There are no standard rules in pro sports!

[brianlojeck]

OK, this is just ripe for erupting into a flame-fest, so lets all use our inside voices.

I've read this repeatedly, not just here, but anywhere paintballers discuss our sport. The idea is, a major hurdle to paintball achieving coke-and-pepsi-sponsored-television style respectability is standardized rules across the many tournaments. After all, if one league plays hopper-ball, another league allows electronic cheaterguns, and another league plays with pump guns, and players are cross-playing in all of these leagues, then how can we hope to be respectable and attract real money?

The funny thing is, no popular professional sport has rules that are the same across ALL leagues and tournaments.

The NFL has a consistent ruleset, this is true, but it is merely the biggest football tournament, it is not the only one. the CFL, AFL, and College football all have different rules (in Canadian and Area football these rules are VERY different). The XFL even had (for all it's absurdity) some very good rules changes. This would be no different a situation then if the NPPL became so monolithic that it was on television while "Joe's tournament series" was not.

Heck, in Baseball the two leagues that play under the MLB banner don't even play by the same rules, and they are playing for the same trophy! (Designated Hitter)

Some sports do have a standard ruleset. It's been mentioned that Dodgeball already has a single "leadership group" that sets standard rules, as does competative ping-pong and competative Dungeons and Dragons (yes, they do that for prizes as well). The difference is, these sports do not have sufficient people with sufficient financial interest to go through the trouble of starting a different league. If enough people played dodgeball in tournaments, you can bet there would be people who wanted "something different" and made a different league.

As for players cross-competing, and playing in multiple series, this happens all the time. In Golf, the Masters is not the same as the PGA. In Tennis there are "grand slam" events, and non-affiliated events, and warm-up events, and several unrelated tournaments throughout the year. Baseball players often spend the winter in South America playing "winterball". The only reason most players in most sports don't do this is that they are getting paid, and it's in their contract that they won't. When paintball starts paying it's players a salary, then that will go away.

I've even heard it mentioned that paintball can't go big-time until the league starts supplying the teams with equipment for free (rather then charging them for paint, making their money off of the competitors). To them I ask, where does the World Poker Tour make it's money? It charges entrance fees, and the sorry people who get kicked out on the first day pay for all the prizes, and all the room fees, and all the profits. The TV coverage helps the bottom line a lot, but the tournament was viable long before the TV show started.

Perhaps paintball just isn't on TV because not enough people want to watch it. Maybe it's dull. Maybe it's too close to a "wargame" no matter how much we fancy up our gear and guns.

Consider this. Visit a paintball-video website (webdog radio, paintball news, z-man, etc...). There are basically three kinds of videos out there:

1: watch me talk about paintball (news, advice, reviews)
2: watch me shoot my gun really fast/accurate (z-man/Tyger)
3: a music video with highlights of many games cut together

If paintball was so much fun to watch on TV, wouldn't at least one site have a vast archive of full paintball games shot straight through from beginning to end? These are not shows dumbed-down for the masses, these are by players for players, and even WE don't like to watch.

[Destructo6]

The funny thing is, no popular professional sport has rules that are the same across ALL leagues and tournaments.
Motor racing has classes and championships for all types of racing (drag, autocross, GP, GTP, ...). Despite the fact that there are many sanctioning bodies, it's the rule that the first guy across the line wins. Physical contact is highly discouraged (except NASCAR, maybe) and incidents are scrutinized and the participants can be fined/banned (eg Aaron Yates at the 2004 Daytona 200).

Most of the sanctioning bodies have a full range of classes for the beginner to the professional. If you like drag racing, you can start off in NHRA bracket racing and move through the classes to top fuel, if funds and talent allow. If you like motorcycle racing, you can start off in a local championship series, like CCS, ride lightweight twins, GTU, light superbike, etc.

I don't know if racing would be a particularly good model on which to base a paintball league, however.

A national league, with a relatively few well sponsored teams seems reasonable. Regional leagues, whose rules conform to the national, could have divisions for novice, intermediate, and expert divisions which feed their best players to the national level.

Just some thoughts.

[Loud Tim]

I think that the biggest problem with paintball being on TV is the fact that their is so much going on at one time. U will never see a paintball game live on tv like u see baseball,basketball, or football. even when like oln covered world cup and fox sports did the nppl series there was a gap of atleast a couple of months between then and the time the programs aired. and by the everyone new what the outcome was gonna be before they even turned on the tv. dont get me wrong i watched every episode of both because i like to
watch the intricasies of the game, but even as a player who knew what was going on i still found it hard at times to follow the games and thats after months of editing.
i think that the biggest problem networks face with putting paintball on tv is having the average joe who doesnt play being able to understand what is going on.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Paintball isn't going "Big Time" anytime soon, not on TV or elsewhere. Although the X-Ball is a step in the right direction, with it's standardised fields, and time-based games.

I think there are two things keeping paintball away from the Big Time:

(1) The continuing poor-quality of refereeing at the "highest levels". This has as much to do with the players attitudes towards the referees, as it does with the terrible idea that teams ref each other. There needs to be well-trained, well-respected and independant referees.

