PSP Brings Webcast Back

At least for the Chicago event in June. Rumor has it that not everyone at the PSP is on board with this decision. How, you may wonder, could anyone in their right mind object to another awesome and entertaining webcast? From a player and fan perspective it looks like a win-win but there are other points of view. One source suggested it may cost the league upwards of 30K. That's a substantial piece of change for a league that is perpetually pleading poverty and telling its customer base, players and vendors alike, that survival depends on sometimes significant changes even though their costs won't see any relief. Fair enough but doesn't a complete turnaround in mid-season send at least a conflicting message? Can the league afford to do this or can't they? And if they can't, why are they? Heck, even if they can, why are they?
It is not from the gooey butter cream goodness of their hearts so what's the motivation? Is it because of the other guys? (The guys who did HB but not Chicago. The guys who are rumored to have turned down ESPN3 because ESPN wasn't gonna kick some cash into the project and the league had no more to spend. Those guys?)
I'm glad in a selfish way there's gonna be a webcast but we've been down this road before and nothing positive has come of it. Will a webcast generate enough paintball-wide interest to encourage new (or other) teams to participate in the PSP? Is the PSP doing a webcast just because the other guys did one? Is the PSP working on their own let's get back to TV angle? (Not that I've heard.) Maybe it's just me but I'm not seeing the point. And I'm not seeing the payoff. I don't see how a webcast in Chicago benefits the PSP or ever begins to pay for itself unless we're headed--once again--toward some sort of pay-per-view effort. Could that work? I'd like to think so but the track record ain't great.
What am I missing?

No Chicago NPPL Webcast

That is the word from an impeccable source buried deep within the bowels of the NPPL. (And I can't--don't want to--imagine how unpleasant that must be.) The source pleaded ignorance when it came to the details but was willing to assert that a dialogue remains open between the league and the ESPN3 peeps. Additionally a different source suggested that xbox numbers are more difficult to assess with final xbox numbers likely available the end of this month. What impact, if any, that might have is unclear.

2011 NCPA Webcast

The live feed began this morning and was still going strong a few minutes ago as the Tennessee Volunteers were pillaging the badly mismatched East Tennessee State Buccaneers. If it was Little League or Pee Wee soccer somebody would have invoked the mercy rule by now. But no, they's playing a man's game--or at least trying to play a man's game. The field at CFP in Lakeland, FL looks good--and looks to be holding up pretty well so far--they haven't been letting anyone play on it for a while to get it ready for this championship weekend. The mostly elevated camera views of the field are generally pretty good. (I think there are four cameras in action; one above the commentators' booth, one at the southern end of the field, one at the opposite snake side corner and a roving man on the ground. Make that five 'cus there's one, probably fixed position, focused on the commentators too.) Taking turns working the booth have been Mr. Paintball Matty Marshall, the ever youthful Chris 'Pony' LaSoya, Ollie Lang & 'Catfish' Arcilla with all of them doing a solid job adding color and commentary to the action. The rough edges in their presentations are my favorite parts. Catfish making a joke that leaves Chris speechless and the guys shuffling through pages of notes and information trying to keep up with the players on the field as they give shout outs to both good and poor play. It's good stuff. In fact it's better than the paintball. No, wait a second, I take that back. It's better than the visual coverage of the paintball. The only real weakness of the broadcast has been the too frequent disconnect between what we're seeing and what the commentators are talking about when it comes to the action on field. The difficulty is with the director and the switching of camera angles. It's too late most of the time if it happens at all and the result is we hear how a point played out but we don't necessarily see more than a few disconnected details. They'd do better to stick with wider framed shots and only close in on things like tight action in the snake or the bigger moves on the D-wire or up the middle. Otherwise the broadcast quality is quite good.

