Just to try and clear some things up for everybody :-
This year kicked off with the NXL being tooted as the ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ salvation of paintball.
Certainly the format was revolutionary enough to support the idea and all that was needed was the Holy Grail of TV to come knocking on its door and all would be wonderful.
Whilst this revolution was unfolding within the NXL / PSP, WDP in the form of Pure Promotions went about setting up their new tournament series along with the NPPL, hitting the sand running at breakneck speed with their Huntington Beach extravaganza.
It blew everybody’s socks off, including the PSP’s, in one fell swoop Pure Promotions raised the bar on tournament promotion and its effects rippled around the world of Paintball.
The PSP struggled to keep up believing this new series would come to an end but the ace up the sleeve of the PSP, as they saw it anyway, was the impending TV deal they had ongoing all throughout this year.
The thinking was such that although the PSP had to play catch up in terms of tournament promotion, the TV deal would make all this seem silly in comparison.
Whilst most people were looking toward these two bodies to see if the PSP would catch up, the real race, or rather as some people saw it, was between the two with regard to courting major TV interest.
This backdrop TV race came to the fore just a week or so ago when it was rumored the NXL / PSP had done a deal that would eventually have X-Ball plastered across American homes in a league format.
It turns out that Dick Clark who owns a production company has secured the rights to an X-Ball league.
Now what does this actually mean ?
Well, it means Dick Clark has the rights to X-Ball, it doesn’t mean to say it will be on TV yet, it just means he has the rights. No doubt he will begin filming but it remains to be seen whether or not this option is taken up by any network.
And as far as I know, no monies are to be paid to the NXL until such times as the show is sold to a TV company.
Now whilst all the ‘hoo ha’ is surrounding the NXL and their press release, in the other corner, we have Pure Promotions who have actually gotten Paintball onto Fox Sports and into 84 million homes across the US.
Now the difference is with this is, Pure Promotions have sold paintball to the Fox network as an ‘event’ not a league and the programs featured clips from Huntington Beach, Vegas and Chicago in an Xtreme style presentation.
And now the biggie, coz Pure Promotions has just announced they have tied Paintball into NBC’s Gravity Games. Now this is something else again coz this is big sh!t going on here, this ain’t no hick-ass channel being beamed out to 35 people across the US, this is NBC going nationwide to millions.
Paintball is being showcased in a six to eight team tournament event contesting for the Gravity Cup with something approaching 800,000 people attending the games.
All the teams present will have unique opportunities to tie in outside sponsor deals,
I for one am still considering getting Nexus’s ass over there just to be a part of it.
On top of this, Fox Sports in conjunction with Pure Promotions are running a showcase Paintball series from October to early December that includes footage from all the events this year into a reported 70 million homes in the run up to Christmas.
This is a multi-shown series.
And so where does this leave paintball?
It leaves paintball in people’s front rooms, that’s where it leaves it, slowly but surely we as a sport are treading the tricky road to mainstream acceptance.
Now I don’t know when the league format of the NXL will actually get on to the box but the event showcasing of Paintball by Pure Promotions sure has.
The Gravity Games is a massive leap forward and all we can do as paintballers, is hang on for the ride coz it gets well interesting from here on in, make no mistake about that.
Now there have been many posts on these boards recently regarding this format, that format, NBC, ABC, Dick Clark, Dick-Head and so on, the only thing we can say for sure is, Paintball’s moving…..nobody knows yet where we are headed but I tell ya this much…..it’s in the right direction
This year kicked off with the NXL being tooted as the ‘be all’ and ‘end all’ salvation of paintball.
Certainly the format was revolutionary enough to support the idea and all that was needed was the Holy Grail of TV to come knocking on its door and all would be wonderful.
Whilst this revolution was unfolding within the NXL / PSP, WDP in the form of Pure Promotions went about setting up their new tournament series along with the NPPL, hitting the sand running at breakneck speed with their Huntington Beach extravaganza.
It blew everybody’s socks off, including the PSP’s, in one fell swoop Pure Promotions raised the bar on tournament promotion and its effects rippled around the world of Paintball.
The PSP struggled to keep up believing this new series would come to an end but the ace up the sleeve of the PSP, as they saw it anyway, was the impending TV deal they had ongoing all throughout this year.
The thinking was such that although the PSP had to play catch up in terms of tournament promotion, the TV deal would make all this seem silly in comparison.
Whilst most people were looking toward these two bodies to see if the PSP would catch up, the real race, or rather as some people saw it, was between the two with regard to courting major TV interest.
This backdrop TV race came to the fore just a week or so ago when it was rumored the NXL / PSP had done a deal that would eventually have X-Ball plastered across American homes in a league format.
It turns out that Dick Clark who owns a production company has secured the rights to an X-Ball league.
Now what does this actually mean ?
Well, it means Dick Clark has the rights to X-Ball, it doesn’t mean to say it will be on TV yet, it just means he has the rights. No doubt he will begin filming but it remains to be seen whether or not this option is taken up by any network.
And as far as I know, no monies are to be paid to the NXL until such times as the show is sold to a TV company.
Now whilst all the ‘hoo ha’ is surrounding the NXL and their press release, in the other corner, we have Pure Promotions who have actually gotten Paintball onto Fox Sports and into 84 million homes across the US.
Now the difference is with this is, Pure Promotions have sold paintball to the Fox network as an ‘event’ not a league and the programs featured clips from Huntington Beach, Vegas and Chicago in an Xtreme style presentation.
And now the biggie, coz Pure Promotions has just announced they have tied Paintball into NBC’s Gravity Games. Now this is something else again coz this is big sh!t going on here, this ain’t no hick-ass channel being beamed out to 35 people across the US, this is NBC going nationwide to millions.
Paintball is being showcased in a six to eight team tournament event contesting for the Gravity Cup with something approaching 800,000 people attending the games.
All the teams present will have unique opportunities to tie in outside sponsor deals,
I for one am still considering getting Nexus’s ass over there just to be a part of it.
On top of this, Fox Sports in conjunction with Pure Promotions are running a showcase Paintball series from October to early December that includes footage from all the events this year into a reported 70 million homes in the run up to Christmas.
This is a multi-shown series.
And so where does this leave paintball?
It leaves paintball in people’s front rooms, that’s where it leaves it, slowly but surely we as a sport are treading the tricky road to mainstream acceptance.
Now I don’t know when the league format of the NXL will actually get on to the box but the event showcasing of Paintball by Pure Promotions sure has.
The Gravity Games is a massive leap forward and all we can do as paintballers, is hang on for the ride coz it gets well interesting from here on in, make no mistake about that.
Now there have been many posts on these boards recently regarding this format, that format, NBC, ABC, Dick Clark, Dick-Head and so on, the only thing we can say for sure is, Paintball’s moving…..nobody knows yet where we are headed but I tell ya this much…..it’s in the right direction
