NPPL Do You Care??????

[Bartman]

Well,

Witht he recent price increase for tourney like Skyball and the IAO, allI can say is that me and my team are starting tolook towards something more like the NPPL's. Unfortunatly I don't see a need for the pro's in paintball, they should, and eventualy will receive there own leage and it will be run seperate from allother events that have amatures and lower players at them.

But as for suporting the NPPL, it seems like its the only real leage out there right now. I know I am going otpiss off alot of pewople with that comment, be cause I am sure that there are local and even reginal leages that are run excelently and have promiss, but, the Nppl is a 1 of a kind event right now.

I think suporting the nppl at this time maybe the only choic that players like me have. We as a team figured the IAo might have been come a better tourney this year with Diablo taking over, but it seems to me that the "promotor" is still grabbing as much money from the players as they can , almsot rapping us . There for the NPPL may be the only way to go this year. Our team wil be playing the IAO again this year,but next year I think our Dollars are going else where to events that seem to be reasonable priced.

Any ways,I am rambaling on here yet again, hope some of what I jsut said makes sence.

Bartman
Team I have no idea

https://www.ihni.org

[hitmanng]

I think a lot depends on how you look at the NPPL. This pretty much happened last year and I think these people that run the NPP: in name only have no pull on the people that finance and run the whole thing the promoters. The NPPL as an entity has no power but name recognition. The question is is the NPPL something you play in or watch. If it is something that the average normal tournement player wants to play in then it should stay a player run operation. This allows anyone to enter and play that was the fee and a team. Even if they embarass the crud out of themselves. There are a lot of those around. Locally we have the ICC, NAAPSA, and CPSA. If paintball wants to go to the next level you need pro's to watch and want to emulate. This takes the kind of Cash that only the promoters and advertising commercially can buy. Now since paintball is not big enough to draw a big money spending crowd that leaves promoters.
I would suggest a compremise. The players need a say or things will not be operated to there standards but so does the industry since they are footing the bill. I think a board should be produced that contains 50% player intrest and 50% promoter interest. I would suggest a promoter voted on Chairman for tie breaks since they are footing the bill.
It does not matter how this starts as a new orginization or a reorganized NPPL. Where the money ie the promoters goes they players will follow.
If the NPPL wants to they can move back to bidding on a paint sponsor and starting over without the current promoters. This will work as someone will be willing to be a part of it. But if the prizes are better with another tourney people will go.
I hope they work things out like last year but this time create a situation that avoids this next year. I read Bill Mills report on this issue last year and thought "Well I guess paintball is really just a bumch of idiots getting together to shoot each other." This makes the sport look bad and they really need to get it together.
Thanks for listening
Hitmanng
Gordon

[~Backdraft~]

5

I think that 5 would the best choice because this way the entire paintball community can come together and take the time to put together a paintball organization that players want yet have the promoters involved. There must be a way where we can create a fun paintball organization that is fair and is what every paintballer dreams of. This shouldn't be something rushed into, I think that the people that lead the industry need to have meetings after meetings and have serious talks and reach out to the public paintballers (like this thread) and really create the "perfect" paintball organization.

The NPPL seems like it has its problems...but thats just me and i think its time to just start over...

[raehl]

I'm going to say it again..

And I'm going to say it because I know. Paintball has everything it needs to get big advertising dollars - millions of participants, a sport that's easy to play in, etc - everything except image. And it isn't the image of the sport that's the problem - it's the image of some of the players we allow to represent the sport, and continue to allow to play at the top levels after they make asses of themselves over, and over, and over again. I'm amazed at the inability of supposed adults to not behave like children.

Big companies have a LOT invested in their brand names - it's called "brand equity" for the marketing not-inclined. A company that can seriously put hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars into a paintball related sponsorship and corresponding ad campaign faces the losses of MILLIONS of dollars if even one percent of their sales goes away because customers don't like the image associated with the brand.

So when potential advertisers go to tournaments and see the crap they see, they're not willing to put their brand names on the line. Too much risk.

Paintball will remain an unrecognized, unfunded sport until someone has the balls to step up and mandate good behavior. That means the players either behave themselves or the promoters or whoever else runs the league throws them out, no matter how good they are. There is not a single paintball player in NPPL or anywhere else whose talent or skill comes anywhere close to making up for the damage their poor behavior can cause.

- Chris

[MagUser4Life]

i think major paintball companies like AGD, WORR,WDP, kingman, tippman need to get together. each company can only sponser say like 5 teams and run the pro division that way. that would limit the amount of teams that can call themselves pro and make the top division more exclusive.

with fewer pro teams they could break down the teams stats and individual stats too. with set teams you could do a set season. with play offs and a national championship. doing things like that will make paintball look like a more mainstream sport which will make it easier to put it on sports shows and such. more mainstream will mean more publicity.

[Toxic Dave]

The NPPL hasn't done anything to make the events happen since about '92, '93, all of the work has been done by the promoters. There would be no "NPPL" without the PSP and the promoters when they weren't partners, it would have gone under 7 years ago if the league was running things. As for having other promoters run the NPPL events, good luck, as much as I hate to say it the only people capable of pulling it off right now is the PSP, with Rosie, Emily and Lane doing the majority of the work. Look at every major event in the US right now, they help set up or run them for the most part other than Skyball. You think the current NPPL leadership could organize an event? I dunno about that at all.

So I don't know where my vote goes, but I belive the promoters are capable of running things better than ever, and they seem to really want to know what the players want, and heck for the past 2 years things have been getting better, why would you expect that it would change now??
Dave/ Toxic Performance/ GZ Silver
NPPL PLayers since 96