Major League Paintball Held Hostage, Day 27

I wonder if VFTD can get Ted Koppel to do daily podcast updates for MLP held hostage? (That one dated me, didn't it?)

Okay, PSP has announced prizes for '09. If you're up in arms over this, seriously, what did you expect? And if you haven't seen it yet and don't know what to do with your arms go check it out at pspevents.com (Link in sidebar, Paintball on the Web)

ProPaintball is reporting that the USPL is planning a surcharge on cases of paint sold at their events. (Or should that be our events? I get so confused sometimes.) If accurate all I can say is Paintball has a lot of leading feet and not all of them have been shot yet but not because peeps ain't trying. (Work on that for a second and you'll get it.) Promote marginally cheaper entry fees and then find ways to make it up with extra charges. That's the ticket!
Though I have no reason to doubt the report I do have an alternate theory that fits the evidence--if a couple of the details were misunderstood. It could be a clever "sponsorship" formula for paint manufacturers instead as once described to me. At least I thought it was clever. A lot cleverer (if that's a word) than charging your customers a paint surcharge.

UPDATE: In the comments section of the report at ProPaintball FrankdaTank opens mouth and inserts ... he reassures all the readers that nothing is set in stone. Could a six figure PR job be far behind? Camille follows up and states categorically the info is wrong. That, boys and girls, is how you do it. Off to bed without their dinner tonight for the ProPaintball kids.

I can't quite let go of the Craig Miller interview over at 68 Caliber 2.0 just yet. (I'd apologize but you should know by now I get fixated on stuff in completely arbitrary ways.) I am, however, gonna limit myself to two observations: 1. If you follow the explanations for how the PSTA got started you discover that paintball's Big Boyz sat down in a room and decided the best way to move forward was for paintball's Big Boyz to run the show because it might create internal divisions down the road if paintball's Big Boyz weren't in charge. (Which I find uproariously funny.) 2. One of the benefits of aligning with SGMA is the Industry Shipment reports which provide unique info and began in 2006. And it has only taken until 2009 to figure out how to begin an initiative to invite wider industry participation. At this rate the PSTA might start answering their phone in 2011. Gotta love those all volunteer committees. What a hoot.

Lastly, working (but not very hard) on a post called 'The Iron Law of Tournament Logistics' which will post whenever I finish it. (See, no more broken promises.) I mention it because it has some relevance given the laundry list of PSP changes this year and the nascent efforts of the USPL to figure out how to operate a hopefully successful league.