NPPL, we know you’re trying. We see that you’ve attempted to up your reffing, you’ve changed formats to meet many people in the middle of the format war, you made a big stride in forcing teams to use electronics that regulate rate of fire – and you’ve even promised that these numbers will provide cool stats for everyone to check out! But, dear NPPL, you have missed the boat on so many things in your presentation of your league that is pulling me in two pieces. On one hand I want to give the public a full analysis of the games and give respect where it is due to your marquee teams and give the public a full view of seven man paintball (err…Race 2 I mean?) in all it’s spectacular glory. I want desperately to show off the sneaky move that player X made on the dorito side – with no coaching! Whoa! – but I cant. On the other hand, I am frustrated to death with the information you provide to the point that I do not care anymore and wish for you to do nothing less than wither and die, so that I do not look like I am playing favorites with the leagues and what we cover. But with your event information – which is border line anorexic – I am forced to write this article (to the fans) explaining why I will not be presenting nearly as much analysis as the previous PSP event.
Firstly: the “webcast.” The PSP webcast set the bar high. Very, very high. Not only did they provide an incredible product worth an A+ for any event, but they did it under the most adverse conditions paintball has ever seen. NPPL, we thank you for attempting to put something together but the reality is that Huntington Beach is the premiere seven man event in the world for many people; and if you are going to showcase it on the internet (YouTube no less) it needs to be in complete working order from the start. Also, you need to find a dedicated soul who will be able to create interesting and relevant commentary. When the cast was working, there were times when the listeners heard the commentators asking “Who is playing?” or the airwaves were graced with the occasional expletive. That is completely unacceptable from a professional organization. To your credit – it did get better. Possibly too late though.
The next thing that drives me completely up the wall when covering NPPL events is the rosters. Id love to give XSV a complete player breakdown, pull up the archived webcast – give an intensive review of how they did. I even played the NPPA registration game to be able to see the rosters, but when I click on the XSV roster: I get nothing. No names, no numbers…nothing. And XSV is not the only team with this issue. Out of the fourteen professional teams, only one team had names on their page, and that is rookie team Los Angeles Critical. When compared to other professional leagues (specifically the PSP and Millennium) this is dismal. We all know what APPA provides to teams and leagues, but the Millennium provide the series rankings, how the team did at the last event, player names with picture and nationality, the “main sponsor,” paint sponsor, marker sponsor, other sponsors and even team history. A staggering amount of information when compared to the NPPL.
Thinking about how funny it would be for LA Critical to show up with nobody else at Huntington Beach in an epic April Fool’s joke gave me a good chuckle, but I decided to plunge further into the black hole of information about the first NPPL event. I have no real interest in the schedules at this stage in the game, I really just want to see points – the interesting part of an event; who beat who. Looking at the preliminary scores I see W’s indicating a win, L’s indicating losses, points, total wins and ranking. This is still lacking the most important bit of information – who did each team play?! Must I really look at a schedule (which is divided up by day, oh and Sunday schedules are still not posted online) and cross reference? This is terribly inconvenient and frankly, annoying. In the Elite 8 and Final 4 you give me W’s and L’s but no scores! And where are the finals!? Sorry readers, there’s nothing I can do but give you the most basic information, but it’s not even worth putting pen to page at this point.
And that is where I am stopping. If the NPPL is truly attempting to shape an image of a professional sports league, the first thing it needs to do is make information available – almost stupidly accessible. I hate that I am not going to be able to do any upcoming articles with any ease, and it pains me to know that potential fans of the NPPL are being starved of crucial documentation that make being a fan easy, and fun. Please NPPL, we want to give you fair coverage, but at this point you’re making it terrifically difficult.
That’s been my biggest complaint about the NPPL for about..oh..i don’t know…the last 10 years perhaps. They’ve half-@$$ed everything even back to the Pure Promotions days. If I was PSP I would take the Huntington Beach location away from the NPPL and just let them wither and die. I’ve been a fan of the NPPL from the old days but this current incarnation of it is just pale shell of what they could/should have been but will never be.
wish i coulda made it
full of win.
