X-Ball Forced or Not

[sjt19]

Originally posted by Robbo
I'm surprised Sam thinks this way after just getting back from Huntington Beach...

I dont Robbo, what Millsy posted was his side of the conversation, he believed that Xball was going to be forced upon teams. I was of the opinion, and still am, that when paintball is aired on TV, whatever format that is, Xball or 7man, both formats will benefit.

I said to Millsy that I doubted whether smaller teams would be able to sustain a season of Xball, as the financial costs would be beyond their budgets.

HB was the most amazing event i have ever been to, or seen. The PP guys have the spectacle nailed, and nothing I have ever been to could possibly compete with the show that they put on on the sand. Whether the Xball events will be as successful remains to be seen, but with the thousands and thousands of people in the trade area (you could hardly move for people, believe me) and the full bleacher stand at Huntingdon, I very much doubt it. I would love to be proved wrong, and I look forward to Paris.

I disagree with Martin though, I dont think that the Xball leagues will swell at all. I think that all of the teams who could possibly afford Xball are already playing EXL and Div 1. There are some teams in Div 1 who I doubt will last the season, from purely financial aspects of Xball.

 

[bluelite]

Just my two cents here but I just got my Orlando X-Ball video from 720 video and watched my first games of xball. I didn't enjoy watching them as much as I enjoy watching the 7 and 10 man events and I am a player. By that I mean that even though I can pretty much see what is happening as it develops, it happens so fast that although I can appreciate it, it isn't really that entertaining. I showed it to several of my non playing cop friends and none of them could keep up with the action and soon lost interest in watching. Whether an outsider watches one 45 second game of chaos, or twenty of them in a row, I do not believe that this format is the best one to televise but that is just my opinion. From the playing standpoint, I think the best two of three is just as good a test of who's better on a given day as playing twenty games.

 

[H]

I'm mid-way through writing a full review of the 720 Orlando DVD, and without giving too much away....please don't use that as a basis of how good XBall is to watch.

That DVD appears to have been put together who really has no clue on the concept of how to make things that are easy to follow. If paintball is going to be shown on TV then it needs to be put together by people who know what they are doing. The lack of any decent high perspective in the DVD makes games almost impossible to follow, not to mention the constant switching of perspective. They have tried to use a heads up display to try and indicate what is going on, but frequently that is inaccurate (penalties anyone?) and just serves to complicate and get in the way (the awful map view).

I've seen XBall live (campaign & Toulouse) and it really is awesome to watch, a hell of a lot more interesting than regular 7man in my opinion. When you are watching from a decent position and you can see most of the field THEN you can follow the games progress. This needs to be replicated for TV, not a series of stupid close-ups of AWESOME MOVES! from bad angles strung together for 50mins of game time. Another feature that makes XBall great to watch is the live comentary...... as much as i like punk music listening to BAD punk music solidly for 2.5hrs on a DVD is not good. Thank god for the option to turn it off. Although it is not ideal, i feel that those Sweden vs USA XBall vids that are online are a hell of a lot better and easier to follow than the DVD...a few more cams, some commentary and decent heads up display and you're sorted.

Either way,
720 Orlando XBall DVD = bad
XBall for spectators = good

Full review coming soon.....i hope

 

[Robbo]

