A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 3

Now, after the sport has created a foot-hold we have continued to evolve, slowly making the changes necessary to become what skateboarding and other extremes sports have been: mainstream. We almost reached the mainstream holy grail a few years ago, or at least got a look at what the Holy Grail could be. Again, television. In 2006 with the Smart Parts Paintball World Championships on ESPN, and then in 2007 and 2008 with "Behind The Paint" on FSN covering the pro NPPL players.

Then as it was starting to look so good, and we were in the lime light, the bubble of Pacific Paintball burst; the death of the NPPL, PB2X, the XSPL. The Liquidation of the NPPL left the PSP as the only league during the off-season. The PSP and NPPL were actually set to meet on unification of the two leagues. The PSP would have been handling the program inside the netting and the NPPL would have been handling everything outside the netting. But with the bankruptcy that meeting never happened. The PSP set out for new rule changes, lowering the BPS cap from 13.3, which changed in 2008 and now made it 12.5 BPS for Pro and Semi-Pro divisions and 10.5 BPS from everyone else. For a few weeks it looked like the PSP would be the only national tournament league. Then the USPL, a 7 man and lower divisional 5 man league came about, a player's league, for the players by the players: the Pro players. One of the most important changes was the PSP's support of regional leagues and regional events. Which caused the beginning of a new division for regional events, D5. Now most regional events consist of D2, D3, D4 and D5 5-man, or as it is called now Race2 to 2. The CFOA stands as one of the only regional leagues that holds X-ball events.Or Race2 4 or Race2 5. And now a Universal Classifation Program, lead by APPA and Chris Raehl, that is supposed to keep a D3 player a D3 player no matter where they are in the world and what tournament they play. As discussed in many VFTD (View From The Deadbox) Posts http://viewfromthedeadbox.blogspot.com/ there was a system for players to move up, but no way to maintain a ranking, basically being forced up the rankings. Then to end up getting blown away as a D2 player, when they're really an average D3 player. Resulting in being "forced out" of the tournament scene.

The change that PSP made and what cause it has on the player on the D-List is another post to come.

A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 2

Television. (This is a subject for a later post in greater detail)
World Cup (in the woods playing 10 man) was on ESPN. Yeah, ESPN, cable television to the masses. It was in Kissimmee, Florida, the first Paintball World, no more than 10 minutes from where the current World Cup takes place. Television changed everything. Arguably it was the reason we came out of the woods. We had a taste of the pie in the sky and we wanted more.

Then in the last 9 years, it seems to be the greatest leap we, as a sport, have made in the marathon to a mainstream sport. Paintball was unregulated, and the 2000's brought on paintball associations, and the e dawn of the tournament series. Back then. there was 1 league, and 2 divisions in paintball. Pro and amateur. In your area there were few teams, and if you were lucky you got to practice, or get slaughtered by, a pro team as practice. And slowly, camouflage turned to bright motorcross style jerseys. Woods turned first to dirt mounds, (little known fact) then to Hyperball tubes (the black, plastic, corrugated construction tubing) and then finally to the Angel Airball fields (yup Angel, WDP, now Angel Paintball Sports). The first electronic paintball markers were invented, and the big manufactures got their fame during this time. The E-blade for the Autococker (where Eclipse got their start), the Angel markers, RT Automags, Peuno-Ventures (the company that originally made the shoebox Shocker Sport), Smart Parts, ADG, Spyder, Tippmann, Bob Long and the Intimidator, the Diablo Matrix (soon to be the Dye Matrix) were the big companies. And there was no rate of fire cap, there were no referees (you checked yourself). Then the big leagues started.

Then the split. The NPPL and PSP become two different leagues. This was the beginning of the D-List. This was the beginning of classifications, where you didn't have to play pros at every tournament. This was the very beginning of X-ball. The cutting of team sizes, from 10 to 5 in PSP and the change from 10 to 7 for NPPL. The rate of fire evolved from however fast you could pump your gun, to however fast you could pull the trigger, to however fast your gun could cycle and how fast your hopper could feed, and then finally to a universal PSP ball per second cap of 15. The NPPL was always uncapped semi-automatic. (I rarely call shooting unlimited semi-automatic a skill, because now it is no longer a "skill" but a combination of trigger-bounce and mis-named "skill"). New technology was the catalyst for the new changes, as well as moving away from the woods, away from realistic, to branding the sport differently. No longer war-games, now actual sport, branding as a sport, not a hobby.

A history lesson about the D (divisional) List- part 1

"It came from the woods" (as Baca Loco's description) and no, I'm not talking about the latest horror movie.

Few players know how we got where we are in tournament paintball. Now is the closest paintball has been to a mainstream sport. (Well, if the economy improves soon). Paintball, as it is known now, is much different from the "Survival Game" as it was named back in the early days. You can call "The Survival Game" the first chapter, where our story begins. Back then the game was brand new and this name was the first effort on branding the future sport.

Now looking back, that name might have turned you off if you were a new player. It also shows why the sport took the huge jump in the number of players we saw during the 90's and 2000's. The Survival Game was just as it sounds, pretty much war with paint guns. Paint was $100 or more a case and a case would almost last you a year. Back then there were no divisions, and no competition. In the 80's you would have called paintball a hobby, because it was played on the weekends, and only for pure fun.

Then in the 90's, along came the sport's time of change...the very beginning of the progress out of the woods. This is the point where the "Legendary" paintball players of today got their start, Bob Long, ChrisLaSoya, Dave Youngblood. The legendary teams, Aftershock, Avalanche, Ironmen , All-Americans, Doom Troopers (actually 1986). At this time in the evolution we moved from hobby to more and more of a sport. You had your tournament 10 man. Your first "Professional" players were here, competing on the weekends and working on home-made paint gun modifications during the week, after long days of work. DYE (DaveYoungblood Enterprises) started in a garage making aftermarket barrels. The Autococker and Automag came into existence evolved from pumps. Pump guns became semi-automatic paintball markers. Tippmann made the first semi-auto marker. The Shocker Sport, the Angel series of markers also came into the scene. Sypder and Tippmanns were high-end markers. We began using goggles, (no not the full face masks of today, but skiing-type goggles) rather than shooting glasses, or no protection. Paintball was still in the woods however. And still in the woods we had our first shot at the "Big Time", the Holy Grail of paintball, the best way to market anything to Americans, television