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paintballimpact.com / Paintball Leagues / National XBall League
National XBall League | 8 Team Format
The NXL: National XBall League is a tournament series and has been described as the most exciting paintball a person will ever witness. The XBall League games are played in outdoor fields with inflatable bunkers, including the famous giant inflatable X in the middle of the field. As of fall 2006, Mike Ratko was the Commissioner of the NXL, with a national online presence at www.xballpaintball.com. The NXL is a growing league with a national audience that continues to expand every year.
The first venue for National XBall League events were in Pittsburgh in the International Amateur Open in August 2002. The XBALL League is geared towards elevating sponsorships and exposure for its professional players, and for growing a national audience through media avenues such as television. The NXL is still communicating with national TV outlets for television contracts. The National Paintball League is structured towards the professional athlete and a national audience in a season format similar to the 4 major sports in the United States. In baseball, for example, there is a 162 game season with playoffs and a World Series championship. The NXL is an eight team format with 112 regular season games that end in a round of playoffs and a World Championship in Orlando, Florida.
The 8 team format, and regular season and world championship format is designed to bring in a national audience and hopefully a national television contract. The NXL is still working on the television contract, but the league is continually growing, so there is still incredible optimism about the future of the NXL.
Eight teams of part-time professional players travel to eight major market areas. As the sport continues to grow, the National Paintball League hopes to gain an audience big enough to support full-time players for each team. The NXL is divided into two divisions, west and east. The East Division comprises the Baltimore Trauma, Miami Effect, New York Xtreme, Philadelphia Americans. The West Division is composed of the Chicago Aftershock, Detroit Thunder, Los Angeles Ironmen, and the Oakland Assassins.
"XBall takes the game of paintball and adds exciting twists borrowed from hockey, soccer, football, and even basketball, to make the game a lot faster, way more dramatic and much more fun to watch. With XBall, spectators see extreme paintball games, formatted more like team sports played in the Olympics and or prime time television extravaganzas." Mike Ratko, Commissioner, www.pspevents.com.
NXL Game Format.
Like football, XBall matches are played in 4 ten minute quarters. Throughout the game, points are scored every time a flag hang occurs. When a flag-hand occurs, the match is stopped for three minutes, after which the game is resumed. What makes XBall unique, as opposed to complicated skirmishes like scenario games, is that the scoring and points of NXL games are simple. Each team is given one point for a flag-hand. At the end of the fourth quarter, the team with the most points wins. If there is a tie score at the end of regulation, a sudden death overtime occurs.
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