Too many teams?

[Tommy Gun Nexus]

I completely agree with everything said here about coverage (or the lack of) for the Euro teams/leagues.

Worse than US players not knowing, not even that majority of European players cannot even get any decent information about the CPL (that's the top league here now missy ) or details of what is happening at events.
With less players attending Millennium events (especially from the UK), details of the battles that go down are scarce and rarely accurate. Reports from events also often read like talking scedules and scoresheets rather than inside or first hand scoops on what actually went down.

Alot of this surely has to fall into the milleniums lap. The PSP have been setting standards over the past 2 years with all of this. When print advertising and magazines were dropping, the PSP upped their web media massively to keep that interest and coverage there. They are also reguarly in touch with all players through their mailing list, and actively through forums whenever Lane can.
Biggest thing of all is the 'WebCast', run by Pat and Matty. This is the way forward for the sport in my eyes as it enables anyone interested to watch for themselves, in their own time.

Last year, the Millenium had PulseTV filming and PaintScop the year before that. Both companies doing the best job possible under the circumstances to report and portray the European scene. Infact, some of their footage was brilliantly put together. Neither of those companies were promoted by the millenium and neither have been able to make it viable to continue filming this year. The industry and the teams wanted and supported it as much as possible.
Should it be up to the Millenium to support ventures such as this, or provide their own service? Or are we asking to much to be promoted by the league we have all commited to?

 

[Tommy Gun Nexus]

Just for the record Tommy - I am very proud of Nexus, Shock, Tigers etc. - even The Firm and So Manc . I'm, also, lucky enough to remember Banzai and Kelly's - and loved watching those guys play. It's not a matter of pride in your nations team - but the 'will and want' to one day play for them. My point (lost somewhere in the mists of time now) was just how do aspiring players actually 'try-out' for Nexus and the likes?

Hey Raffles, sorry i wasn't trying to particually imply that about you. It does however from my experience seem to be a common thing with many British people, to want to knock down whoever is ontop instead of getting behind them.
Regarding the events where our supporters are there and proud, all of the guys appreciate it massively. I remember in Paris last year in the Semi finals against Joy. The stands were mad with noise from both sides and i am positive that it helped to push us through from being down 3-0, to come back to win 5-4 with a minute to spare. Talking of coverage, most people wouldn't have been able to experience or know of that match, yet many of the poeple that were there have told me that it was one of the greatest matches they have ever seen. Shame more hasnt been done.

 

[Raffles]

No worries Tommy. I know what you mean about the Great British public though. Just look at any tabloid's back pages. I was just trying to reassure you that there are a few of us 'fans' still out there .

As for coverage, what ever happened to the "latest, must-have DVD"? Last one I remember all the hype about was Pressure's 'Life'. That's 3 years old now - so, where's the next one? Were Pressure the only company filming UK/Euro ball?

Oh well, I'm off to France now for 10 days - you lucky people . See you all in a couple of weeks or so.

 

[sponge10]

Did they both turn up?

Yes and 1 of them made the team and 4 of the other players are now in london tigers 2

 

[leach]

In my opinion i think a lot of posts have been dead on in terms that there aren't too many teams at all if anything the more teams the better. Also i think it really does come down to the player as to how seriously they want to take paintballing. Noone can blame anyone but themselves as to how far they've got skill wise as with paintballing the more you put in the more you get out right?

Not that im trying to "big myself up", or any of our team for that matter, but several players on our team have been playing for a year or so and played div 1 millenium within their first year. Which fair enough is not CPL but its still a fair achievement in my eyes. Now the only way this can happen is to literally put all your effort into paintballing. Which is why i think you get out of paintballing what you put in.

I 100% agree as well that coverage is really limited for uk and european teams, you never really hear about any uk teams except for Nexus. which, is good that at least we're hearing about the best UK team, but it would be good to hear about the others as well.

I think aswell that paintball will progress in the UK because although there maybe politics within paintball which state that "this team doesn't like this team" etc, at events all the Uk teams seem to support one another, whether its through coaching, pitting or whatever.

so i guess the point im trying to get across is that perhaps we need more teams in paintballing.. But we need teams to WANT to get to a higher lever. Therefore more talent will then become available making the UK skill level higher hopefully pushing paintball further, increasing coverage etc.

 

[onasilverbike]

I completely agree with everything said here about coverage (or the lack of) for the Euro teams/leagues.

Worse than US players not knowing, not even that majority of European players cannot even get any decent information about the CPL (that's the top league here now missy ) or details of what is happening at events.
With less players attending Millennium events (especially from the UK), details of the battles that go down are scarce and rarely accurate. Reports from events also often read like talking scedules and scoresheets rather than inside or first hand scoops on what actually went down.