Sam, then I think we agree on most points..........I now think the fatal flaw in the whole XBall thing is the belief that it can be shown in a league type format.
I have been to the States many times and I like to think I know a bit about what makes the Yanks tick as viewers stuck in front of a TV.
I have to say and this is not meant as a criticism, the guys on the Millennium Board, whilst being impressed with the XBall concept and the PSP rhetoric, as of yet, have been unable to grasp the harsh realities of what works on Yank TV and what doesn't thus allowing an inflated idea of the chances of success, leastwise in its present format of proposed presentation.
XBall is without doubt an exciting format to both play and watch but there is a natural limit for both the viewer and player in terms of sustaining interest.
We have already seen that limit reached in just one season for some of the XBall players and if they are feeling the XBall pinch then it doesn't take too much brain power to work out the consequent effects a sustained coverage of league format would have on any prospective viewers.
The future, leastwise to me, looks to be a combination of event based coverage with an XBall type or XBall formatted game.
This situation seems to be crying out for unification between the two series (NPPL and PSP) but there comes a time when perhaps one side feels as though it doesn't need the other for one reason or the other and we are fast approaching that state of affairs.
Promoters, like teams, this side of the water are still trying to keep their feet in both camps but it will become increasingly difficult to do so as time goes on and sooner or later, both teams and the Millennium are going to have to choose.
I for one will be pleased when this situation is resolved and Paintball at all levels, can get it's arse into gear behind a unified format of play and presentation.

 

[TJ Lambini]

Very interesting piece in tha new PGI by, er, someone, on why XBall ain't gonna work...

Robo - you know how much it costs Vs 7man - if TV don't come a knockin big time, NXL dies - right or wrong?

 

[Baca Loco]

Originally posted by Robbo
XBall is without doubt an exciting format to both play and watch but there is a natural limit for both the viewer and player in terms of sustaining interest.
We have already seen that limit reached in just one season for some of the XBall players ...

Without wishing to be argumentative isn't the loss of some players from the NXL and the grumbling of others actually the result of their desire to play MORE paintball and really has little to do with the Xball format unless they were cut loose 'cus they couldn't cut it?

Someone once calculated that in an NFL game there was approximately ten minutes of "action" in a whole game that can often take up to three hours to play out and Yanks don't seem to have any trouble sustaining interest.

 

[noop]

Would you watch it?

I enjoy playing golf, but I'm not going to watch it on TV.

I know it's all about $$$, but has anyone paid attention to so-called "real" sports in the last few decades? You think paintball politics are bad?

 

[LV 4 26]

Originally posted by Baca Loco
Someone once calculated that in an NFL game there was approximately ten minutes of "action" in a whole game that can often take up to three hours to play out and Yanks don't seem to have any trouble sustaining interest.

Yeah but we dont have them cool hot dogs and the foamy big hands.



Personally 7-man or x-ball, I dont mind either.

Millsy

 

[Gadget]

I think X-ball will definitely bring TV into the paintball equation - it's new, it's fresh and TV execs love new ideas.

...then it'll utterly bomb with tiny viewing figures because ultimately paintball is boring to watch.

I love playing the game, but I can't believe that anyone would really want to sit in front of the TV and watch it. The 'best-action-bits' DVDs with decent soundtracks are ok - in the same way that extreme-snowboarding DVDs are ok - worth a quick watch with m8s or to have playing in the background on screens in bars etc...

....but in my opinion paintball with never, ever be a success on TV and people are deluding themselves if they think it will.

It's a participant sport, not a spectator sport - the sooner the industry as a whole swallows that bitter pill the better.

For that reason, no I don't think X-ball will become the only game in town - its popularity will peak with the initial flurry of TV interest and then slowly fall away as people realise that traditional format events generate larger profits (fewer fields, more teams, less marshals, more entry fees).

 

[WingNut]

In part, I agree with Gadget, that Paintball will never be accepted as a 'watchable' sport......

However, something tells me that we could be wrong. Yes, paintball is a little boring to watch, but no more boring than these F1 televised races or the Superbikes on TV. How interesting can it be to watch these guy racing around the SAME track, taking each corner of the race the SAME, riding the SAME kind of bikes.

Don't get me wrong, some people may enjoy this repetativeness, but it's just not my cup of tea. Same way that each individual may or may not watch televised paintball........

I'd watch it........ if it were on TV. But then I am a SAD married man with two kids who don't get out as much as he should.........

Gadget's just got engaged...... Wait till he's been married for a few years and has some kids........ He'll be gagging for paintball on tele then.....