Monday, October 4, 2010

The Monday Poll

Where are they (you) now? This week's poll is for former national level tourney players. This is going to be less a poll than a very limited sort of questionnaire so the way you respond is going to be especially important to the end result. There will be an extensive list to choose from and most of them will be fairly general. What I'm looking for is a more complex impression of what happened to most of you than a simple question and a half dozen options can convey. Instead, the poll will begin with the statement: I no longer compete in national level events because ...
Then you will choose between 1 and 3 responses that best describe your situation. For example, you may choose; I play scenario, it was too expensive & I wasn't having fun. So please limit yourself to 3 options at most and we'll see what happens. And, as per usual, if there's choice not there you would respond to you can always post it up in comments--you lazy slacker you.

I have no idea if this is going to work but it has no chance of success without you.

OT--how 'bout the cool new header illustration? Sweet, right? Source photo was the typical Brandon Showers masterpiece.

Monday Poll in Review
Now that is a poll result! Last week was either the highest voter turnout to date or very close to it. Thanks. It's interesting that particular poll drew a heavier than normal response. And more than a little difficult to draw any conclusions from. In past polls that pitted the NPPL against the PSP in one way or another the final results tended to reflect each league's relative popularity as well--but not this time.
Last week's question: Would national level competition be better off --
without the PSP. (34%)
without the NPPL. (37%)
without both; let's start over. (15%)
with both. (12%)
The results by percentage are in parentheses.
Now either a conspiracy of NPPL sympathizers made a concerted effort to skew the result or there is some passive PSP hostility out there. (As a conspiracy sympathizer I don't discount the possibility but it seems more likely they're busy rigging the Hall of Fame votes--if, in fact, anyone is actually voting.) Look, there are a lot of ungrateful yout's out there. (I know, you don't know who you are but trust me, you do exist.) And there are also more than a few Old Skoolers still bitter over how the original NPPL dream turned out along with the crop of twenty-somethings who are "too good to play" as well as being too broke to play.
Aside from my speculations the numbers do seem to suggest that an awful lot of you were prepared and willing to throw somebody under the bus as 88% of all votes kicked somebody out of the national level tournament club. Is that largely because most people believe the status quo can't continue? That all the talk of shrinking sponsorships and exploding pro teams has convinced the general paintball public of the truth of those claims or has it become another item on the checklist of the conventional wisdom.
Without some feedback from poll participants on this one it's impossible to know what inspired each vote. So here's what I'd like you to do--if you had a specific reason for the vote you cast please take a minute and put it in this comments section. For the rest of you I've chosen a number for the over/under on the number of reasons that will posted in comments this next week. Feel free to guess at my over/under--and while you're at it you might as well add the reason for your vote in last week's poll, too.

9 comments:

Mike said...

I said we're better off without the NPPL. I prefer the 7-man format, but the floundering and lack of direction has done more harm than good overall and two leagues dilutes the limited available resources (money, sponsorship, and time to focus on one format over the other).

Anonymous said...

Time for the new blood. The old guard has had their time.

Anonymous said...

The heavier than normal turnout was Frank voting 50 times for PSP.

Anonymous said...

voted for kicking out NPPL because I think PSP has more competitive teams and a more competitive format

Anonymous said...

Picked getting rid of both. Change it up, maybe train refs to be good at ONE format and the reffing would improve. I'd just like to see more local tournaments.

@ Anon 2, LOL

Anonymous said...

Picked getting rid of both also. Let someone else have a try. Can they do much worse?

papa chad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
papa chad said...

"I relied on (and needed) some local sponsorship help" will be underchecked when this poll is over. the choice should really read...

"3/4 of sponsorship left the national scene, where I used to could work my way up competitively (and play) via sponsorship deals and monies."

national paintball is for rich kids. middle and lower class kids needed the deals and money, which used to exist, but now it's gone. yes, kids, specifically, who joined the sport, who made it blow up (2006), and then left it when the money dried up.

the new banner looks great.

DanC. said...

I voted to kill the NPPL. I do not believe both can survive. It appears too expensive to the companies, who pay for the leagues to exist, then pay for teams to compete in them, to maintain two wholly separate series. I had to make a decision, would we be better off with a less expensive, but poorly run, reffed and executed events? or more expensive, but better overall?
To me a quality event is more worth my time and money than one that feels thrown together (as the nppl/uspl felt). And when it came down to it, after travel and incidentals, the & man events I played were not significantly less expensive than the PSP's. when I added everything up, The NPPL season to date is only $237 less than the PSP(I played R24-btw). I believe the PSP will come out ahead after world cup/vegas because of plane ticket costs.
SO for roughly the same costs from my pocket you would have a hard time convincing me that the product of the NPPL was better. It has little to do with the actual format.