On a separate note this is the third year in a row I've seen some college championship paintball--we usually have practice at CFP over the NCPA weekend--but not this year--and the level of play is, I think, improving. It's not brilliant paintball and there's still enough fundamental mistakes to make you cringe at times--make me cringe anyway--but across the board it's better and I saw a few standout individual players today. In addition the Army team (lost a tight match to Long Beach) was the most tactically sophisticated breakout team I've seen short of the pros. They were outstanding and if their individual play approaches that level they will be a very good team.

As a follow-up to the NPPL broadcast on ESPN3 it's almost as if competitive paintball is picking up some momentum, making some real progress. Or maybe an old cynic is just going soft.

Saturday Update: I'ma assume somebody is reading VFTD and paying attention 'cus the camera work and choice of shots and frames today is a big improvement over yesterday. The guys in the booth are getting more comfortable as well and doing a better job of introducing the players involved in the game action along with solid commentary and paintball conversation. Kudos to Chris and the rest of the NCPA & Fox crews.

Baca's Mailbag: The HB Commercials

Dear Baca

I loved the Huntington Beach broadcast on ESPN3, especially on Friday, but ... with all the time in between games it wasn't long before I was alternating between wanting to kill everyone and anyone involved in making those weak ass paintball commercials we saw over and over and over again and wondering if the ceiling fan was sturdy enough to support my body weight if I hung myself. In retrospect it sounds extreme, I know, but I'm already worried about what might happen if I watch a Chitown broadcast. I want to support paintball. What should I do?

signed,

Off my meds

Dear Off

I am not a doctor and I haven't stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately but I feel confident in suggesting you reconsider getting back on your meds. If they are anything like mine I sympathise with your predicament but you get used to that fuzzy-headed disorienting sensation in time. I chase mine with a couple of beers and pretend it's the 80s again.

If that's a non-starter for you let me recommend you prepare your home in advance for next time. (It goes without saying that we will support any paintball broadcasts ...) Remove all the sharp objects, rope, weapons & give your car keys to a trusted friend or family member for the duration. That should minimize the potential harm you might do to others or yourself.

It might also help if you keep in mind how annoying and moronic real commercials frequently are and try to cut the paintball kids some slack. They are making an effort to contribute to a better paintball future--even if repeated exposure to their commercials makes you suicidal.

PS--If some of you are wondering if I know something you don't because I mention a hypothetical Chicago broadcast--the answer is yes, I know some things you don't but not about any future NPPL broadcasts.

The Monday Poll

I got nothing. And I don't give a rat's ass so we's gonna do guns today. But not just modern guns. Pick your all time favorite gat--and if I didn't list it--and there's a good chance I didn't--you can do a write-in in the comments. Make your voice and opinion heard and make sure your favorite gun receives its due as paintball's all time favorite--according to VFTD's The Monday Poll. Whew! What an honor. Well, what are waiting for? (If I don't have your favorite model you might consider just going with a more generic version or at least the same manufacturer. Or not.) Some specific guns are mentioned. Mostly manufacturers. Just keep in mind I ain't putting a lot of time into this. (Yeah, I left off the Splatmaster and the Nelspot. So sue me, Grandpa.)

Monday Poll in Review

For those who managed to vote within the smaller than normal window of time allowed the consensus was very positive. 54% of the vote was outright positive predicting varying degrees of success for the ESPN3 experiment and if the toss up category (the is it half full or half empty option) is included the total jumps to 77% who tended toward a positive perspective of the outcome. Those on the negative side of the ledger were 3:1 more likely to attribute failure to the general apathy of paintballers than the lack of time to get the word out that everyone needed to watch the broadcast. Plainly the vote was a hopeful one on balance and it will be interesting to see how things really shake out in the days ahead. I only hope we (the average paintball peon on the street) actually find out what really happened and don't just get dismissed with some doubletalk press release. Regarding the actual broadcast it's hard to know how well it was received or even how accessible it really was. Word is the quality was better on Friday than on Saturday. Don't know about Sunday and I can't find any current or near current info on viewership other than to say the rumored golden number wouldn't have strained the system. Other rumors suggested some systems weren't giving access to ESPN3 even if it was supposed to be available. I don't if that's accurate or more of a user error kinda thing. What can't be dismissed is how ubiquitous the effort was or how widespread the online media effort to get viewers watching the event. At a guess I think if the numbers were good we'll probably hear about relatively quickly. If information lags it's less and less likely to be positive. Rumor on site during the event was things wee going well and ESPN execs were taking an active interest as the event unfolded. Don't know if that's accurate either--but it sounded good.

