Paintball Magazine Paintball.Media Magazine May 2016 | Page 128

needed for a long time.
Ironically, our sport’s evolution has proved to be counter-productive
in the sense that a lot of the adaptions we’ve undergone in the
last fifteen or so years, things like, faster markers, smaller fields,
faster loaders, shorter games etc., have conspired to make the
tournament player experience pretty damned expensive, and on
occasion, absurdly condensed when you consider what you’ve paid
for. Adaptive evolution is supposed to end up benefiting any host,
but I’m afraid paintball proves to be a complex animal and doesn’t
respond in conventional ways to evolutionary imperatives hence
our present predicament. And so, any proposed solution had to
address the cost for players and at the same time somehow increase
game time without compromising the competitive elements our
game pivots upon. Let’s face it, how can anyone suggest there’s a

this year as most of you guys now know. The games will be paint
limited and it is hoped this will decrease the ultimate cost for
players. Because let’s face it guys, if you play the Millennium Series,
after you’ve paid for flights, hotels, car rentals etc. the last thing
you need is a big paint bill to have to explain. This normally ends
up with a deal involving the wife that involves shoes, chocolate
and a rom-com film traded for one of the five Millennium events,
such is the marital cost of continuing to self-administer the drug we
know as paintball.
It seems a virtual no-brainer to decrease costs in some way; the
trick was though, to do so in a way that still managed to maintain
sufficient revenue to keep the leagues financially viable. I know
some people might want to argue with me on this next point,
but the guys who run the Millennium Series do not earn fantastic
wedges of cash. I know what they turnover and trust me, you
wouldn’t want that sort of financial responsibility in running the
Millennium series across Europe for the rewards those owners take
out. Fact is, the vast majority of any monies earned goes straight
back in the Millennium pot. That is, if there is any monies earned in
any particular year.
The reason they do it isn’t for any cash reward, though I’m
not suggesting any money made is unwanted, but it’s not the
Millennium’s core motive. The directors all see it as a necessary
investment that eventually pays its dividends by keeping the
tournament scene and associated businesses afloat. Both Steve
and Laurent have vested interests in keeping tournament paintball
alive and well in the form of the Millennium series. They both have
companies that feed off the tournament format and so I’m not for
one second suggesting they support the Millennium series for
purely philanthropic reasons. They keep the Millennium alive for
several reasons and so it’s not just a case of basic profiteering and
screwing as much dosh as they can from the players.
Tournament paintball, and in a wider sense, the retail industry,
lives or dies on whether or not the competitive side of paintball is
represented by a professionally ran international tournament series.
If we didn’t have it, it would be like football (soccer to you Yanks).
Not having the World and European Cups, or the US football not
having the NFL. That focus of aspiration has the trickle-down effect
of encouraging people to play and more importantly, to compete.

The original NXL Nations Cup.
bang for your buck in a game that can last less than a minute?

EVOLUTION NOT REVOLUTION
The Millennium guys proposed format change is to be rolled out

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The Millennium and the NXL provide that theatre of play. Steve and
Laurent’s plan to reconfigure the Millennium’s playing format is to
introduce a paint limit whereby each team is allowed 2500 balls per
game. Numerically, it suggests that each player is able to take out
500 balls each, but the rules do not disallow how much paint each
player gets. It merely says that the team is allocated 2500 per game.