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![]() Ultimate
Arena Paintball League
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![]() New Three Man League hits the TV Screen By Bill Mills - May 2005 UAP Screenshots by permission of Paintball Television Productions While existing paintball leagues have labored to get themselves on television, tournament promoter Milt Call realized that paintball’s TV stars of the future won’t necessarily be the top players in today’s leading leagues – they will be whoever is playing on the top teams in a paintball circuit that is fully televised. Call, who along with his wife Eileen founded Brimstone Enterprises, manufacturers of assorted paintball gear and Ultimate Airball inflatable bunkers has also produced the Ultimate Madness 3 man indoor paintball tournament for the last four years with partner Paul “PGP” Bollenbach of the Jax Warriors.
For the last two years, Call has quietly worked with various producers and consultants with the goal of producing a producing and airing a television series covering a fast paced paintball league. In recent years, most paintball related programming to see national cable exposure in the US has used bought air time. In this format, a show’s producer, or other parties who want to air the show approach a cable network and buy a block of air time, either paying for it themselves to promote what they are doing, or selling ads within the show to recoup their costs. The drawback to such an approach is that it takes a serious bankroll to pull off, and also the time slots available for purchase are usually less than prime. Additionally the cable channels on which buyable airtime is during reasonable hours are available in fewer homes. Many channels such as OLN, ESPN 2, etc., are only available in a portion of cable or satellite connected homes which buy premium programming packages. In contrast, Call firmly believed that a paintball television show could be produced that would be so appealing to the networks that they would buy it, and air their own commercials within the show, as is done with typical mainstream television programming. Of course putting together such a show, and finding the network willing to make it happen is a whole other story. As the project progressed, Call found himself working with Duke Ellinger on Ultimate Arena Paintball. Ellinger is no stranger to shooting and producing paintball, having captured the 2002 Nation’s Cup X-Ball tournament on video for his cablecast show Adrenaline TV. He now serves as president of Paintball Television Productions, and described the new TV show in a television production industry testimonial… “Imagine the WWE meets Adrenaline TV meets Arena Paintball: it’s going to be off the hook!”
This didn’t last for long. By the second week of airing, Call reports that Ultimate Arena Paintball had climbed to the second most popular show in WGN’s lineup. This prompted a move to an even more popular time slot – 11 pm Eastern. While folks on the east coast may not see this as a better time position, it must be remembered that the Superstation is a single station, it does not run time delayed versions for each coast. Eleven at night Eastern time is eight PM in the country’s most heavily populated state, California. Ultimate Arena Paintball’s first shows have been structured to educate the public about the sport of paintball…. What are the rules of the game, how is it played, what are the terms, what equipment is used?
Once the educational episodes have passed, Ultimate Arena Paintball is planned to go into the mode for which it was conceived – showing tournament paintball. Rather than deal with the politics of existing leagues, Call and Paintball Television Productions have simply founded a pair of new leagues, the WPL and UAPL. The World Paintball League is a new pro three-man paintball league consisting of 24 teams in three conferences of eight. At the end of each playing season’s regular play, the top two teams from each conference will go on to the finals, as will the top two wildcard teams (the next top two overall from all three divisions.) The last two teams in each division will get the boot, to be replaced by top ranked teams selected from the UAPL. The Ultimate Arena Paintball League (UAPL) is designed to run as a feeder series for the WPL. Like most open entry tournaments it will be the league where any team who wishes can come and compete can do so, for the cost of an entry fee. At the end of the year, the top UAPL teams will be able to move up to the pro level with the WPL.
Ultimate Arena Paintball airs Saturday nights at 11 pm on Superstation WGN. |
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