HB Day 2: Tournament Interrupted

This post requires a short preface. I wasn't at HB on Sunday. I don't know who won. I don't care. I tuned in to ESPN3 but didn't watch even five seconds of the coverage. I am not a happy camper. (I am an enraged camper.) In part because we failed to go through on Saturday--as the defending series champions--which is a [expletive deleted] embarrassment of epic proportion but mostly because of the way we failed. (Warning: cliche imminent.) A team, any team, is only as strong as it's weakest link. [This is where everything I'd like to say, to get it off my chest if nothing else, would go except it's team business and that doesn't get aired out in a public forum.] Unfortunately we only had seven players for the event including guest Scott Kemp of the Ironmen otherwise we could have and would have made appropriate substitutions. On a positive note I'd like to thank Scott for filling in. He did everything asked of him like the pro he is. And I'd like to commend Jacob (Edwards the Younger) on stepping up and playing like a man in a totally unfamiliar role because somebody had to and he was chosen. [More stuff I shouldn't post. So, as wiser (calmer, anyway) heads prevail, I won't.]

The rest of this post will be about the scoring system, the refs and the rules. I'll cover the latest TV stuff in the Monday Poll in Review post.

Let's talk chips. Apparently one is enough (despite what the old commercials used to tell us.) Far as I know they worked as intended. Everybody had one and, as far as I know, they were installed in every gun that was used during a pro game. What was also clear was that some guns reached and maintained a higher BPS average with less effort than other guns. Were any of those guns exceeding the cap? Perhaps on occasion but I didn't hear anything that sounded either obviously or outrageously over the limit. It is less clear to me how effective the chip was in the role of policing guns for rules violations. The semi-auto rule to be specific. Some guns that may not have exceeded the BPS cap may have otherwise been ramping up to the cap.

Regarding the gun rules. There was, as I suspected, no real definition or even formula for action in place for the weekend. The intent was to notify teams of guns exceeding the limit and give them a warning--with the implicit (if not quite real) threat of actual penalties "next time" or "tomorrow." I have no idea how many teams, if any, received a warning--or were penalized on Sunday. I know we didn't receive any warnings. (And I sincerely doubt any of our guns ever got close to the BPS cap.) And if any team was penalized, and objected, I don't see how the league could justify assessing the penalty because the rules are simply insufficient as they currently stand. At best this may be a step in the right direction but it is far from a done deal.

Now for the referees. This is where I gain (no) friends and influence (no) body. The layout for HB should have been a referee's dream field. Few blocking obstructions. No confluence of props in the middle of the field. Clean lines of sight nearly everywhere and only a couple of areas on the field where the action might come fast and furious--and still the refs were only borderline competent. 95% of the calls were easy and most of those were probably made correctly. (I'ma giving them the benefit of the doubt.) But the remaining 5% reminded everyone--or should have--that problems, serious problems remain, in officiating competitive paintball and those problems can be divided into two camps. Inconsistency and a lack of a standardized routine. The inconsistency is most often seen in penalties called--and penalties not called. Guy dives into bunker, gets hit but doesn't check or call for check. Ref throws flag, penalty called. Guy runs through half the field gets blown to pieces shoots somebody with no penalty called regardless of how egregious (and obvious) the playing on might have been. Or vice versa. The point is the calling and assessing of penalties continues to be as diverse and unpredictable as the number of refs on the field. And in bunkering moves or run throughs the standard call is the simo because even with 5 refs standing around watching nobody wants to make a definitive call because nobody seems to know or want to know exactly what happened. But I can help.

