Posted by: PigTech on June 11, 2003 at 09:37:28 Forum Administrator

: Well I dont know how else to say it but putting on tournaments is a money making venture for the promotors so they will do whatever is in their best interest to make money period. Yep. That's why I don't think everything will switch to X-Ball. Look at World Cup, there were 90 10 man teams. To play an X-Ball tournament, in X-Ball double elimination format with 88 teams would be 183 X-Ball matches. Alotting an hour and a half hours for each match to be played (which is about the minimum, it's working for the NXL) that's 274 and a half hours of X-Ball. Split that on 6 fields (you can't do much more than that, because in the latter rounds matches can't be played all at once, you have to know who wins one to know who plays the next.) That takes us to 45.75 hours of games, which means 5 days to play just the novice teams. Another 5 days for the rookies, and 2-3 days each for the amateurs and pros, and now we're taking about a 15 day tournament. That can of course be reduced by increasing field numbers, but for every field you add, costs go way up (drop 50,000 for an X-Ball scoreboard, however many thousand to set up and staff each field) and as you said, it's about making money. The kicker, that I think would keep teams away from an event like that though is cost. 1 X-Ball match can have as many games as a typical 5 man tournament, and paint consumption can be comparable. The team that wins out of 88 teams, will have to play 91 matches! The average team in the event will play 45 matches. That's insane amounts of paint well more than they would normally shoot in a couple of years of 5 man tournaments, all at one tournament. Now talk about doing 5 or 6 tournaments like that a year. I don't think there are very many teams that can afford the cost, and time away from work to pull that off. On the other hand, seeing as how the event promoters want to bring in money, by bringing in more teams, they could very easily set up a format where teams competed in traditional 5 or 10 man prelims, in order to get into X-Ball finals, or where their 5 or 10 man rankings would be how they earn the right to compete in an X-Ball series. That's not to say there won't end up being lots of regional X-Ball events, local tournaments and the like - it's just the big national tournaments won't be able to run nearly as many teams in the X-Ball format as they can in 5,10, or 7 man. And if teams can't get in to the X-Ball, they'll still want to play what they can play. That's why I just don't see X-Ball killing off 5,10, or 7 man. : Now if you understand that concept whomever gets the TV rights will be the dominent form of paintball. With the best pros already in the NXL-Xball how can any other format have a chance? See above. I think the NXL is the hot ticket to get paintball on TV right now - they've got the top teams, and a spectator friendly format - the coaching adds good drama too. I don't think the NXL being on TV will kill off all other paintball tournament formats though. Look at the ESPN paintball tournaments from the 90s - open speedball fields, with funky rules about when mid and back players could advance, yet today, the vast majority of paintball players are still playing woods ball, and not even into tournaments, and I don't know of any tournaments currently running that use those rules about advancing. See you on the field, -Bill Mills

Follow Ups: Re: xball? megabyte 12:51:33 06/15/03 (1) Re: xball? silas "_shadow_" jordan 17:49:40 07/31/03 (0) Post a Followup Show your name as: DefaultRealnameBothNickname E-Mail address (eg: joeschmoe@aol.com): Show your e-mail address? DefaultYesNo Your Password: Don't have a password? CLICK HERE - Forgot your password? CLICK HERE Subject: Subject:Message: : : Well I dont know how else to say it but putting on tournaments is a money making venture for the promotors so they will do whatever is in their best interest to make money period. : Yep. That's why I don't think everything will switch to X-Ball. Look at World Cup, there were 90 10 man teams. : To play an X-Ball tournament, in X-Ball double elimination format with 88 teams would be 183 X-Ball matches. Alotting an hour and a half hours for each match to be played (which is about the minimum, it's working for the NXL) that's 274 and a half hours of X-Ball. Split that on 6 fields (you can't do much more than that, because in the latter rounds matches can't be played all at once, you have to know who wins one to know who plays the next.) That takes us to 45.75 hours of games, which means 5 days to play just the novice teams. Another 5 days for the rookies, and 2-3 days each for the amateurs and pros, and now we're taking about a 15 day tournament. : That can of course be reduced by increasing field numbers, but for every field you add, costs go way up (drop 50,000 for an X-Ball scoreboard, however many thousand to set up and staff each field) and as you said, it's about making money. : The kicker, that I think would keep teams away from an event like that though is cost. 1 X-Ball match can have as many games as a typical 5 man tournament, and paint consumption can be comparable. The team that wins out of 88 teams, will have to play 91 matches! The average team in the event will play 45 matches. That's insane amounts of paint well more than they would normally shoot in a couple of years of 5 man tournaments, all at one tournament. Now talk about doing 5 or 6 tournaments like that a year. : I don't think there are very many teams that can afford the cost, and time away from work to pull that off. : On the other hand, seeing as how the event promoters want to bring in money, by bringing in more teams, they could very easily set up a format where teams competed in traditional 5 or 10 man prelims, in order to get into X-Ball finals, or where their 5 or 10 man rankings would be how they earn the right to compete in an X-Ball series. : That's not to say there won't end up being lots of regional X-Ball events, local tournaments and the like - it's just the big national tournaments won't be able to run nearly as many teams in the X-Ball format as they can in 5,10, or 7 man. And if teams can't get in to the X-Ball, they'll still want to play what they can play. That's why I just don't see X-Ball killing off 5,10, or 7 man. : : Now if you understand that concept whomever gets the TV rights will be the dominent form of paintball. With the best pros already in the NXL-Xball how can any other format have a chance? : See above. I think the NXL is the hot ticket to get paintball on TV right now - they've got the top teams, and a spectator friendly format - the coaching adds good drama too. I don't think the NXL being on TV will kill off all other paintball tournament formats though. Look at the ESPN paintball tournaments from the 90s - open speedball fields, with funky rules about when mid and back players could advance, yet today, the vast majority of paintball players are still playing woods ball, and not even into tournaments, and I don't know of any tournaments currently running that use those rules about advancing. : See you on the field, : -Bill Mills [ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ WARPIG Tourney Talk ]