Moving forward or breaking down?

[shamu]

From TJ's report:
The official line is: "The NXL players can play NXL only, and SANCTIONED EVENTS. And here are those events:

PSP 5 Man, Zap Skyball, Aruba 5, any other regional 5 man event. This is only for the NXL Players, and NOT FOR PLAYERS who are playing Division 1 and Division 2 X-Ball."

So how to interpret this?

NXLers can play just about any 5 man event, which is in keeping with the general format of Xball (5 on 5). Thus enhancing the placement of 5man as the premiere tournament format...

OR....

NXLers can play anything as long as it's not 7man...

The second interpretation sounds more realistic to me.

 

[raehl]

5-man.. duh...

I totally missed that correlation when I read that list in the other thread. Go Shamu.

Anyway...

Sometimes you gotta break stuff down to build stuff back up again. We might just be headed for a good ol' period of reinvention.


As for the power of the pro players - they really don't have any. I think what people are missing here is the pro teams CAN'T do anything else, and the Pro players CAN'T do anything else. The sponsorship dollars are going to X Ball. If you're not going to play X Ball, you have to find new sponsors, and for many Pro players, get new jobs because part of your sponsorship deal is working for the sponsor. NXL doesn't have to worry too much about their pro players walking out to go play NPPL because there's no one to foot the bill for them to do so.

Not that that's really such a bad thing - I think if I were a pro player ( a long shot, I know ) it'd be a good change to chance the financing dynamic to something more stable like a franchise where your sponsor has a vested interest in your long-term success, as opposed to merely demanding you keep up your short-term success.


So what's the moral of the story? I don't know. But you definitely know who the best college team is at the end of the season.


- Chris

 

[acsik]

Raehl


I feel some truth in your words, especially in the sentence "The sponsorship dollars are going to X Ball."


How does it impact the paintball scene in general (if it happens)??


I mean what I see is that all (or most) of the sponsors money will go towards Xball. Where does that leave the AM and god forbid the Nov people?

If there is no sponsorship $ for the plebs (AM & Nov) that could influence the tournament scene, as attendance by the two lower divisions would be less due to the cost factor.

That would impact the organizers/promoters too!


And what if Xball fails? Honestly I see the advantages of Xball as a paintballer, but as a person who sees it for the first time its confusing.

The biggest problem is that our sport is not applicable to the TV screen easily. On th telly its hard to make people understand what happened and why it happened. For an untouched mind its just ppl running around and shooting at targets they (the TV viewers) cannot see.

Maybe it would be time to slow down a little, take a step back and take a loong hard look on where our sport is headed in the light of the recent happenings.

Somewhere I saw someone writing something like "Let the players change paintball not people with financial interests in it"


...that sentence deserves some toughts


peace

 

[shamu]

Originally posted by acsik
If there is no sponsorship $ for the plebs (AM & Nov) that could influence the tournament scene, as attendance by the two lower divisions would be less due to the cost factor.

Hopefully we'll see some of the other (non-NXL) companies step up and support more Am/Nov teams, filling in any gap left by companies like Dye, PMI, etc.

 

[Bobvannes]

I don't really think you know the best college team at the end of the year Chris. Just the best of the teams that entered your series or tournament - whichever it is.

I know lots of respectable college players that don't play a tournament unless it has a payoff at the end. Some of those kids even play with people from their own school.

 

[raehl]

Well if they're not playing college paintball, they're not on a college paintball team now, are they? Whether there are a few players out there who arn't playing in the NCPA is irrelevant, they're 4 players short of a team.

You don't see anyone else running free entry, BYOP tournaments either. This is why I'm the NCPA President and you're not. Well, I can think of a few other reasons as well, but I doubt the moderators will much like them.


- Chris