Saturday, November 29, 2008

Hiking in the Wilderness

No, this isn't New Look Pro. (Yes, it's still coming.) This is an update on Off the Reservation. It was suggested to me that the MS did in fact bring something to the table--a new TV deal. After I stopped laughing I thought about it for a moment. If having mediocre paintball on American TV led to the MS gig then okay, maybe the TV deal in Euroland will prove to be a big hit for the U.S. and finally get competitive paintball over the hump and into the mainstream. (And if that didn't make a whole lot of sense to you, join the club but that is the logic involved--such as it is.)
Another way of looking at this (rumored) endeavor to internationalize or standardize competitive paintball is that at long last the powers that be are attempting to take sensible incremental measures to build competitive paintball into something that might be recognized as sport and actually attract serious outside interest (at some unpredictable time in the future.) Hey, anything is possible.
Here's another idea. Name the two large independent U.S. paintball manufacturers [makers of paintball gear] who chose not to pay the MS's extortionate sponsorship fees and skipped the series last year. (I'm not using "extortionate" to imply any criminal conduct--in case you weren't sure.) If you guessed that the answers coincidentally happen to also be owners of the PSP treat yourself to a piece of pumpkin pie. Will the negotiation result in some rapprochement that will see the missing companies at MS events next season? Inquiring minds want to know.
How 'bout all of the above? Call it Big League multi-tasking at its finest.

Btw, you guys are really boring. 76 comments on relegation (which isn't even going to happen) and nobody wants to talk about competitive paintball's future?

UPDATE: blogging etiquette says one doesn't delete content but rather corrrects it. So, where it says paintball manufacturers the intent was manufacturers of paintball stuff, not paintballs specifically. And if that has left you dazed and confused here's what I was getting at.

The Big Picture issue is that the MS will have a say in what xball looks like in the future over here for no other reason than the PSP has decided now is the time to standardize the game and given what xball (xtra lite) looks like over there that is a sorry thing indeed. Particularly if we end up paying for what may amount to another reduction.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I was pretty sure the number of paint manufacturers that are also PSP owners is 1.

Anonymous said...

I think he means Dye & Smart Parts........

Anonymous said...

DYE sponsored Millennium this year, so that ain't it. And Smart Parts doesn't make paint.

Baca Loco said...

Chris,
What does paint manufacture have to do with standardizing or internationalizing competitive paintball?

And DYE showed up at NPPL SD but weren't a league sponsor.

Anonymous said...

Baca,

I have no idea!

You're the one who put it in your post, alleging that standardization is somehow connected to two paint manufacturers who didn't sponsor millennium last year but are PSP owners.

There is only one paint company that's an owner of PSP, and that's KEE, so no pumpkin pie for anyone. What that has to do with standardization I have no idea, but I'm guessing you must, if you bothered to bring it up.

I don't know where you're going with NPPL/DYE either.

lil' nobody said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Maybe Im wrong, but I think he meant paintall manufactures, in the meaning of equipment in general, not just PAINT.......

Anonymous said...

Ah, I get it now. Or at least, that he may not have meant manufacturers of paintballs - but that doesn't cover the other half, which is DYE did sponsor Millennium last year.

Baca Loco said...

Yes, Anon was correct. But I can see how it could cause some confusion.
The Big Picture issue is that the MS will have a say in what xball looks like in the future over here and given what it looks like over there that is a sad thing indeed.