Here's the deal, I have spent most of this afternoon and tonight on the phone talking to Laurent , Richmond, Niall and a few more besides.
I have now lost all faith in common sense and reason and here's why:- When I had that meeting in Orlando with Richmond, Sergei and Laurent to try and see if we could set up for X-ball over here, the proposal we came away with was an integrated international tournament series with us having 8 teams solely playing X-Ball with two American teams making the trip over to Europe for each event and the Euro teams each having to make two trips stateside.
This gave X-Ball it's validation in terms of an international series and it also gave the Euros, what I think , a more than fair deal with regard to world significance when it came to X-Ball , especially when the finals came along in Orlando where the top four Euro teams would go across to contest for X-ball World Champs.
So far so good.
All that remained was for us Euros, both promoters and teams to organise ourselves into a league and for the promoters to put their hands in their pockets and invest in what was a promising investment.
Now I can't go into too much detail about potential earnings, but take my word for it, the earning potential for X-ball teams Stateside and by extension us Euros, is huge, the like of which paintball has never encountered before.
I can't overstress this point enough believe me, the sums being talked about are astronomical and you don’t get people like Jerry Braun and Renick Miller investing the sort of money they are without it being an almost rock bottom cert.
All that said, all we had to do was to organise our X-Ball circuit, no big cash monies were being asked like the American circuit and it was to be a joint venture with promoters and teams funding the expenses of putting it all on.
Richmond was going to supply the hardware infrastructure such as scoreboard etc, so the cost was nothing like the Yanks had to face.
This was the initial proposal, we have now gone from that to a watered-down version that had no American teams able to come across and each X-Ball team not only playing just one X-ball game per Millennium but also playing the Millennium 7 man itself which was ludicrous if teams wanted to get serious and play X-Ball.
At this point, alarm bells started to ring in my head as we were now being expected to play in a circuit devoid of American competition and playing it so half heartedly in terms of promoter’s commitment, it ended up being farcical for any serious minded team to consider.
And then Sergei dropped the bombshell and told me that he needed to play against consistent competition and would looks Stateside to achieve that and leave Europe alone.
I had previously told Nial and Laurent, weeks before Sergei had even said this to me that under no circumstances should we allow a situation to develop that would make the Russians want to leave and play in America, it would be a frikkin disaster for Europe as we would lose the finest team this continent has ever produced.
The Millennium committee has now finally come to their decision, they have decided they will play X-Ball but it will be a nations cup affair with country against country and will not be team based.
This cannot be integrated in any way with the Americans, it runs contra to every common sense opportunity that X-Ball ever offered and when I asked Richmond what he thought, all he could say was that he was disappointed, he didn’t think it was the right way to go and felt that us Euros were missing a great opportunity..
Richmond ain’t no fool, if he says we f##ked up then we did, it’s as simple as that.
This situation will force any serious minded Euro team toward the States to play Super 7’s to keep its competitive edge and away from the Euro scene because of the distinct lack of AMeriucan talent now making the trip over.
I think one of the dynamics that has influenced this has been the belief that if the promoters lost the top 8 euro teams to X-Ball then this would influence the number of teams that would be attracted to their events because it was said to me that a significant number of teams came to Millenniums purely to have a crack at the top sides.
I don’t subscribe to that idea one bit and I think it’s a cheap knee jerk, ill thought out response.
This wasn’t the only determinant, I am also aware, and for the moment, I will keep it to myself, of vested interests in keeping teams away from playing X-ball because of potential situations developing Stateside.
It may be expedient to tread water for this year and pass off X-Ball as a nations Cup affair and jump back on the team bandwagon when the situation is more suited to certain parties.
Laurent told me he thought, as did the other members of the Millennium board, that to play X-Ball as a nation based competition would be more conducive to attracting TV.
But this flies in the face of the huge rewards that are tantalisingly taking form across the pond, it just not make sense because we can’t integrate this nation based format into an international league of city based teams.
And if we then try to jump back on the team bandwagon, the amounts of money then demanded to be a franchised team could be sky high and even after paying that buy in, the teams would be sooo far behind the Yanks, it would be a frikkin joke.
We would be paying catch up for years.
In my opinion, we were offered a great opportunity by Richmond and the rest of that gang Stateside, we have now squandered it for reasons that are difficult to contemplate and the more I think about them, the more cynical I am becoming.
I'm sure we will hear about teams not being able to afford this, that and whatever but the bottom line is this, we never gave it a frikkin chance.
