when the pro tour was on before it wasn't conventional pro teams though was it? i mean kellys were in it before they even hit cpl. surely the spl teams could compete and perhaps the div 1 millenium teams?
anyone thats moving from the point
Cookie, this is the problem mate, the old model of pro team focus has to be discarded and a new strategy has to be developed.
All of the big companies that are still in the game have realised they need to look after their core market and one of the reasons why the US paintball scene is in so much trouble is because the big companies took their eye off the (paint)ball.
They lost sight of their core market which was, and always will be, the rec scene. This is 95% of the paintball market and it is this area of our sport that pays for the pro scene ...let's never forget that.
With that in mind, the focus must be shifted away from pro-orientated tournaments towards a much wider demographic, and it's a demographic that necessarily has to involve the rec scene, the scenario scene and finally (note the word finally) the tournament scene.
And the reason is this, we need to provide a coherent framework in which to create new blood, which by the way is always gonna be a derivative of the rec scene, and then create a tournament circuit that doesn't put newcomers off, which it has so successfully done in the past.
And so this process necessarily has to create what I'd like to call (for want of a better word) 'parachute' events and / or leagues.
These will provide a soft landing environment for all newcomers to our sport and won't have them running away for fear of getting a thousand balls rammed in their face from some snotty kid screaming obscenities at him/her.
We need to learn from our mistakes here and unless the emphasis changes this time around, we will repeat the mistakes of old and I ain't going down that road.
Luckily for us, the industry has already fundamentally changed its operational practices and emphases...and rightly so, and this industry shift in emphasis will serve us well because it will dovetail into what we wanna do and we they wanna go ...and so 'what does this mean' you might ask?
Well, it means they are more likely to help us financially because, what we will be working on, will not come on a wing and a prayer ... we will need brains/experience to create, brains/ experience to develop and money/commitment to sustain.
This ain't differential mathematics guy, it's pretty much commonsense coupled with experience .... we shall see if people are true to their word and put the state of UK paintball before the state of what's in their pocket ......I am somewhat closer to optimism ..... but not there yet
