X-Ball Europe - The Story So Far

[supair]

my view

Personally, i think x-ball WILL be the future of the sport, but NOT YET. I think the sport needs to be led by America, whilst popularity/player numbers grow in europe.

I think a Euro X-Ball league would be a bad move. If I was in charge of euro paintball Id concentrate on setting up a solid infrastructure throughout europe, i.e make paintball a serious sport in european countries.

Let the yanks go ahead and bring x-ball to the masses. Meanwhile, why cant we (when i say we i mean the english) and other european countries set up our own 7-man leagues, and get a solid set up in place. There are loads of teams in england, plenty for a national league split up into regional divisions. At the mo there are many different leagues/series running, and its not the way for a sport to be run. Its definatley not the way for a sport to be moved forward and developed.

Ive asked this question before, and it goes unanswered, but why cant we have ONE nationwide league, with FOUR seperate leagues (north, south, east, west) the winners off which playing off in an end of season final? WHY NOT?
It really does seem to me to be the best way of developing our sport.
Then, when we have a solid infrastructure, with constant integration of new blood, a governing body controlling the ONE, NATIONAL LEAGUE with standardised rules, no more country long travelling, true nationwide competition, we will have a REAL sport, which we can then eventually move to the X-Ball format.

The reason X-Ball is (pretty much) ready to work in the USA is because of the NPPL, and from what Ive read of Robbo's/PGI's coverage, the NPPL sure hasnt been perfect throughout the years. A well managed, well run National tournament circuit in the uk would set up england/ the uk for X-Ball a few years down the line. Learn from the mistakes and successes of the American model, dont try to keep up when we arent really ready.

I'd like to hear your views on this Robbo, and im sure you'll tell me if im talking ****, which is fair enough, but I just cant understand why an idea similar to the one speedily thought out above hasnt been tried or even considered before. All views welcome. (btw Ill post this in the main board too to get everyones opinion.)

Matt

 

[Bigdog]

How bout this?

Lets try forgetting about the current tournament situation, and take a look at this from a new perspective.
Keep the name (X-ball) and shunt that directly at the X-Games, (paintball was thr third most popular X-sport in the US last year), and get them to foot the bill (international org, so they must have oodles of cash just lying around, waiting for a new home)
From that maybe the beginnings of a league can form, but as far as I can see the first major requirement would be that first bit of involvement from 'fatcat corp USA', and sadly they seem to be the only ones that have those types of bodies at the moment.

 

[Richard Kirke (DUPS Rocket) UK]

Hang on...

I thought that X-Ball Stateside was a done deal, the sponsors and cash had been found, Just the teams being finalised.

As to X-Ball Europe, I tend to agree with Matt, the UK is not ready for ANOTHER league. Maybe a new Euro X-Ball league is a good idea, there is no way Euro teams would be able to compete with the US teams unless they were playing X-Ball regularly, but in my opinion organising the sport as it is and promoting the Mileniums would be better.

After all, we already have a Premiere League equivalent, the Pro league at the Milenium Series, but unlike X-Ball, Novs and Ams alike play by the same rules and can aspire to playing it, without having to transfer to one of the X-Ball teams. This I feel is a weakness in X-Ball, noone except the X-Ball teams can afford to play it. When I played for a school soccer team, we played 11 a-side football with the same rules as those used in the premiership, when kids play little-league baseball it is also the same as the Major Leagues (right?), wheras aspiring kids can play 5-man or whatever, but no-way can they play X-ball.

The advantages of X-Ball are obvious, if we are going to have matches between two teams rather than a whole tournament to watch, with a score, home stadiums and so on then that would be much better as a spectator sport. But nevertheless I, like the majority of the paintballing world, will almost certainly never get to play even one match of X-Ball.

Just a question, if there is to be a Euro X-Ball League, will it be in the form of individual matches (say Nexus versus Ton Tons) or as tournaments in the same way as the Mileniums are run, but without so many teams?

Richard

P.s. with all the top US teams not playing the Milenium Series next year, does that mean that the Russian Legion will make all but a clean sweep?