Since NPPL mythology supports voluntary assistance I am volunteering to fix the reffing issues, free of charge. I will come a day early to the next event if the league will bring the refs in early as well and I will get everyone on the same page and teach them how to work together to make the instantaneous calls that are sometimes required. I will even work out the guidelines for making calls to improve consistency. Trust me, it ain't rocket science. The offer is on the table.

The new format; brackets, scoring, tie-breakers, etc. worked pretty much as predicted. It was a dreary mess that was nearly as incomprehensible to the players and teams as it must have been to the people trying to follow on ESPN3. (I explained what was happening and why to more than one team on Saturday.) Also, as predicted, 3 of the 4 prelim brackets went to tie-breakers as 3 teams in each bracket went 2-1 in their best of threes versus three opponents. The score page posted by the league was also woefully inadequate as it simply showed set wins and losses and never explained why one team or another either moved on or didn't. It may be possible to argue that the new format is an improvement or at least no worse than the old format but the results, and the way they were reported (or explained) (or not explained) (or posted) (or not posted) currently isn't serving the interests of the league or, it seems to me, outreach to a new TV market of potential fans who don't already know the game.

[For those who watched how did Matty do explaining the brackets and the results?]

Lastly, the boom camera. Snake side. Has got to go or the operator has to use some common sense or have some guidelines devised for its use. As it played out over the weekend it bird-dogged players all weekend long, frequently giving away positions in the snake to players otherwise unaware. Think sideline coaching. It was effectively the same thing, except worse. The operator could, if so inclined, tilt the game balance by pointing out some players in the snake and not others. Did that happen? Yes. Was it on purpose? I don't know.

In the small frame of competitive paintball HB was a marginal event; no better and probably no worse than lots of other events. In the Big Picture of the league's future with ESPN (or TV in general) the jury is still out.

Big Brother: NPPL Division

The NPPL giveth and the NPPL taketh away. Or, in my case, they tooketh but are now giveth-ing back. (That was awkward.) Rumor reached the paintball public yesterday regarding plans for a monitoring chip the NPPL wants to put in everybody's marker--but just the Pros for now--5 days before the first event of the season. Oh, and the prelim schedule is now posted as well. Here's how my current arrangement with the league works: In exchange for nobody telling me much of anything I agree not to discuss league matters until they are made public through another source. Seems more than fair to me. About the chip--it's the real deal and a few pro teams have tested them (or something very similar) in match conditions over the last few months. We had them (or something very similar) in a test sample of our guns briefly last season. And there was some effort made at Galveston to have the chips installed in Pro team guns. [We had tentatively agreed but our Friday schedule didn't allow for the time as it turned out. I don't know how many teams had them installed in Galveston either. And I am hedging my assumption it's the same chip because, while it seems to be performing identical functions, it appears the two leagues are interested in it for different reasons. It is the same manufacturer in both cases however.]

UPDATE: Virtue sent the ProPaintball kids an email claiming Damage had chips in some guns in Galveston. Since they say we did I don't doubt it's true. My comments above were based on what I thought I knew--and it wasn't something I followed closely once I was comfortable that it wouldn't affect our guns.

Every indication I have seen suggests they work as advertised though I don't think we had them in long enough to judge potential impact on battery life. Even so, as a practical matter it seems to me any concerns of that sort are probably over-stated.

That said (typed) (keyed) (whatever) I do have some concerns. The timing is poor to say the least and if I were on a team that had no prior experience with the chips I would flat out refuse to accept them at this late date. I might be otherwise convinced if the purpose was purely testing at HB and I had the option to opt out if it appeared there was any loss of marker performance. But that's just me. Beyond that we have no idea how the ROF will be enforced. Let's agree the chip accurately monitors the firing of each and every paintball. So what? There is a 15 bps cap on a gun shooting in a semi-auto mode. [In the PSP with ramping guns enforcement measures the time gap between shots. A dirty little secret is most ROF violations are both unintentional and outside the player's control.] It seems to me semi-auto mode assures inconsistent gap times between shots while the cap theoretically will limit a marker to 15 bps regardless of how fast the trigger is being pulled. So my question is what constitutes a ROF violation? How does the chip monitor for that? And how does that data result in pulling the appropriate penalty? Finally there's the question of the collected data. The idea is that accumulated data has potential value. If so, who is collecting it and how does the league assure it won't fall into the wrong hands? Or is it the league's intention to make all the data available to anyone who wants it?

