NPPL on ESPN. *yawn*
ESPN is airing the NPPL "tournament" right now. And the more I watch it, the more it dawns on me. Painball STILL sucks as a TV format sport.
Ok, all the kiddies over at PB Nation will scream and bitch, but you know what? If I didn't play paintball I wouldn't have a clue what was going on. Seriously. You know what I hear? A lot of screaming, a lot of yelling at other players "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" And a lot of players sitting with the occasional "blitz" move of 10 feet. Oh, and the end-game moves too, but that's almost a formality for this game.
Why are they even bothering with flags? IT's basically total elimination with the afterthought of "oh yeah, a flag." Then there's the general "lighting up" of opponents. You'd think that a kneeling opponent not facing you wouldn't need 10 shots to the back of the neck and head, do you? Oh, right, it's "xtreme" sports, so you have to "xtremely" act like a jerk on the field.
You know what? It's not working for me. I'm watching it now, and it's not doing anything for me. It's not entertaining, it's not informative, it's basically an exercise in stroking the dicks of people on the field. No, really, this format is BORING to watch, and the interviews are just stoking the egos of the "name" teams.
It's obvious to me that the teams involved here are holding back from their normal play style too. I can see the players WANTING to wipe hits, but they know they'll be on TV so they're not. Ignoring the "playing on after hit" moves, which I've been seeing a lot of. Oh, and here's one for you folks. "Stockholm Joy"?!? What, they don't have the guts to call themselves "Joy Division" on American TV? OR do they know that their name is incredibly offensive to a large portion of Jews world wide? (Do a search. I dare you.)
I also find the irony amazing in this show. See, I remember the reason that paintball got out of the woods in the first place, and into arenas. To make money, sure. But the line we the players were sold was that we had, let me emphasize this, HAD to distance ourselves from the war image. We had to get away from calling them "bullets", "kills", and blood images.
So what do I see here? Oh, wait, the announcer is saying "He got his head blown off!" and "They've got to get more kills before they can move up the field!" and "Guys are DYING everywhere!" And the popular "we kill suckers" logos all over the place... You know I remember some NBA guys got in trouble in the media last year when they referred to their finals as "going to war." I just find it funny that paintball distanced itself from the war image to just use it later when they figured it's cool again.
What's wrong with the format? Well there's no incentive to move. Other than gloryhounding, there's no reason to move up. You can win these games on "body count", and a team can win by sitting for 4 minutes. Plus with unlimited paint and 15/ramping, there's no reason to go anywhere. It's not like boxing, where two boxers circle the ring looking for an opening. It's more like... people sitting behind bunkers so they don't get hit with paintballs. Even with the "color commentary", it's still hard to follow or figure out.
No movement, you may as well show "World Series of Poker" again, it's got as much action. Sports need action, a focal point, and a way for anyone to follow the action if they're not well versed in the game. Paintball just doesn't do that. As I've said dozens of times before, modern sports needs to be understood or you won't put people in the stands to watch it. Paintball just doesn't have that.
It's a participants sport, not a spectator sport. One of these days, the powers that be will learn that. I know ways to make paintball a good TV sport, and make it interesting to watch for a TV audience. But I'm not giving it away anymore. You guys want it, you gotta pay for it.
Ok, all the kiddies over at PB Nation will scream and bitch, but you know what? If I didn't play paintball I wouldn't have a clue what was going on. Seriously. You know what I hear? A lot of screaming, a lot of yelling at other players "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" And a lot of players sitting with the occasional "blitz" move of 10 feet. Oh, and the end-game moves too, but that's almost a formality for this game.
Why are they even bothering with flags? IT's basically total elimination with the afterthought of "oh yeah, a flag." Then there's the general "lighting up" of opponents. You'd think that a kneeling opponent not facing you wouldn't need 10 shots to the back of the neck and head, do you? Oh, right, it's "xtreme" sports, so you have to "xtremely" act like a jerk on the field.
You know what? It's not working for me. I'm watching it now, and it's not doing anything for me. It's not entertaining, it's not informative, it's basically an exercise in stroking the dicks of people on the field. No, really, this format is BORING to watch, and the interviews are just stoking the egos of the "name" teams.
It's obvious to me that the teams involved here are holding back from their normal play style too. I can see the players WANTING to wipe hits, but they know they'll be on TV so they're not. Ignoring the "playing on after hit" moves, which I've been seeing a lot of. Oh, and here's one for you folks. "Stockholm Joy"?!? What, they don't have the guts to call themselves "Joy Division" on American TV? OR do they know that their name is incredibly offensive to a large portion of Jews world wide? (Do a search. I dare you.)
I also find the irony amazing in this show. See, I remember the reason that paintball got out of the woods in the first place, and into arenas. To make money, sure. But the line we the players were sold was that we had, let me emphasize this, HAD to distance ourselves from the war image. We had to get away from calling them "bullets", "kills", and blood images.
So what do I see here? Oh, wait, the announcer is saying "He got his head blown off!" and "They've got to get more kills before they can move up the field!" and "Guys are DYING everywhere!" And the popular "we kill suckers" logos all over the place... You know I remember some NBA guys got in trouble in the media last year when they referred to their finals as "going to war." I just find it funny that paintball distanced itself from the war image to just use it later when they figured it's cool again.
What's wrong with the format? Well there's no incentive to move. Other than gloryhounding, there's no reason to move up. You can win these games on "body count", and a team can win by sitting for 4 minutes. Plus with unlimited paint and 15/ramping, there's no reason to go anywhere. It's not like boxing, where two boxers circle the ring looking for an opening. It's more like... people sitting behind bunkers so they don't get hit with paintballs. Even with the "color commentary", it's still hard to follow or figure out.
No movement, you may as well show "World Series of Poker" again, it's got as much action. Sports need action, a focal point, and a way for anyone to follow the action if they're not well versed in the game. Paintball just doesn't do that. As I've said dozens of times before, modern sports needs to be understood or you won't put people in the stands to watch it. Paintball just doesn't have that.
It's a participants sport, not a spectator sport. One of these days, the powers that be will learn that. I know ways to make paintball a good TV sport, and make it interesting to watch for a TV audience. But I'm not giving it away anymore. You guys want it, you gotta pay for it.
posted by Rob "Tyger" Rubin at
Monday, May 15, 2006
6 Comments:
I still think you should do a paintball reality show, Tyger. Get the audience interested in the players on a personal level, and introduce them to the sport thru the players talking amongst themselves and explaining to the closed cell "video diary" camera. Do it as an hour long show, the first 40 minutes (with commercial breaks) is the players weekly everday lives, working up to the weekend's tournament (one tournament per show, or even one tournament day per show). The last 20 minutes (with commercials, again) would be highlights from the games. Maybe an entire game, but probably not. Start 'em with some shots of the breaks, with voice overs from the players describing what their plan was and what they were doing at this point. Then run into highlights from the games, focusing on special moves and key wins/losses, running the players' commentary here as well.
I'd even go so far as to say slow the action down with mechanical only tournies, or pump-only. Or remember that west coast tournament series that was basically one hopper and 2 guppies per team? Run that as a 7-man format, and you'll see a lot more movement and action than the current full-auto, unlimited paint tourney formats. (yes, I consider ramping full-auto, people are just fooling themselves into thinking it's any different if they flail their fingers while making the marker do all the work as opposed to merely holding down the trigger)
About the only other format for TV I've run across that has any chance of catching the non-playing public's interest is the one put forward by [url=http://durtydan.paintballresource.org/www.durtydan.com/ddrar/pbtv.html]Durty Dan[/url]. But however it happens, the current formats are just not working. Even I won't watch these shows, just not interesting. The camera work tends towards the shoddy, the commentary is too "AGG", and the play is boring. I don't follow the tourney scene for the same reasons: I just don't give a flying fig newton (trying to keep it PG) who wins. Who won last year? Dynasty? *shrug* And?
By
Anonymous, at Tuesday, May 16, 2006 6:09:00 AM
As much as I like to watch paintball games, the current ESPN shows are horrible. It is just like the last time paintball was on ESPN. Fields set up to slow the game down with just a few cleanup moves at the end. At least they didn't have a five minute (or whatever it was) time limit before players could cross the halfway mark this go around.
The sad thing is, the old woodsball tournaments were even better than what is being shown now. Those were replaced (rightly so) by the current airball fields to improve layout and visibility from the sidelines.
I've seen really good paintball videos. 720 went out of business, but they had good camera work and the HUD showing movement on the field was great. Traumahead often has some really good comentary and certainly better camera work than what is currently offered for paintball on TV.
Jerry Braun was to blame for the first ESPN disaster, who do we get to blame this time?
By
Anonymous, at Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:13:00 AM
Hey tyger, just wanted to say that I really enjoy your FPS videos.
By
Anonymous, at Friday, May 19, 2006 3:43:00 PM
NPPL had to specificaly change the format of the game to elimination only, no points for flag pulls, hangs. This was uppon the request of ESPN to slow the game down.
Thats one reason its so slow. They are suposivly doing a NXL Show too, that will be faster pased, more action, but i hate NXL, i'd much rather see NPPL regular or PSP, The SPPL would be cool, but if you wanna talk about waiting... the opponets wonult see eachother for the first 20 minutes!
Now if sombody made a show on D-Day or some other big senario, had a bunch of guys decked out in head cams, maybee make it into a game, most elims? Idk, im not payed to be creative but thats my idea!
By
Anonymous, at Friday, May 19, 2006 5:52:00 PM
If you think paintball on ESPN is horrible, try watching Track and Field... Everyone knows I'm huge Running nut, but I feel like killing the announcers and camera men whenever I watch a show.
The announcers have no clue what they're talking about, they spend more time with video on sprinters setting up for blocks than on races longer than the 400 meters. Sure they have some cool camera angles, but the announcers and lakc of distance events converage makes it painful to watch.
As far as paintball on TV, I just don't watch it at all. Sometimes throwing out cases of paint just doesn't do it.
By
Anonymous, at Saturday, May 20, 2006 1:34:00 PM
NES (Northern European Series) have actually implemented a paint limit this year, but only in division 3.
Here's the jist of it:
Some Div.3 teams has contacted us with concern about the overall cost to participate in a tournament. Therefore we have decided to make Div.3 a division with paint limit to help reduce the cost a bit. Here are some more info about different things.
1. Paint limit:
1 hopper (max 200) a team member and then 5 pods shared amongst the team how you like.
2. no. of days:
Will be one, always.
TTFN,
Yoki
By
Anonymous, at Monday, June 12, 2006 1:25:00 PM
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