Edited just after posting to correct some of the spelling mistakes

 

[Beaker]

One problem I can see with the idea of a self contained Euro league is that while we'll be playing to format, we wont be learning by playing the best, the yanks.

I doubt a "world" superbowl of NFL Vs EuroNFL champions would be much of a contest either.

We do need to keep our hand in by playing the yanks I feel. However, as to how you do that with Xball......don't know.

 

[TJ Lambini]

top 6 euros play euro-x and then pop over to us for the odd super 7s event...

 

[Robbo]

Beak, I think the proposal is that there will be two Yank teams making the trip over here for our X-Ball events but the Euro teams wont be making the trips stateside.
This cuts down our expenditure to a point where things could become manageable but a few more things have to be tweaked to allow a few more things to fall into place.
When that's done, either myself, Laurent or Nail will post it up.
I spoke to Sergei yesterday and as far as he is concerned, he is behind the propositions I put to him.
In my view, it is imperative that the Russian Legion backs any new proposals, which affect the European circuit.
In conclusion, so far so good, we are heading in the right direction, we ain't got there yet but a few of the big hurdles have now gone, leaving a few minors behind.
X-Ball is now back on the menu, whether enough teams can afford and / or even like it, remains to be seen.
Robbo

 

[Beaker]

Makes sense - 6 Euro teams plus 2 US teams at each event gives you the nice round even 8 that means easier scheduling.

But that would require 12 US teams in order to avoid recycling, assuming X is played alongside each Millennium.

A couple more Q's
Who is reffing Xball? never seen a post on that one. Can't believe it would be teams and AA's2 can't be going all round the place are they? Is there a Euro PRO being set up?
What about this Roster business? playing 10 in Euroland, 18 in the states seems a little odd, any decisions made on that one?

And do we have the games rules yet? e.g. is it going to be 4x10mins, 3x10, 2x15 etc etc. How will it be different to what we played?

 

[Al Woods]

I think we're f'ked.

I posted a while ago that if we didn't do something about X-Ball over here (Europe) then we will be in the same talent boat as we are now and will never bve able to compete with the yanks.

The land of milk and honey and all that, they are pioneering the X-ball series and the costs and logistics of it all seem just too far out of most of our reaches....ever. All the major backers are based in the states so we will only get the left overs, this kinda leaves us in a ****ty situation.

I think this could possibly mean the end of the Millennium series as we know it, maybe, depending on whether we take up the X-ball format or not. As mentioned before, we could try and take up the X-Ball game as a series but who can afford to play that AND a Mileennium series???? Not many teams as far as I can see. It all seems to going just like most US based sports, baseball, hockey, basketball, with all the top leagues developed and almost horded by the yanks. This leaves us out in the cold.

Personally I think something has to give, it can only be one or the other, perhaps run the Millennium as is with a showcase event at one or two of the bigger tourneys, X-Ball day only or something (??), it would probably only work as a non-league deal until we can catch up and learn more about it all AND gain some experience and perhaps get some decent NEW teams together, I doubt most of our current teams could ever cut it at that level.

It's looking bleak (at the moment) in my eyes and I'm fair gutted coz I'd love to play it at a decent level and not be there as a bunch of no-hopers just having a laugh on X-Ball 'type' fields'.

Help us Robbo one, you're our only hope.

 

[Beaker]

Al, Richard etc.

I think you're assuming that us mortals will get the chance to play Xball and it will be run as a league that anyone can enter.

From everything I've seen, the only Xball to be played this side of the pond will be by a select (probably 6) few Euro teams in their own "premier" league, probably selected by franchise money more than anything else. They will run in an event next to a Millennium, not instead of.

We wont play it, we will all be playing normal Millennium 7man.

So it wont be a competing league taking teams and money away from anything else, it will only be the top dogs that play it.

Robbo - correct me if I'm wrong (as usual )

 

[Al Woods]

That does make more sense

That way we can at least have something to work towards, those of us who wanna play at top level eventually, and for those that don't want to go that far they can still commit to playing a decent European 7 man format.

Cool.