Another Kind of March Madness

Major League Paintball's leading series kick off the 2015 season this month. PSP Dallas is less than a week away and the Millennium's Med Cup is the last weekend of the month. As of Tuesday morning--after the official final deadline for entry--Dallas was at 125, down more than 25% from last year's Dallas opener. One explanation that hadn't occurred to me before may be simple as the weather. Not only was Dallas cold last year but the worst of the winter weather has hit much of the country in January and February and shows little sign of abating in some places. Med Cup numbers could be similar but the MS hasn't yet posted registrants in the Semi-Pro divisions and the Open divisions are a bit thin. While there's still time for teams to jump in VFTD is projecting event numbers around 110 teams. The MS has seen a fair amount of team turnover in recent seasons with a trend that's in decline. Until this coming event the PSP had been growing over the last two or three seasons. The MS made some off season moves to change the pattern and it will be interesting to watch what happens in both leagues over the course of the season.
The rumor mill continues to churn regarding the PSP with tales of high profile buyers trying to buy the Dye shares along with competing rumors of a competing start-up national league looking to use the current uncertainties to make a move. So far Dye is standing pat--at least according to the latest rumor--and as more industry sponsors sign on with the PSP the likelihood of an upstart league trying to gain a foothold after Dallas seems unlikely.
Across the pond the MS announced an exhibition to run concurrently with the Med Cup in which top Champions League teams will play using a limited paint per point format modification. That should attract the attention of all the teams attending and give everyone a chance to see it in action or actually try it out. There has been talk for many years about limiting paint as an alternative to reduced ROF or other efforts to reduce paint costs and variability. By offering an exhibition the Millennium is taking a reasonable step in that direction while respecting their competing teams.
Remaining across the pond VFTD mentioned the X Series last week and I have some additional information. Begun last year in Germany largely as an alternative for local venues to the top heavy DPL and teams interested in something a little different--the X Series uses a modified PSP rulebook and field layouts--the league has grown substantially over last season with the recent announcement they would have 150 teams competing across the series of events. For the host venues the big deal is the DPL is modeled on typical soccer league practice which sees much of the money stay at the top of the league while the X Series offers greater monetary rewards to the host venues. Of more interest is the fact that in one season the league has attracted such significant growth. Last year the DPL had over 300 teams competing across Germany. It remains to be seen whether or not the X Series will cut into those numbers or if competitive paintball in Germany is still growing.