Your Opinions Please

[supair]

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, 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.

Matt

 

[rancid]

Originally posted by supair
.

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?

Matt

Problem with leagues (at this time) is commitment: teams split, don't turn up, get pissed off with playing the same teams, animosities travel from round to round, marshalling favors are paid and repaid....

There used to be the Home Counties League many moons ago - it only lasted two seasons before teams drifted away.

I think it would be much of a muchness now.

 

[Rabies]

The pieces of the jigsaw are there: the four divisions being S2k3, MM, SWPL and lastly the M25 league, hoping that gets off to the start we're all hoping for. But there are two problems with this as an integrated national league system.

Firstly, the obvious issue as rancid pointed out, one of commitment. Not that many UK teams can afford to commit to every game in a season, teams split and reform at the rate of middle C, and get pissed off playing the same teams.

Which leads to the second issue: teams want to play different events and different teams. I think a lot of people would be a little peeved if you said to them "Well you're playing MM this season, so you can't play the S2k3 events, if you want to play any of those teams you've got to top the table in your own league and go to the playoffs."

The mistake that is too easy to slip into is to draw a direct parallel between paintball leagues and professional sports leagues. They are different for the simple reason of motivation. Teams play paintball because it's fun and they want to, and the incentive is playing your best game to enjoy yourself. Teams play professional sports because they're paid to, and the incentive is getting a paycheck at the end of the week. Sure, they all love their game, but money means they can't put a spanner in the works by saying "but I want to play some other teams this month."

Regional leagues are fantastic for the teams who don't have the backing to travel the length of the country to play events, but enforcing a national/regional structure would alienate the upper echelon of teams who can, and want to, play as varied a calendar as they do now.

 

[supair]

Originally posted by Rabies

The mistake that is too easy to slip into is to draw a direct parallel between paintball leagues and professional sports leagues. They are different for the simple reason of motivation. Teams play paintball because it's fun and they want to, and the incentive is playing your best game to enjoy yourself. Teams play professional sports because they're paid to, and the incentive is getting a paycheck at the end of the week. Sure, they all love their game, but money means they can't put a spanner in the works by saying "but I want to play some other teams this month."

Regional leagues are fantastic for the teams who don't have the backing to travel the length of the country to play events, but enforcing a national/regional structure would alienate the upper echelon of teams who can, and want to, play as varied a calendar as they do now.

Good point, and what you say is true. However, what Im saying is if we dont make these changes, then paintball is never gonna be a mainstream sport as most tourney players wish it to be. Do we not eventually wanna get paid for playing?

At some stage a national league is gonna have to be formed, be it X-Ball or the current format or a different format alltogether, or we'll end up doing what we are doing now forever, which is stale and eventually pointless.

If you look at other developing sports in the UK, such as Skater Hockey, American Football etc, they were all doing what we do, sporadic tournaments, no governing body, different rules, badly organised leagues etc. Nowadays though, these sports have One governing body, one set of rules, paid + trained impartial officials, national leagues with regional divisions and national end of season playoffs/youth development, and are taken seriously. We are not, and I dont think we will ever be until we set up a solid infrastructure.

These other developing sports can put forward a case to the sports council for grants, consideration for olympic status etc, as they have a structure. They have a basis for fair competiton which is standardised by their having one governing body, one league and one set of rules.

People in these sports would have said the same things that you have, it wont work, people want to play different teams etc, but they knew that for the good of the sport things had to change. If it meant some top teams were alienated then so be it. If it meant some teams didnt want to be involved, then fair enough, let them go do their own thing, but if we want the sport to be a sucess, i think we have to follow the examples of other developing sports, and get a solid base from which our sport can grow.

Matt

 

[Rabies]

Your idealism is touching, not to say moving

Honestly though, I agree entirely in principle with the idea, I just don't think it'd work right now for the practical reasons I've outlined above. It's exactly what any serious sport needs to move it along, but the incentive just isn't there yet for the players as a lot of people on the ground will see it as being a restrictive burden rather than a necessary step up in professionalism. I think more stable teams with better backing are needed; unfortunately, we're years behind the yanks on that front

 

[raehl]

Do what we do in college ball...

*YOU* (or whoever is going to actually DO this) set up one "Championships" event at the end of the season.

Then sanction a bunch of regular season events. Right now in college ball, we try to do 2 per area, although some areas have more.

For each event you play, you can get up to 100 points. Your top two regular season scores count, and the championships score is doubled, for a total max of 400 points. Teams can do well if they just win their local events, but are free to travel around during the regular season as well.

If you want to see an example of this and a more detailed explanation of scoring, go to www.rankings.college-paintball.com - that's halfway through our season this year, there should also be a link to last year's rankings.

The main advantages here is that if you have a set of events you can designate already, all you have to do incrimentally is set up the championships, and you don't have to mess with how local events are run so long as you can rank all the teams who attended.


Regardless, the only thing really preventing it from happening is someone deciding to do it. Oh, and to be polite, you should ask permission of the events you're going to designate - they of course get the free publicity and added value of being associated with the championships.


- Chris

 

[jack]

good idea Raehl

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by supair
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, 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.

Matt

Matt, firstly, to leave Europe out of X-Ball, at this stage of the game would be folly if we are ever to try and compete with the Americans.
Coming in later down the road would just have us being second-class whipping boys.
The Yanks would have pulled so far ahead of us by then, the gap would be so much more difficult to breach than it is already.

There are some teams who are ready over here to take up the challenge of X-Ball and just because the rest of paintball over here, in say the UK, hasn't got its arse in gear and organised itself properly, doesn’t mean to say that the teams who are able to play X-Ball should not.
And also, try not to get confused with the organisational set up with regard to leagues etc as being the prime determinant to mainstream acceptance, it’s not.
This comes with the uptake of TV eg Skateboarding, snowboarding etc, and has little to do with how the sport is organised on a parochial level, it has more to do with the 'nature' of the sport and how well the TV execs think it will be acceptedas a spectacle.

X-Ball is a gamble, make no mistake about that and a lot of people are putting a huge amount of money into it.
If it goes off big time this next year and maybe TV getting involved, then how much more difficult is it going to be for us Euros to then get in.
The Yanks could name their price !!!!
We have a fantastic opportunity to get in on this on a near equal basis at the beginning, once on board, it’s down to us, if we don’t get on, then we have no chance, I repeat, no chance, and do not deserve, a place at the top of our sport.
To stay out would be a disaster.
We may well have four small, well organised leagues running very nicely indeed but have no frikkin say in the world game.
Robbo

 

[paintyerass]

As the game evolves you must either evole with it or be left behind and that is all there is to it. When paintball evolved from bushball to supair there was no going back, it was the most logical progression for players and especially for spectators. I
think Xball is just the next step.