It's done!

[camsmith]

Originally posted by Tiny man
...start acting like the brits, frenchies, germans, Italians, etc that we are...

What, you mean bi+ch, moan and whinge at each other, really not achieving anything constructive? hehehe

Completely agree with the sentiment though, and I think that's what the others are trying to say above.

The one difference (when you use the football example) is that internationally, there is one rulebook and one set of rules governing the sport.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Tiny man
I'm pretty new to the paintball scene and i suppose my view won't mean as much but i agree with what people have said in previous posts we should stop tryin to be yanks and start acting like the brits, frenchies, germans, Italians, etc that we are.
Paintball in ways is just like any other sport in some aspects different parts of the world have different leagues i mean no-one complains about different countries having different football (soccer ) leagues do they.
I think this is a really good thing to happen and now we should concentrate on the great European teams rather then the great american teams. By all means from time to time there should be international matchs like in any other sport but for the moment Europe lets focus on ourselves and make paintball even bigger and better in our home countries.
Thats my little bit
No matter what lets keep ballin
Mike

Hey Mike, everybody's gotta voice on here no matter how long you been in the game.
As for us trying to be like the Yanks, we were never trying to be them, we just wanted to be part of their set up, that is all.
I don't mind trying to emulate their skills on the field but that's a different matter.
The main difference in paintball with regard to other sports you mention, there was already a fair amount of integration already between the two continents, so a world X-ball league was not so much a desertion of things European but more a further integration and evolution of what we already had, this is the point !!!

I am not sure what you mean by acting like Brits, French etc actually means when it comes to organizing anything.
If you mean we should now think as Europeans in isolation from the American scene, this I'm afraid is now forced upon us if the Millennium wants to run X-Ball, we have no choice.

In paintball terms, tihs parting of the ways is not a good thing to happen as you suggest, it's frikkin disastrous but what it does is, it forces us to focus our attention more professionally than we have ever done before and we have to have the right people in on this from the start and decisions must not be made solely by people wearing too many damn hats.

We will no doubt as you say, keep ballin, but what remains to be seen, is the way we go about it with the top teams.

The likes of Niall, Sergei, Pure Promotions, Laurent and a few more hold the key to any coherent directoin for European / world paintball for next year.
It is a complicated / political minefield for anybody to negotiate but with the NXL seemingly holding the upperhand with regard to mainstream paintball, we better get some seroius minds on this problem or all we do is sentence ourselves to second best, and I for one, didn't set Nexus up to be in any second best league.....and nor did Sergei with the RL !!!!

 

[Mark]

Originally posted by camsmith
What, you mean bi+ch, moan and whinge at each other, really not achieving anything constructive? hehehe

Completely agree with the sentiment though, and I think that's what the others are trying to say above.

The one difference (when you use the football example) is that internationally, there is one rulebook and one set of rules governing the sport.

The first part could be applied to the Euro scene given what happened regarding the nations cup X-Ball etc...the second part however, that is easy to answer...football has one set of rules 'cos the game was invented in Europe....any american invented game is not played the world over with the same rules (except Monopoly)

 

[duffistuta]

The EXL is a non-starter, fowgeddaboutit, it doesn't stack up.

There is, however, an alternative...

 

[Piper]

And that would be???????????? We seem to be waiting silly man!

 

[camsmith]

Originally posted by Mark
....any american invented game is not played the world over with the same rules (except Monopoly)

I think you'll find that Monopoly was invented in England (perhaps that's why they use the same rules the world over)...

I thought that baseball and basketball had one set of international rules. Aren't these American sports that are played word wide?

Getting serious though (and back to the topic), when can I have a copy of the rules that will be used Europe wide? In another stream a while ago, I was told that there was someone working on this. How can we expect a professional game, when we don't even know what the rules are?

 

[Manning26]

More tid-bits...

Something that didn't really hit me until I got back to my hotel after the meeting was that the term 'reality T.V.' was used. I'm unsure what that was getting at precisely. I'm guessing that means they'll be getting behind the scenes, trying to find some drama in the player's pit-area. I think a lot of people are still very skeptical of the whole thing.

One of the first questions asked was, "How will the league view random drug testing?" There were few questions put to the board, and I think it was due to a little shock from the media. Also, we're so used to being disaapointed, many have taken the, "we'll see," side of things.

I'm curious about the pro' teams that have been left out INCLUDING the Europeans. As I already reported, they said there could be only one in Hollywood, but I don't know how believable that is. There's room for more than one reality cop show, there's room for more than one 'Survivor' rip-off show, I don't see why this should be any different.

I suppose we'll see...

 

[Gadget]

I can see this is a major setback for the top Euro teams who wanted a piece of the action, however is the old adage 'any publicity is good publicity' really true here?

Will TV coverage be a good thing regardless of how it is done?

Personally I find most american sports coverage awful - both the format and the presenters.

I think that Europe has the chance to work towards their own paintball future and their own TV deals - which I'm willing to bet will be far better (I'm talking quality of production rather than playing ability here) than their US counterparts.

I can see the whole X-ball bandwagon turning into some horrific WWF pseudo-sport which will be mangled to meet the demands of the ratings gods.

I think we'll have a far more difficult job getting regular TV coverage in Europe (simply because our TV industry is dwarfed by the US), however when (if?) we do manage it, we've got more chance of preventing the game itself from being *******ised.

 

[sjt19]

Originally posted by Andy Piper
And that would be???????????? We seem to be waiting silly man!

How about this?:

Personally i think we should as a sport ditch the Pro, Am A , Am B , Nov and do what every other sport does and introduce a central league, with governing body, have Div 1 trhrough 5 say, with 20 teams per league from all over Europe/The World and then have them battle for promotion to be up with the big boys. You couls have the MS rankings form the basis for this league placement, i.e top 20 into Div 1, next 20 into Div 2 and so on. It would make the sport far more marketable and appealing to people that play as thy would be actively seeking to achieve a goal. That of either winning the division or not being relegated. Make a system where you are penalised for coming last and standards will improve fast


Well?

 

[Red_Merkin]

finally sam, you had a good idea.

I guess if you say enough things, finally one of them will make sense.

Of course you would have relegation and promotion at the end of each season.