I've got a new idea for the NPPL 3.0. Okay, it isn't a new idea, it's an old idea but it's old enough that it will seem like a new idea to plenty of little tourney ballers. To be honest I'm not convinced it's a good idea but the way I figure it NPPL 3.0 can use all the ideas it can get. Hey, I'm as big a fan of the power of positive thinking as the next guy, wait--check that, no I'm not. Even so, no harm no foul but sometimes even the Little Engine That Thought It Could can't. And a pocket full of happy thoughts won't pay the bills. But I digress.
My new old idea is simply this: divisional teams get a pro opponent in their prelim bracket or in addition to their prelim bracket. Back in the day the prelims had mixed divisional play and plenty of lower division teams liked it that way. It wasn't until we started taking lower divisional play seriously and treating it like it mattered competitively that mixed prelims were abandoned as unfair even if random. If you're competing in D2 you should win or lose--move on or get knocked out--based on your results against your peers and not because you drew the Russian Legion as your Pro opponent. Even so I still occasionally hear peeps wax nostalgic and wish for a return to the old way of doing things.
What do you think? Would the NPPL 3.0 draw more teams, your team, if you knew you'd get to play against a pro team?
Monday, September 21, 2009
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11 comments:
I really like the "in addition to" bit. Maybe the score could only help but not hurt your overall standing? So if you won your pro game it replaces your lowest score. If you lose it, no harm.
The pros would need to get points for this game as well, otherwise they might not be motivated to win.
I could see this kind of concept being a real point of differentiation for the NPPL.
There is no way that a game can 'only help' your standing - if winning the game helps your standing, then NOT winning the game hurts your standing, because the teams that do win their pro games are going to be ranked higher than the teams that do not.
Mixed prelims were a bad idea and they are still a bad idea. Nobody wants to watch a Pro team spank a D2 team, the Pro teams don't want to buy the paint they need to spank the D2 team, the Pro teams don't want to risk a random loss against a D2 team, and it's an extra game in the schedule which means less teams per field per day and thus less revenue per field-day for the league.
It would be far more effective (and cheaper) to just have each pro team take a handful of D2 teams out to lunch.
Also forgot to mention - although not as big of an issue now, back in the day when there were mixd prelims, the Pros played zero or one other Pro teams in the Prelims, as in order for 96 teams to each have a game against a Pro team, each of 12 Pro teams had to play 8 non-Pro teams. The numbers are not that bad now, but even with 48 non-Pro teams, each Pro team would have to play 3 non-pro games.
As someone with a .417 win percentage against pro teams, thank you Warpig, I like the idea!!!
Are you suggesting that throwing out the lowest score has no effect whatsoever? Please demonstrate mathmatically and show you work.
I also didn't realize you had been nomiated to speak for "nobody" or "everybody".
I think there are quite a few people who would like and and also quite a few who would not like it.
But generally I think if you ask most low level tournament teams if they would like the opportunity to play against Dynasty, Ironmen, Damage, Philly, etc. at a competitive tournament.
That is to say, being the type of person I am, who likes competitive sports, I can conceive of no instance when I would not appreciate the opportunity to compete against the best in the world. Perhaps your set of life's circumstances has taught you differently that playing against your superiors is as a waste of time and that's where your impression comes from. My impression is that paintball player realish the intensity, competition, and memories of an event.
I can still remember the thrashing old-school, original Avalanche dished out to my team as they whittled down our team player by player and advanced up the field.
One of my good friends, who sucked at paintball still tells the store of his team blowing up Youngblood at an event, with several guys screaming "I shot Youngblood!!!" during the game as they shot him out on the break.
I think there would be interest from the divisional teams. I think some pros would also like the idea. I also think it offer some benefits for sponsors of pro teams, especially even the lower ranked pro teams. Damage is no doubt a respected team, but there have to be plenty of teams who really don't respect Damage's comparative skill to some of the more "famous" teams. Getting your trash kicked around by Damage will show you those guys are seriously good.
Perhaps in the context of a tournament with scoring, etc. it is difficult to make it work. But the idea has some merit. It could be worth figuring out a way to make something like this work to encourage growth and participation in the events.
I think tournament paintball has a real problem with helping players to aspire to compete in national events. As it is now, if a typical tournament player wants to compete against Dynasty they have to go to D-Day. You think that's good for the PSP or the NPPL?
Do it like other sports do. If you want to play against the pros, either go pro, or pay a bunch of money to play in a charity event.
The like the other sports do comment is a bit silly. Can someone declare a moratorium on "other sports" analogies?
It's one thing to look at logistical aspects of other sports, as in scheduling, or how they approach and cultivate sponsorships.
It's nother to clame that pros in paintball should have less contact with the lower levels because that's how the NFL, NASCAR, etc. does it. While we're talking about those other sports, how much do those pros make? How much does the league charge vendors to show up at NASCAR?
Or how about this, when have you seen NASCAR taking sign-ups for the average guy to compete in divisional races on the same track before the main event? If we did like other sports do, the PSP should either fire the APPA and stop running divisional events, or get rid of the pro circuit.
Maybe we accept that in some areas we are not like other sports and this comes with its own unique set of strenghts -and- weakenesses.
Can someone declare a moratorium on asking for a moratorium and then doing the same thing a half dozen times in the same post?
More sports analogies!
irony escapes some of us apparently.
Frankly, A number of teams playing 'Pro' in the uspl ARE divisional.
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