(2) Paintball is not a good spectator sport. The field and the action doesn't fit well on a TV screen, and it is almost impossible for non-players to recognize an important or strategic move. Even live there is not enough movement in modern tournaments to keep people interested when they don't have some sort of stake in the game.

[brianlojeck]

(1) There needs to be well-trained, well-respected and independant referees.


I don't think this is really such an issue. Find me a "real" professional sport where the independant ref staff is well trained, well-respected, and would be described as good-quality.

The history of sport is pretty much the history of reffing mistakes.



(2) Paintball is not a good spectator sport.

I really think this is the main issue. After all, a major tenet of the game is staying hidden. :ninja:

[gibby]

You know, I'm surprised no one has tried to use little cameras in the player's masks to show the action from his/her perspective. I think that would add a little something for your average Joe to see what's actually going on in the field.

[danheneise]

You know, I'm surprised no one has tried to use little cameras in the player's masks to show the action from his/her perspective. I think that would add a little something for your average Joe to see what's actually going on in the field.

It has been done before but the quality of the video is just so poor that it's hard to make stuff out in the video. If the quality increased then this would be a good idea.

[Tenchi1621]

Mask cams would be cool but unfortunatly lead to even more confusion as to whats going on around the field. An interesting idea would be to attach sensors on the end of each players barrel that are activated by the sound of each shot. There could be receivers on each bunker and at various points around the field that would pick up the beams (much like the military training gear). That way on the tv screen glowing lines could be drawn to indicate direction of fire and player location.

[Loud Tim]

Mask cams would be cool but unfortunatly lead to even more confusion as to whats going on around the field. An interesting idea would be to attach sensors on the end of each players barrel that are activated by the sound of each shot. There could be receivers on each bunker and at various points around the field that would pick up the beams (much like the military training gear). That way on the tv screen glowing lines could be drawn to indicate direction of fire and player location.

this has already been thought of and patented except using a special lense on a camera
i think thats what it was. it was a couple of the old S.O.B.s that did it maybe someone could pm beemer and have him elaberate he probably knows more than me .

as for the player mounted cameras i think that the only way u will get a player to where one would be if it some how increased that chance of a paintball bouncing. good luck getting a tourny player today to where something hard that si going to increase the chance of a break.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

I don't think this is really such an issue. Find me a "real" professional sport where the independant ref staff is well trained, well-respected, and would be described as good-quality.

The history of sport is pretty much the history of reffing mistakes.

...

I think every professional sport has well-trained & well-respected referees. (OK, not wrestling ;) ) Sure, they all miss a few calls, but that's partly because there are only a few refs on the field, compared to the number of players. When a ref in the NFL or NHL calls a penalty, or kicks a player off the field, he is obeyed. No real sport permits players to ignore or abuse referees like paintball. And no one would accept the idea of referees who are also players in the same league.

[barrel break]

Paintball isnt, and hopefully never will be, TV friendly.
As I see it, the moment paintball becomes a spectator sport, the majority of players will simply strive to be on the top sponsored team, just playing for money.

[Enemy]

a few things i noticed just standing on the side lines is that aside from bunker runs and great moves it is near impossible to focus in on all the action that is going on in one game.. look at every big sport there is aside from racing.. there is only one main objective target that target holds the key to the game...in paintball there are 15 targets in one 7 man game 14 players and one flag its hard to focus on 14 targets all at once remember the flag as well thats why it isnt exciting to see on tv but then again i love watching the stuff ever since it aired on espn all those years ago when bunkers were no more than a flat panel strageically place on the field...also pig tv does show almost complete games .. they only stream for 30 minutes so some times you just get highlights but every few games will be showed in their intirety.

[Smoke]

Paintball isnt, and hopefully never will be, TV friendly.
As I see it, the moment paintball becomes a spectator sport, the majority of players will simply strive to be on the top sponsored team, just playing for money.


Isn't that what every major professional sport is nowadays?

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Paintball isnt, and hopefully never will be, TV friendly.
As I see it, the moment paintball becomes a spectator sport, the majority of players will simply strive to be on the top sponsored team, just playing for money.


It hasn't happened with any other sport. The majority of baseball, basketball, football, soccer and hockey players are amateurs, and never expect to play in the Pros. Most people learn pretty quickly whether or not they have what it takes.


a few things i noticed just standing on the side lines is that aside from bunker runs and great moves it is near impossible to focus in on all the action that is going on in one game.. look at every big sport there is aside from racing.. there is only one main objective target that target holds the key to the game...in paintball there are 15 targets in one 7 man game 14 players and one flag its hard to focus on 14 targets all at once remember the flag as well thats why it isnt exciting to see on tv ...

Exactly. Anatomy of a speedball game:

Break! - everyone runs to a bunker, some shooting.
Someone gets shot.
Someone else gets bunkered.
(repeat until one side has an advantage)
Last player on one team gets shot out in a pincer move.
Someone remembers to run in the flag.

The Flag, which is supposed to be the focus of scoring, rarely moves until the endgame. There is very little back-and-forth, and not much suspense.

[RtDaNiMaL]

im sure that the paintball industries that attract newbs would like it (spyder tippman etc.) because they would have many more newbs saying ooo i wanna go try paintball mommy. :tard: