, and to be honest, I expected you to be able to take in the bigger picture a lot better than you have been able to. Is not all about opinion any more. Not that you are prevented from having one of course. The Smart Parts infomercial won't be Xball either. So your precious (and uber-repetitive) format won't be on either way.

As an aside, did you know that they have made a decision to remove the X from all the fields in an attempt to make the format more Tv friendly? Next they will be adding 2 more players and lengthening the games. All a co-incidence? If you think that then you are blind to the demands of the people that are airing these shows.

When overwhelming evidence exists contrary to your own opinion, sometimes you have to discard said opinion and move on, gradually developing a new opinion based on new information and factual happenings.
Alternatively, just keep asking paintball players what they want to see on TV (other than themselves) and you will maintain the slant you have already swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Look outside the box!!!

 

[Baca Loco]

Good one, Missy. Why, they's TV executives so they must know! What, pray tell, is the failure rate of new programming, Missy? Care to grapple with that one. The simple reality is it's all a crapshoot and a better question is: Should Paintball conform to TV's idea of Paintball? Your answer appears to be, yes, in which case you and Jerry share at least one similar opinion. And that's worked out so well in the past, too. A "yes" answer might also be an indication of priorities.

 

[shamu]

The problem with past TV programs is in the presentation, not the product. Ultimately, I don't think the format is going to make that much of a difference in the success/failure rate for paintball on TV (so now both sides can hate me)

The NPPL show is doing well (ratings-wise, and anecdotally) because people can understand it. Can it be done better? Sure. But the same thing that Chi-town hates about it ("it's so slow") is what makes it easier for non-paintballers to understand. It also makes it easier to present, as you have more footage per game.

One of the main rules for editing is you want as much footage as possible, whic provides the most opportunity to find "the shot".

Xball provides a similar opportunity, but it's in terms of the number of points. You're not going to see full length Xball matches on TV anytime soon IMO. Too much repetition, too expensive for the current interest level. You're going to see what you have with NPPL and, to a lesser extent, UAPL. Games will start, then you'll see the key points of the game - first point, a couple of mid-game points, and probably the final point. The drama becomes the back and forth of the scoreboard, not the number of bodies left on the field as it in in NPPL.

I'll go back to what I said in a previous post - the success of the SP show depends on the skill and understanding of the people doing the film production. If they get the sport and how to present it, they can create a product people will watch. But it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be cheap.

Whether or not ESPN picks it up as a series is another story entirely...

 

[MissyQ]

Good one, Missy. Why, they's TV executives so they must know! What, pray tell, is the failure rate of new programming, Missy? Care to grapple with that one. The simple reality is it's all a crapshoot and a better question is: Should Paintball conform to TV's idea of Paintball? Your answer appears to be, yes, in which case you and Jerry share at least one similar opinion. And that's worked out so well in the past, too. A "yes" answer might also be an indication of priorities.

You are off base on this Loco.
I am merely stating that having Paintballers mouth off about how Paintball should be presented as a Television Sport is redundant. As redundant as having TV execs dictate where your team should break to on the Spyder field. People like the ESPN show, don't they? Notice anyone wearing clown suits? Notice any corporate agenda in those shows? No huh? Notice any ridiculous changes in the format to facilitate ratings? No again? By looking for some kind of hidden agenda perhaps you have missed the simple irrefutable logic of my actual point.

Oh, and liken me to Jerry one more time and you'll wish you hadn't. You owe me an apology for that. It is not OK to throw insults of that magnitude around and claim they are 'throwaways'. Out of common decency I will not counter your vile comparison with one of my own, but I am holding myself back, I promise you....


Fact - ESPN were offered both formats and chose 7 man.
Fact - ESPN claim the optimum game time for TV is 4 minutes.
Fact - 7-man can be edited down to a good 4 minute game
Fact - The Miami games were terribly boring. They were not a true representation of the usual Super 7 finals. Given better materiel to work and lessons learned from the first filming/editing the next shows can only be an improvement.

 

[one4one.tv]

=> pretty much agree with what Chris said (after all he's very much used to get on the field and get some paintballs in the a**) , to get paintball streams on the cam you need to be behind/in front of the player. Thats the big deal, and for that as far as I know you gotta have people on the field as well (or close enough to players).

=> pretty much agree with Nick as well when you talk about editing. Paintball is a very very complicated sport to edit (I mean make it understandable to people who do not have a clue of what paintball is), and thats the key. That's the problem of regular editors who don't know about paintball, same for the camear crew, they won't get key actions because they just don't know whats going on.

NPPL coverage by ESPN was very good to me, but too far from the action, making the game boring to watch some time. But the rich media addition was really helpful for regular viewers and that was a good point.

Get an editor (former or actual paintball player), get a camera crew made of people who play paintball ( or people from DVD companies/ internet movie Co)
and you have the solution (anything easier? ) Get the rich media addition and to me you are close to the ideal way of showing paintball on TV...whatever the format.

Mat