Puhliease...
The televised version of the sport is RARELY like the "usually played" version of the sport. Soccer (or football for those of you across the pond) is the exception, not the rule exception.
Most football is played in people's back yards without goal posts, field lines, or padding. You know how wep layed baseball when we were kids? 4 wooden bases thrown down in the front yard. Even soccer got played with two pine trees as goal posts.
Hell, in the states, even Football has two televised versions: The superbowl variety, and the Arena football variety (5 on 5 or 6 on 6 or something) during the off season. Played on a hockey rink type field very similar to xball actually. Pretty widely watched too.
Then there's this thing called "Slamball" on TNN out here - basketball with trampolines around the baskets. NOBODY plays that.
Do you think people learnto skate and play hockey the first time ina rink? No, there's lakes for that. Rollerblading or skateboarding or biking or snow boarding on half-pipes? Hell no.
You learn a sport in an easy-access, inexpensive environment. You telivise it in an expensive, souped up environment where the very best can better show off their skills and the audience can better see the display.
X-Ball isn't any more expensive than any other paintball - you just have to adjust how you play. You can have a very nice X-Ball season that will cost you the same as a regular ol' 5-man centerflag season - you just play one team per day instead of all the teams round robin per day. There's nothing about X-Ball that mandates a scoreboard or stands or special staging area or evenan airball field - just like you don't need manicured grass in the middle of a 70,000 seat stadium to play baseball - those are all just things that make it look especially sweet and are therefore used at the top (and hopefully televised) level.
- Chris