And what about the schedule? Yeah, buddy. At HB the league is not only beginning the 2011 season it is undergoing a critical test with a live streaming webcast on ESPN3 and chooses to go with a new format in which up to one third of all the scheduled games may not be played. Looking at the schedule there is already extra time plugged into it--I'm assuming for some extra TV type stuff like interviews and player info--but still, if those third (and deciding) games aren't routinely happening I can foresee a lot of empty air time. Fingers crossed.

NPPL Pro Division on ESPN3

It's not news. I know. (Unless you've been living under a rock in a Geico commercial lately. I can't for the life of me remember if I used that lame joke recently or just planned on using it sometime. Either way you're stuck with it now.) It's not news, it's a reminder. A reminder to check out the live streaming video next weekend, the 1st thru the 3rd of April, on ESPN3. It will be available most everywhere although for much of the world it will be pay-per-view. (The title is a link to the NPPL which is presently prepping a links and connections page for all the tournament action.)
For those of you finding my mildly upbeat attitude disconcerting (distressing) (disorienting) (discombobulating) (I could go on) relax. I do not have my fingers crossed. I am not jumping up and down with glee. Or excitement. Or even repressed anxiety. I am not even slightly hopeful that this latest foray into competitive paintball on (almost) TV will work. Paintball's track record isn't good. This is but one, modest hurdle that must be surmounted before additional hurdles are put in our path. Yet, for all that, it remains an opportunity. An opportunity whose success you can contribute to simply by signing up and tuning in. (You don't even need to watch if you don't want to.) If you have any interest in competitive paintball being on TV tune in. (My laptop will be tuned in at our HB hotel while we're at the field.) It doesn't matter if you're skeptical. Or that you expect it to go no where--again. It's about making the most of the opportunities that come your way, and make no mistake, this is an opportunity. Tune in.

PSP Webshow

Pspevents.com added an intriguing tease today promoting the upcoming webshow with an audio snippet that plays when the site first comes up. It's brief, it's atypical (for paintball) and it's great. A timely reminder that Pat has been the creative lead in much of the very best of paintball on film and that Matty is the undisputed voice of paintball. Cheerleader is not my usual role, nor is it one I'm particularly comfortable with but to be honest I'm more than a little concerned for (at a minimum) the short-term future of competitive paintball. That, and I'm reminded how easily those of us involved in big ways and small with the traveling circus that is Paintball on and off the field settle for good enough. And then decry the latest setback. Good enough is never good enough.

Update: turns out the audio piece is likely part of a video trailer that will be posted sometime today on the PSP website. Check it out.

Live from Disney's Wide World of Sports

Or a patch of netted, battered grass beside the immense parking lot--It's ... PSP TV! On the web and in your heart. I'm rather surprised this hasn't gotten more attention but I'm sure somebody has released a shiny new something so I guess I'm not really surprised after all. And people wonder if hypnosis is real.
Course, most folks are probably imagining this is just the PSP covering territory already covered by the NPPL and why wouldn't they? PSP hasn't made it clear that it is in the process of attempting a grander vision that doesn't stop when the last bonusball (or ten) explodes on the back of some unlucky head. Then again it may be wise to not raise too many expectations when they haven't done this before. And, whatever you do, don't infer anything from what I'm saying here. I know a bit of this and bit of that but exactly how this will roll out and how quickly and effectively it all ramps up even I wouldn't hazard to guess.
Let me say this--be cautiously excited. It has the potential to be an important step forward.