Posted by pbguide Posted   468 daysago

By now you must have heard, right? The NPPL is flirting with TV (again) and the "official" rumors are being leaked to X3 [See Inside Scoop]--and are quickly picked up (and/or confirmed as viable rumors) by the ProPaintball kids. At X3 it's a couple of lines and an exclamation point or two. At ProPaintball it's a bit more than that but it's mostly heat and not light. But over at PBN, next to nothing. One of the iconic venues in tournament paintball matched with the self-proclaimed world wide leader in sports (ESPN)--to bring tournament paintball back to TV, perhaps even as part of a well-established extreme games format--and it's largely a fizzle. What's up with that?The biggest thing is probably that we've been here done that before. (Deja vu all over again. And again.) Even the Nu Skool is jaded when it comes to paintball and TV. Not all that long ago everybody wanted to believe, rallied around every effort only to be disappointed each and every time. So nobody is buying it this time. Not ignoring the prospect exactly but instead waiting to see what actually happens.And of course this league (with different owners) has been in the thick of trying to get paintball on TV. And we've heard this before. And nobody believes in the dream anymore. It's failed too many times in the past.And then there's the rumors themselves. The truth is the current crop of owners (and the league) are viewed skeptically by fair sized chunk of the tourney world. The ones who've been paying attention for more than five minutes. At least they aren't releasing their rumors--as has happened in the past--on sites with a known vested interest. But the rumors are falling flat because of the past, because of the source, because there's not much there there and because of the way the rumors are being constructed. (If part of the idea, or the hope, was excitement generated by the rumors might spur registrations for HB it doesn't look like it's helping. Yet.)Since I'm out of the loop I can't tell you anymore than I have--expect the events, HB & Vegas, on ESPN3--and that could be wrong though it's what I was told--and yes, there is an X-Games angle at play in this but just what will happen, if anything, we'll have to wait to see together.