I thought you were going to head along the right path?
The path least travelled........
I still to this day, and its just about applicable to everything, cannot see how anything can be organised with the participants in mind when the organiser is either a proprietor or wholesaler for the industry.
Because because there is no real money or long-term future in just tournament promotions?
How can a long term strategy be effective when there is pressure to drive product 'A'? Yes there is a choice available but not many.
Can you tell me anyone who would not give their own product an advantage at an event they organised? Can you? I know what I would do if it was my job, my work, my future and it all depended on selling product and turnover.
That shouldn't be a problem - many sports enjoy heavy industry sponsorship of events, but still allow the event to run (mostly) unbiased (Falmouth week in 1995 was an exception); off the top of my head I can think of Sailing and Windsurfing, Surfing, Skateboarding, BMX - all these have little to no "outside" sponsorship, especially at the lower (i.e. UK domestic event) level, but they manage to run sustainable, even profitable events on a regular basis - and most of those organisers have "industry" jobs too (owning shops/training schools etc.)
I see two broad chances. Independant, non affiliated organisers or a governing body for events that sets the field level.
The governing body idea has been tried, to a greater or lesser degree by the UKPSF over the years (I paid up mostly because I had to to play at the Masters), maybe if all the organisers agreed to make it compulsory and Bully appointed someone to oversee the tournament side of things for him?......
As for the independent organiser - Wendy has few, if any, obligations/business allegiances (that I'm aware of at least), Russ appears to have dropped off the face of the planet, and Syd runs his own site & shop, but allows other trade stands to sell paint etc. - Can these guys get anymore independent without facing financial ruin?
Maybe this is what spoilt the Milleniums? Are any of the board unbiased, without influance.
I think this is a gap an outside company / board could fill?
The paintball world is still too small and inbred, it never will be mainstream.
No outside company would touch the job with a barge pole - I know what sort of revenue a medium to large domestic tournament can bring in, and how much of that is profit after labour/costs etc. and I wouldn't touch it in a million years, why any of the promoters even bother getting out of bed for the money they must make from the reduced size events of this year is beyond me.
You may counter with a "But if the facilities are there, the players will fork out" style argument, but it's painfully obvious that your average Joe Baller isn't going to pay unless the event is so amazing in terms of venue/facilities etc. that any chance of a profit would be laughable.
What you propose is an awesome dream, but there needs to be a fundamental shift in the attitude and cooperation of both the player and organiser to allow this sport (sorry Jay, hobby/pastime) to grow enough over the next few years so that an outside promotion company would even consider entering the arena as an exercise in branding!
Get the Promoters to agree catchment areas, and schedule events with an emphasise on getting the numbers at a good venue, as opposed to trying to steal each others bread and butter.
Get teams to (try to at least) stop bickering/politicking because their mate just got a field & compressor and wants to put on an event, and go to an event to play and watch lots of different teams of all abilities, like we used to do - we can still train/scrimmage/shoot paint over the chrono at our mates site, but lets get the events big enough to have an atmosphere again.
Then we can worry about having huge, outside supported, mainstream events with TV, Cheerleaders, Blackjack and Hookers. [Insert Futurama joke here]
