Friday, February 27, 2009

Major League Paintball Held Hostage, Day(s) 50 - 58

This just in--the Millennium Series remains moribund. Or was that comatose? An anonymous tipster is claiming in an unconfirmed report that the new rulebook did, in fact, exist but was eaten by mice in Ulrich's attic. And so far both the Amber Alert and the wide distribution of logo-laden milk cartons have failed to elicit any sightings of the missing paintball league. In one bit of unexpected good news it seems the MS logo is quite popular with elderly female pensioners and this has got some considering how best to exploit this new demographic on paintball's behalf. VFTD is currently awaiting information on the reversion date as it is hoped once unfilled and unsold closed division slots go wanting that might rouse the league from its silent lethargy.

In USPL news Chuck and the kids scored at the recent auction of the bankrupt Pacific Paintball's NPPL holdings scooping up netting, poles and turf as well as loads of the assorted miscellany required to put on an event--all well under budget. The haul also included a host of NPPL-related logos, URLs and the like but did not include the player database as its ownership is apparently being disputed. The news fostered rumors of bringing back the NPPL but any such talk is premature and purely speculative at this time.
A whirlwind of work continues apace as there are something like 5 weeks left before the Surf City Open hits the beach at HB. (If you have never experienced an HB event next to the pier you haven't experienced an HB event.) Registration last night was approx. 72 teams registered with around 20 paid. Look for periods of activity to spike around the entry increase dates. At this point it's impossible to judge what the numbers mean but the league is confident everything is on schedule. The other critical pre-event date will likely be somewhere in the middle of March as that is when the league will have to assign a cutoff date for event sponsors.

The clock is ticking. And I'm not sure we can even define--yet--what constitutes success or failure in this uncertain major league season.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The player elist ownership is being disputed? How do I keep getting emails from the USPL then? Somebody must have swiped it....

raehl said...

Not the player elist so much as the registration software and data. Pacific Paintball has exclusive rights to the ID Pro software within paintball, as well as exclusive ownership of all the paintball data. The "dispute" is that the Walkers are still using the software within paintball in violation of their Pacific Paintball contract and as we know using the player data they have no rights to either.

The sale didn't happen, however, because nobody wanted to bid enough money to make it worthwhile for the trustee to even bother selling it. Nobody wants the software, and no one knows how good the player data is.