I need some sleep
I have now lost all faith in common sense and reason and here's why:- When I had that meeting in Orlando with Richmond, Sergei and Laurent to try and see if we could set up for X-ball over here, the proposal we came away with was an integrated international tournament series with us having 8 teams solely playing X-Ball with two American teams making the trip over to Europe for each event and the Euro teams each having to make two trips stateside.
This gave X-Ball it's validation in terms of an international series and it also gave the Euros, what I think , a more than fair deal with regard to world significance when it came to X-Ball , especially when the finals came along in Orlando where the top four Euro teams would go across to contest for X-ball World Champs.
So far so good.
All that remained was for us Euros, both promoters and teams to organise ourselves into a league and for the promoters to put their hands in their pockets and invest in what was a promising investment.
Now I can't go into too much detail about potential earnings, but take my word for it, the earning potential for X-ball teams Stateside and by extension us Euros, is huge, the like of which paintball has never encountered before.
I can't overstress this point enough believe me, the sums being talked about are astronomical and you don’t get people like Jerry Braun and Renick Miller investing the sort of money they are without it being an almost rock bottom cert.
All that said, all we had to do was to organise our X-Ball circuit, no big cash monies were being asked like the American circuit and it was to be a joint venture with promoters and teams funding the expenses of putting it all on.
Richmond was going to supply the hardware infrastructure such as scoreboard etc, so the cost was nothing like the Yanks had to face.
This was the initial proposal, we have now gone from that to a watered-down version that had no American teams able to come across and each X-Ball team not only playing just one X-ball game per Millennium but also playing the Millennium 7 man itself which was ludicrous if teams wanted to get serious and play X-Ball.
At this point, alarm bells started to ring in my head as we were now being expected to play in a circuit devoid of American competition and playing it so half heartedly in terms of promoter’s commitment, it ended up being farcical for any serious minded team to consider.
And then Sergei dropped the bombshell and told me that he needed to play against consistent competition and would looks Stateside to achieve that and leave Europe alone.
I had previously told Nial and Laurent, weeks before Sergei had even said this to me that under no circumstances should we allow a situation to develop that would make the Russians want to leave and play in America, it would be a frikkin disaster for Europe as we would lose the finest team this continent has ever produced.
The Millennium committee has now finally come to their decision, they have decided they will play X-Ball but it will be a nations cup affair with country against country and will not be team based.
This cannot be integrated in any way with the Americans, it runs contra to every common sense opportunity that X-Ball ever offered and when I asked Richmond what he thought, all he could say was that he was disappointed, he didn’t think it was the right way to go and felt that us Euros were missing a great opportunity..
Richmond ain’t no fool, if he says we f##ked up then we did, it’s as simple as that.
This situation will force any serious minded Euro team toward the States to play Super 7’s to keep its competitive edge and away from the Euro scene because of the distinct lack of AMeriucan talent now making the trip over.
I think one of the dynamics that has influenced this has been the belief that if the promoters lost the top 8 euro teams to X-Ball then this would influence the number of teams that would be attracted to their events because it was said to me that a significant number of teams came to Millenniums purely to have a crack at the top sides.
I don’t subscribe to that idea one bit and I think it’s a cheap knee jerk, ill thought out response.
This wasn’t the only determinant, I am also aware, and for the moment, I will keep it to myself, of vested interests in keeping teams away from playing X-ball because of potential situations developing Stateside.
It may be expedient to tread water for this year and pass off X-Ball as a nations Cup affair and jump back on the team bandwagon when the situation is more suited to certain parties.
Laurent told me he thought, as did the other members of the Millennium board, that to play X-Ball as a nation based competition would be more conducive to attracting TV.
But this flies in the face of the huge rewards that are tantalisingly taking form across the pond, it just not make sense because we can’t integrate this nation based format into an international league of city based teams.
And if we then try to jump back on the team bandwagon, the amounts of money then demanded to be a franchised team could be sky high and even after paying that buy in, the teams would be sooo far behind the Yanks, it would be a frikkin joke.
We would be paying catch up for years.
In my opinion, we were offered a great opportunity by Richmond and the rest of that gang Stateside, we have now squandered it for reasons that are difficult to contemplate and the more I think about them, the more cynical I am becoming.
I'm sure we will hear about teams not being able to afford this, that and whatever but the bottom line is this, we never gave it a frikkin chance.
I need some sleep
