Help bring Paintball to X games on ESPN

[phat4life07]

http://www.petitiononline.com/pb123/petition.html

im here to promote the sport of paintball, lets help sign this petition and bring the sport of paintball to X games on ESPN!

[Zneaky]

Before we petition ESPN, let's do some spellchecking.

"Paintball is also practiced my over 104 countries and is played by more than 11,600,000 people world wide "

from the petition website ^


Z

[AlphaPaintballRef2]

No thanks. I don't need to watch a bunch of guys slinging paint and cheating on TV. If I want that I can just go to my local indoor field .

[Cow123]

Sure. They got rally racing on there(although slightly bastardized), why not get some High Def paintball?

[GroovYChickeN 2.o]

^^^^ I agree.

I stoped playing paintball because of the cheating and un-sportsman like conduct of just about all the players in the realm of turnyball. I love paintball and all but I really dont care to watch cheaters represent my sport of choice.

[EPIC_Vader]

I don't think paintball is ready to be televised either. Perhaps if there was a governing board to regulate the sport and enforce rules similar to the NFL or MLB it could work. But lets face it, that isn't going to happen. The last time I watched tourney ball on ESPN2 it seemed to me that it was basically a 60-minute Smart Parts commercial.
Besides that, forgive my ignorance but, doesn't the X-Games specialize in solo events?

[PsychoBaller]

College Ball still holds some promise. When I played for Rutgers from 02-4, there was still a great deal of Sportsmanship and Honesty left in the game. It wasn't 100%, but moreso than even a local field, let alone any regular Tourny of some sort.


-baller

[ntn4502]

did my post really get deleated!?

I'll say again, this thread is stupid

[Tao]

Paintball already made it to WGN (I think that channel anyway). It was a horrible wipe fest each and every epsiode and made me want to puke.....it will only bring more bad rep to the game...

To be fair though a televised game using pumps might be better publicity for paintball. You can get just as great a game with pumps (even better!!) than electro semis.

[GroovYChickeN 2.o]

100%. From 2003-2005 I was on the field Sat & Sun almost every weekend(minus 1 or 2 for major holidays).

Im a realist...Cheating happens, its unavoidable. But we had some decent players, so it wasnt always that much of an issue. One Sunday, we played a pick-up game against Bonebrake Factory. These guys were blatantly playing-on, with 5-7 hits on them while bunkering and doing run-throughs. Their back players were wiping. It was stupid.

Now, that was a factory team out playing agaisnt no-names. That single game changed it for many of us. It sounds like you had a similar experience.

I use to play in the IPPL here in IL back in 00-02. Basicly one turny we got ripped to shreads because we had a rule that if a captian found out you cheated you were off the team, no questions asked, so no one cheated. Well, because we got stomped that one turnament, all but 3 of us voted to get rid of the rule. I wasn't happy with that so I quit playing. I hate cheating.

[Ninjeff]

I quit for the same reasons Groovy did. Only, im a really old scholer and quit in 01. PLayed tourney ball from 98 to 01, and it was just as bad back then. I dont expect it to change unless the people that do it, stop becoming proffesionals.

[Tao]

I use to play in the IPPL here in IL back in 00-02. Basicly one turny we got ripped to shreads because we had a rule that if a captian found out you cheated you were off the team, no questions asked, so no one cheated. Well, because we got stomped that one turnament, all but 3 of us voted to get rid of the rule. I wasn't happy with that so I quit playing. I hate cheating.

Well that is unfortunate. A great rule to live by, but in the end you will find yourself not playing in bigger tourneys or getting rid of the rule altogether. It would be a good rule to add to a tourney though: if you are found out to be cheating the individual is forbidden to continue in the tournament.

[GroovYChickeN 2.o]

I would say the whole team over just the person who cheated. Requires players to be responsible as a team, not just as players. But I'm also and *** like that too, so I can see where that wouldn't be implemented.

[teufelhunden]

A) this petition has been circulating for a longgggggggggg time. I won't go into the merits, or lack thereof, of it
B) The X-Games don't have... any team sports. Well, I guess they have that thing where there's more than 1 skater in a halfpipe or whatever its called, but I don't think that's a team sport per se.
C) Paintball is already on ESPN, I saw it not too long ago at like a pretty decent before dinner timeslot... some SP event with a bunch of NXL teams.
D) ...i lied. online petitions are worthless, especially ones with a whole 20k signatures.


I don't think it's the problem of paintball not being ready for TV; I don't think that there's anything they could move out of the way for it, from a business standpoint. Honestly, they're going to get more viewership from women's college basketball than from a paintball tournament over the long haul. I think initially you'll see some semi-ok ratings/share for the "what the heck is this crap" factor but past that... A relative nobody has paintball team allegiances, nobody bets on paintball outcomes, etc. It's not going to be a revenue driver. And that, I believe, is the bottom line.

[t0nnn]

I agree with teufelhunden completely, i have read somewhere in the past (I forget where), but they were saying paintball would really never make it to the x-games because of the fact it's a TEAM sport, x-games is based on solo accomplishment and talent. You, not your team get medals for being the best at what you do. Maybe if the x-games was more like the Olympics, then you could do paintball ...USA vs. Canada etc.