Alot of this surely has to fall into the milleniums lap. The PSP have been setting standards over the past 2 years with all of this. When print advertising and magazines were dropping, the PSP upped their web media massively to keep that interest and coverage there. They are also reguarly in touch with all players through their mailing list, and actively through forums whenever Lane can.
Biggest thing of all is the 'WebCast', run by Pat and Matty. This is the way forward for the sport in my eyes as it enables anyone interested to watch for themselves, in their own time.

Last year, the Millenium had PulseTV filming and PaintScop the year before that. Both companies doing the best job possible under the circumstances to report and portray the European scene. Infact, some of their footage was brilliantly put together. Neither of those companies were promoted by the millenium and neither have been able to make it viable to continue filming this year. The industry and the teams wanted and supported it as much as possible.
Should it be up to the Millenium to support ventures such as this, or provide their own service? Or are we asking to much to be promoted by the league we have all commited to?

The Millennium seem to have little interest in promoting themselves via the media. They run a two tier media pass system, free passes are available to accredited media on the proviso that they are not selling material (images/video/articles) on, but only make it freely available from their own websites, or the "full" pass that allows the media to actually make something back on the time and money they invest in event coverage, for which the Millennium hiked the fee by a whopping 50% for this season. The Millennium will kindly "promote" these media partners with a hyper-link on their website on the understanding that the media partner does the same for them. This is a large part of the reason that the video coverage Tommy has mentioned is no more and that media representation at events is less than it has been.

On the UK front I think its only me and Steve from Merv TV who cover all the events, no doubt Ray will join us at Campaign and a few other's may be there too. There is very little in the way of third party media, either in print or on-line, based in the UK to cover and promote the events, hence the average player having little knowledge of the events other than the constant rumour mill. Both Steve and I had to go cap-in-hand to Diamond sponsors of the series this year for help with passes from the Millennium, something that we are both very thankful of and grateful to the people and companies (Dye & DXS) involved in helping us. We have to pay our own expenses, travel, accommodation etc, and, of course, our equipment, to bring you the coverage we do. Unfortunately this hasn't yet been picked up by the broader media, though I am sure we are both open to approaches. As it is we are never going to get rich or famous from paintball coverage and have to rely on the companies, the teams and the players who kindly support us throughout the year and work our ***** off on other jobs to be able to make a living.

 

[Echowitch]

As it is we are never going to get rich or famous from paintball coverage and have to rely on the companies, the teams and the players who kindly support us throughout the year and work our ***** off on other jobs to be able to make a living.

Yeah but we appreciate you getting shot at to make us look pimpy Pete. Plus you know at least I'll buy all the pics of me and my lot. (We are playing M5 at Campaign.)

P.S. my latest order is in your email inbox as we speak

 

[Return of the Silver Fox]

To paraphrase a political quote perhaps it should be 'Ask not what your sport can do for you, but what you can do for your sport'.
I think we are more or less agreed that the number of teams is no an issue but maybe the teams need to consider what they are in the sport for.
If its to pass the hours on a sunday and win the occasional trophy thats fine but don't expect major support from sponsors or moan when the sport doesn't get the coverage it may deserve.
If its to be involved in the growth and recognition of the sport most players need to realise they are not going to get rich (more likely skint) and may not be the ones featured in the mags or on TV.
I've been lucky enough to enjoy great sponsorship from Eclipse, Zap, Phoenix, Drakkula and many others over the years.
In return I've given free time to support the UKPSF in a safety capacity, written articles to recognise sponsors support, contracted the team to winning xx number of titles, given lots of my time and money to travel to events and been luck enough to feature in various DVDs, Braniacs, Mission paintball etc.
I never expected (other than when I owned a site) to make money from the sport and I've never considered the investment in it a negative way.
I'm not alone in this approach, there are many other in this thread of the same ilk, but a lot of players are in the 'what can the sport do for me camp' and until this changes we are stuck playing a hobby and moaning about what could be.

 

[Raffles]

Well - it's been a while - but it seems the general conscientious here is that there are not too many teams.

Personally, I still think there are too many teams - and my reasoning is simple. There seems to be a misconception here that more teams is exponentially equal to more players. This simply is not the case. The UK player base is very small as it is - and simply having more teams just thins this base out.

For example, if there are 1,000 players in the UK and 100 teams - each can have a 10 man strong squad. Now, if we suddenly double the amount of teams, each team is now restricted to only a 5 man squad.

This is why I think there are too many teams.

So, maybe it is better to join an already formed and organised team than try and start your own?