Since the NPPL considered sanctioning a new 7 Man Series at the World Cup in Orlando there has been much confusion and speculation as to what this means to the Teams and Players of the Worlds largest paintball league.
In order to clarify the situation and explain the reasons for the NPPL’s decision to part company with the PSP and run its own series of events, NPPL President Chuck Hendsch has issued the following press release:
‘The NPPL is a non-political governing body responsible for sanctioning quality paintball events and committed to growing the sport at all levels. We are also dedicated to improving and maintaining the Sports integrity and professionalism.
Our goal is to create a positive environment which encourages new players into the game and to provide all players and sponsors with a top quality flagship Paintball series with sound infrastructure that delivers on its promises.
The further intention of the NPPL is to legitimise tournament paintball by maintaining a body of independent professional referees, whose sole purpose is to maintain and enforce the rules, regulations and standards at all NPPL events. The NPPL has also developed a sanctioning program with very strict guidelines to ensure that all event organisers adhere to the highest standards and work progressively in tandem with the teams and industry as a whole.’‘
The NPPL Super 7’s is formatted to globalise the game and make it more presentable to Television, outside sponsors and most importantly, spectators. 7-man is a very strategic game, is easy to follow, fun to watch, and fits more easily into desirable venue’s, allowing more impressive locations to be explored.
We are focusing on cleaning up the game, employing trained, dedicated refs who follow the series and adjudicate at every event. We cannot allow referee’s to be intimidated. They must have the knowledge and authority to properly enforce the rules, specifically for cheating, foul language, physical altercation and threats, which have not been properly addressed in the past.’
‘The NPPL is for everyone, teams, sponsors and industry alike. A team can show up and use any product so long as they are safe and falls within the NPPL guidelines. Our doors are open; we are excited and looking forward to moving Paintball onwards. Over the past years tournament paintball has grown in participation but the tournaments themselves have not kept pace with that growth. The 2003 NPPL 7-man series will revolutionise the game as we know it today’
The ‘Clean up’ program will be backed up by trained Refs and Equipment Scrutineers that will be flown to each event, instead of having to source referee’s at the location of each tournament and giving them rudimentary schooling. This has been the difficulty with the consistency of the Pro reffing since its inception and has been caused in no small part by the lack of available funds required to finance the levels of expenditure needed to pay for the flights and travelling expenses of the more experienced Pro Referee’s. Good refs can be and have been found, but if these refs are only used at their local event they do not gather the experience necessary to enforce the rules properly, and the whole process must be repeated at the location of the next event with no guarantee of success.
Each of the NPPL Super 7’s events will be held in a quality venue with floodlights to allow games to start later and run into the evening. There are plans to allow more teams into the finals, where a new knockout format will take place on a ‘Centre Court’ arena. The NPPL 7-man Series will kick off in February 2003 and a complete schedule of locations and dates for the entire series are to be announced in the middle of December. The NPPL has already secured considerable industry support which will guarantee increased prize packages for all divisions. For example, Pro teams will compete for a minimum first place cash prize of $20,000 at each event, plus a Pro Series Champions prize of $15,000. Amateur, Novice and Rookie teams will compete for prize packages totalling $40,000, $30,000 and $20,000 respectively.
These events will also be linked to the European Millennium Series. Points from specific European events will count in the NPPL series and vice versa, to entice more European teams to come over and try their skills in a 7 man format. Fewer European teams are making the trip over to the US due to the standard of events they get at home. Higher quality venues and grass playing surfaces are a requirement in the Millennium series, and this requirement must and will be applied to the NPPL Super 7’s in order to globalise a higher standard of event. It is also being considered that NPPL and Millennium membership could be combined, so that members of one series can travel to play in the other, and enjoy membership benefits of both series without paying another membership fee.
