PSP "Rumors" Revisited

A few more thoughts on how the latest batch of changes will affect competitive paintball and those who play the game. First, I wonder if the PSP has locked itself into these changes by confirming the rumors on their official website. Sure, changes to the changes might be viewed as the league "listening" to its customers but at the same time wouldn't it undermine the league's credibility? It seems some percentage of the current discontent is over the fact the PSP can't seem to do anything but change.
It also seems that the average internet whiner is only quasi-literate at best. (I was going to say the average PSP-playing internet whiner but then it occurred to me I have no idea how many of the commenters have actually played a PSP event. That's not a prerequisite to having an opinion but it is a prerequisite to my paying any attention to that opinion.) The inability of so many to simply comprehend the PSP's stated changes is enough to shatter one's faith in our future generations--assuming one was foolish enough to have any in the first place. No more pit side coaching is NOT no more coaching. Adding ten feet to each end of a 150 foot field doesn't make it a 180 foot field. A larger field and restrictive design qualifications have nothing to do with reducing overall costs to teams/players.
Did you miss the previous rumors post? Scroll down the page or look here. The case for saving money by not releasing the field layout in advance is made there in two additional links. If you didn't (or don't) bother to look at it there, I won't bother to go through it again here. Suffice to say every other change the PSP has made to reduce costs has directly altered the game played on the field; fewer points, less clock, etc. Non-release doesn't do that. Nor does it keep teams from practicing how and how often they want. Instead it gives all teams an opportunity to re-think what it really takes to prepare and to focus on the players' strengths and weaknesses instead of paint intensive rote repetition. Non-release may not save the lower divisions all that much even--depending on how they choose to prepare but it will save the upper divisions a lot of money and make it less costly for serious teams to move up the ranks.
As to removing pit side coaching it looks to me like more trouble than it's worth. For non-PSP players who whine about coaching it's only half a job done, right? Will they suddenly change their mind because coaching is limited to the snake side only? And I am convinced that enforcement of the no-coaching will be inconsistent or Draconian and both courses will only serve to anger and frustrate teams/players already committed to the PSP.
The players the PSP hopes to bring back to--or into--the PSP with the change in field design and dimensions aren't interested--and don't belong. Like it or not the PSP has positioned itself as the league that promotes competitive paintball as sport. To undo that now would be counterproductive. And won't bring in the player the PSP is looking for. The player they are looking for and need now is the player they pushed out of the game over the last few years by unnecessarily forcing too many of them into classifications they hadn't earned and couldn't continue to compete in. If you want those guys back drop them a whole rank for each year they haven't played a PSP event with a floor of two ranks max. All current Semi-pro players would drop no lower than D2 while D1's wouldn't drop lower than D3. Get as many of them as possible back into circulation and begin to reverse the dumbing down process of the recent past by leavening the mid-divisions with good, competent players. The player they want to draw with the design and dimensions change is the player who should be the backbone of the next generation of local teams--not a national level competitor in D3 or lower.

As a practical matter neither of the major leagues is in a position to lower entry fees. They simply aren't. With revenue from the industry reduced to a trickle almost all the money to operate on comes from entries and related fees. What the NPPL 3.0 stumbled into may be the lesson the PSP needs to learn. Perhaps the league needs to scale back and potentially restrict the total number of teams that can compete if a combination of entries and calculated operational costs provide greater certainty of profitability from event to event.