Ollie Lang on the KC Tie

Here's his post on the Nation about what went down at KC.

My reaction after reading this is pretty much unchanged - it's still kind of like a poker deal. Respect, stand up guys, yada yada - it's not stupid on either teams part to cut a deal like this. That, in a lot of ways, is probably part of the problem with Money and Paintball; it makes good economic sense. Economics is an interesting and complex subject and one that has always been tied up with paintball, but it doesn't mean that ECON + P8NTBL = FUN.

NPPL KC Post Mortem...

So KC wrapped up and the scores are posted for everyone that is interested (it feels kind of neat to be one of about a hundred people over the age of 14 that are marginally interested in this) and sweet shit Batman, what the fuck happened with XSV? I think I might actually feel sorry for Rich "Goggle Safety!" Telford given the thrashing they appear to have received. They pulled it out in the later rounds but since I can't quite find a reliable report or get their webcast to show me anything meaningful I'll have to wait for the gossip mill to fill in the gaps.

I am seriously thinking that Edmonton Impact doing so well might have had something to do with the Canadian dollar going slightly higher than the American dollar for the first time in Forever. The Canadians, wily as they have always been, are going to storm American paintball and sell all of our lower division teams into slavery, forcing them to chisel Hellfire fill that has frozen to the exterior of their chilly bunkersets.

The fact that Impact and Ironment cut a deal (Is paintball more like the final table at a poker tournament?) and packed up shows some of the problems with tourneyball, but I can't personally blame them. I can't blame the Ironmen either because paintball as a competitive sport isn't about some sort of real local pride or honor (There might be a bunch of pbnation fanclubs but those can't come close to Packers fans). This is some mercenary shit and in the current state of tourneyball makes perfect sense. It's tough for a player to be really loyal when they can't pay the goddamned rent, either.

Let's dig up XSV again (yes, towards the bottom...) - people jumped ship, the team kept soldiering on, and paintball rolls along. But when it comes to sponsorship goods, money, etc, it only is going to flow to the teams at the top. Win, or go home. XSV might be fucked on this one, dropping down a division. All of the Pro level teams are relying on a whole bunch of lower division teams to keep the league going. The money has to come from somewhere and the amount that it takes for any of those divisions to compete is nuts.

For the small sponsors is it even worth it at all, though? Is McSplats Paintstore Hideway really going to get any more business because (picking random lower division team from score standings)....Bonus Ballers is ranked 29th in Div III? God, I hope so. For both of them.

The only other funny thing was my conversation with a friend from out of town on the phone. I mentioned a lower division team that he has reffed numerous times down south and he exploded. "Those motherfuckers are the worst cheating bastards! They don't even seem to practice hiding it from me! If you're going to wipe two hits at once at least try and use some goddamned deception." Well, I guess they've gotten better at hiding it looking at the standings...