Today is the last day to register for the NPPL's NEO event the weekend of the 8th/9th of June. While probably not a hard deadline (especially for pro teams) the fact remains the days are dwindling quickly and if teams haven't yet made their preparations it's unlikely they'll jump in at the last minute unless the event is close to home.
Yesterday Vancouver Vendetta, coming off a strong second place at HB, announced they wouldn't be participating at NEO in part because their HB prize money has yet to be paid. Also currently missing is Portland Uprising and NE Avalanche. And among the new for 2013 pro teams LA Paintball Gateway and Arsenal Crush are unregistered [at the time this was written.] Arsenal Crush was said at HB to be a last minute fill-in and that the team had intended to compete in D1--and there is a CRUsh Too registered in D1 which may very well be the Arsenal Crush team from HB.
Given the active and vocal support given the NPPL by Avalanche owner Frank Connell it's particularly surprising to see Avalanche missing from the list. And if the status quo remains the pro division at NEO will be reduced to 10 teams with only 3 of those teams having NPPL pro experience prior to this season; Dynasty, X-Factor & Explicit.
While these events don't bode well for the NPPL's flagship division the truly telling numbers are the divisional team totals. 7 D1 teams. 4 D2 teams. 8 D3 teams and 13 D4 teams for a grand total of 42 teams. With the move to OXCC the league's expenses will be dramatically reduced but it's hard to see what can be done almost overnight to turn things around given the present state of decline. One thing the new regime has done is lower the prize packages across the board. A move that's unlikely to be too popular. But then so is the notion there's a lot of 7-man teams out there that care. If there were they'd be competing, wouldn't they?
Friday, May 31, 2013
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6 comments:
Better to announce a smaller prize package and pay it than to have a larger one that isn't honored.
Kinda makes the Millennium Series look like it knows what its doing, even they stick to their imaginary rule book, most of the time!
Tippman Effect posted on pbnation that there are no D2 teams at the NEO event so they are bumping up to play D1.
And compare that with upcoming PSP Chicago where just D3 race to 4 has more teams than the total of this NPPL event.
The NEO team list is down to 35 teams, and that's probably high since there's 4 D2 teams on the list and only Tippmann Effect is playing.
The Arsenal Crush team is not playing NEO and the mistake that they are listed in D1 is not correct with the team playing. The organization decided to reduce it to one team for NEO which honestly is just another slow decline for teams who were set to play the whole NPPL season.
Thanks, guys. I saw that comment yesterday at PBN but didn't feel an update or correction necessary since the only related content in the post was plainly speculation and not any sort of statement of fact. :)
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