Nppl Step your game up
great event
To the Author,
Ok, the webcast did suck and the available information on the event, doesn’t go very deep. Im glad that you recognized that the PSP has set a standard of excellence for a webcast but, you must realize you are comparing to different leagues with two completely separate agenda’s. The PSP has a great webcast because, if i remember correctly from Lane Wright’s statement regarding the photographer controversy, the PSP has spent over 350,000 dollars on production for their webcast. My point being that, the PSP is at a point where they have all other aspects of their events running smoothly (proven format, great reffing, and an unparalleled event staff) therefore, the next logical step for them would be to start directing their efforts and funds to expanding media coverage. The NPPL is undeniably not at that same point of progression. They are putting in the effort of producing a webcast but it is obvious that they did NOT put over 350,000 dollars into it just to compete with the PSP. (which I believe personally, was a very smart business decision) Knowing that they just introduced a new format and have never had to run an event with that schedule, it makes sense that we ended up with a half-ass production for this tournament. I think that if the administrators of the NPPL had directed too much energy and man power toward the webcast just for the sake of everyone at home, they would have run the risk of falling short of their duty to provide a well run tournament for the players who were actually at the tournament. At the end of the day, the only thing that should matter to the league is putting on the best tournament they can for the players who payed and traveled to get there.
Webcasts, player stats, online scoreboard updates, these are things we shouldn’t take for granted yet, you are. Everything you were complaining about not receiving from the NPPL, (with maybe the exception of the rosters written out for you) were things that you wouldn’t have missed IF you were there. Im sorry but, why have you even been assigned to cover an event you weren’t even at?
I couldn’t help but feel like you had a serious sense of entitlement when writing this article. As if you deserve everything you are asking for. The thing that you and every other baller out there needs to remember, is that you dont. At all. Paintball was a sport before the internet was even being used to cover sports! Back in the day you were lucky if you could find a paintball magazine at your bookstore to read about an event. You need to remind yourself that every bit of paintball media that comes to you over an internet connection is either the direct or indirect result of years of effort put in by people who did it for nothing in return. Now their efforts are paid off by people complaining to no end when they dont get to watch every second of a tournament, thousands of miles away, via satellites.
-Rob
You heard it from Rob P folks – the NPPL webcast sucks because NPPL can’t even run events right.
And taking online score posting for granted? Every other league does it, pretty odd a league claiming to be a national pro league can’t do something as simple as putting the game scores on the internet.
In an attempt to be sarcastic I think your first comment was contradicting to your own argument but, if you were offended by thinking I was trying to insult the NPPL, all I can say is … did you even read the article?
Also Im sure your argument stops at “every other league does it” but, ill just point out that you missed an important opening statement in my reply. The NPPL is not every other league. It is a different league with a different set of short term and long term goals. All I was saying was, it is possible that a fully staffed video production crew, paid commentators, and paid personnel responsible for recording stats for every single match, might not have been on the top of their list of goals to achieve in their first event implementing a new format and the event procedure changes that come with it.
Your mentality of ” other leagues do it so they should do it too and give it to me all for free” is a perfect example of that sense of entitlement I think a lot of people have towards our sport nowadays which is sad considering the humble beginnings that paintball came from.
I thought this article could use a response with a less biased point of view so I wrote one. Im just trying to make people think like realist and if anything, be grateful for what coverage of events we do have.
If every restaurant chain out there but one can serve you your hamburger hot, and the other restaurant chain only manages to serve you a cold hamburger, thinking that restaurant chain doesn’t deserve to be in business isn’t a “sense of entitlement”.
Your excuse for NPPL not having a good webcast is that they can’t run a good event, so they shouldn’t even try to run a webcast.
Whereas, their competition can run an excellent event and an excellent webcast.
And every other league out there seems able to post their scores on the internet.
If everyone else can do it, and NPPL can’t, it is silly to suggest the problem lies anywhere other than NPPL.
Next you’ll be telling us a Pro receiver shouldn’t be expected to catch if he’s still working on being able to run. The truth is a guy who can’t run AND catch has no business being on the field. And NPPL should get off the field.
That analogy doesnt make sense. You are comparing the webcast to a hamburger that you PAID FOR. It IS a sense of entitlement when you are bitching about the quality of things that you DID NOT PAY FOR. I don’t know how to say it any clearer than that. And what happens when the psp webcast goes down for ONE tournament. Should they “get off the field” or “wither and die” . Your logic is irrational
Honestly I don’t think you are intelligent enough to have this argument because you are relating the NPPL to fast food and wide receivers. Analogies are fun to read but you seem to know very little about anything other than your own wants. You sound like a spoiled kid who has never been humbled by anything.
I won’t be posting another response on this article because I have already repeated my point 3 times now. This isn’t pbnation and I’m not a teenager so I won’t let this turn into flaming.
Thanks social paintball for allowing space for me to respond with my point of view.
Nppl did an okay job.
They did a good job