JERSEYS How Do You Feel About Them

[HitMan.]

How about BDUs for pros, what ever you want for semi-pro. Pros would probably want the advantage of full BDUs anyway.

ya , thats where I was going with that, something for all

[dablue]

I don't think it should matter what people wear. 
Secret service wear black
SWAT wears black/blue
Police wear blue and brown
British used to wear bright red
The confederate states wore grey
Northern states wore blue
Sailor wear white
etc etc etc

none of them wore camoflague

The uniform is not necessary for tactical play.  The uniform/jersey only allows you to tell one team from the other.  Eliminating the use for armbands unless they play with the same colors. 

The 2 levels I do not like the idea of seperating them based on BDU or no BDU. 
There are many high level scenario teams that would love to play this but would not based on the fact that they have to wear BDU's, infringing on sponsor arrangements. 

Semi-pro- you would have a lot of good teams fall into that category and the competition would be fierce.
Pro <BDU ONLY> - alot of the good teams would not fall into that category eliminating good competition from that group.


The biggest problem I see is when 2 teams in BDU's of the same color and style face against each other you will have to wear the armbands anyway.  negateing the effect of the camo.  Camo doesn't work to good when you have bright yellow or red on both of your arm and hopper it becomes really hard to blend in.

I think the team should be allowed as long as they all have the same uniform/jersey and pants. After all it is tactical paintball not a reenactment of a previous battle.


Milsim markers - hoppers - all sound good though.

[Godfathers Ghost]

The suggestion I made about pro requiering BDU's and semi-pro not was meant as a way for casual players that might not have BDU's to still play. It is not the sole determining factor of pro/ semi-pro, only one part. When I originaly suggested it, it was in referance to possible changes to standard field rules to accomadate differant aspects of play for the sake of realism that all players may not be able to, or want to participate in(check the specialists thread for more). BDU's just happened to become a part of it. Of course its all up to the organizers as to what will be the final verdict. Also, now I don't know for sure since I don't have sponsers to worry about but I would assume that a team and sponser could come up with a uniform that can be considered a BDU while still showing sponser name/imagery, or maybe additional sideline banners or something similier to compensate for the lack of colorful jerseys in the pro field.

[Sparrow 69]

again i cast my vote vor BDU's.  Look, It's like this.  If you don't have a pair, go to your local Military surplus/Army Navy Store and talk to the owner to see about a possible sponsorship on traded in BDU's.  Trust me they have plenty in stock.  Hell, they may give you more then that.  How do you think our team got our start in SPPL? We went and asked about sponsorships and we got traded in BDU's for free, and Molle vests for 40 bucks.... on top of that, we got 10 to 25 percent off anything else in the store, simply because we put their business info in the sponsor section of our web page (which was free from freewebs).

My point is all the peple complaining aren't complaining about the cost, they are really complaing about their ability to not put forth initative.  Come on people, how hard is it to actually go and price this stuff?  Heck, even without sponsorships there, Trade ins are anywhere from 5 to 10 dollars a piece, so even at its most expensive, your looking at 20 bucks.

Now lets say you wear your polyneoprine paintball jerseyinto a good night game in the woods.  by the time you come out, it'll be snagged all to Heck, and then you gotta run to the store and buy another one for 60 dollars, thats three times the cost of a decent BDU set, and thats just the JERSEY.

Or lets say its a sponsor jersey, and you can get it replaced for free... shagging it in a woodsball rec game at night is a CLEAR violation of your contract under the "abuse of equipment" clause.  They don't want you using it in the dirt and muck staining it all up and possibly tearing it. H ow good would that look as a sponsor? you wouldn't have them come renewal time, i guarantee that.

Bottom line people, just go and get some good Trade In's from Military surplus, ans skip the McDonalds stop on the way home, and guess what, everything breaks even.

[snake doc]

This idea is so popular it has TWO thread devoted to it.

A growing league probably shouldn't limit itself to only players that want to wear BDU's. There are companies in our sport trying to make a shift to accomodate scenario and woodsball players and people here are "booing" the idea of having to play against a team that might wear a jersey to with their BDU pants!?!?! Empire has a jersey that is built for (see invert) play just like this....the Tippmann has it's own jersey and a speedball team (hello, Tippinators). My group wears BDU's, BDU pants with Under Armour screened tops, A Jersey with digital camo, etc. This league is a great concept, but the exclusionary element and rigid thinking that is dominating the topic of if teams can wear a jersey is dissapointing. Spyder has a whole line devoted to scenario play and a jersey can't be far off, but they won't be able to sponsor a team on their terms, because this league wants to stay in military issue BDU's only?

Give the teams a break that want to play in your tournaments and join up in your league (and keep their sponsors happy or just play in what they usually play in)...keep the marker rule, and be flexible on the dress issue...Keep the BDU pants and boots, but let them keep their tops if they are subdued color jerseys. Help the ENTIRE sport grow not just this sector of it.

[HitMan.]

We are going towards the jersey idea as for camo jersey's or woodlands or some kind of special ops look. Does this help. I know of some teams willing to play in this league have talked to there sponsores and are making another jersey in camo,  thanks.

[dablue]

again i cast my vote vor BDU's.  Look, It's like this.  If you don't have a pair, go to your local Military surplus/Army Navy Store and talk to the owner to see about a possible sponsorship on traded in BDU's.  Trust me they have plenty in stock.  Hell, they may give you more then that.  How do you think our team got our start in SPPL? We went and asked about sponsorships and we got traded in BDU's for free, and Molle vests for 40 bucks.... on top of that, we got 10 to 25 percent off anything else in the store, simply because we put their business info in the sponsor section of our web page (which was free from freewebs).

My point is all the peple complaining aren't complaining about the cost, they are really complaing about their ability to not put forth initative.  Come on people, how hard is it to actually go and price this stuff?  Heck, even without sponsorships there, Trade ins are anywhere from 5 to 10 dollars a piece, so even at its most expensive, your looking at 20 bucks.

Now lets say you wear your polyneoprine paintball jerseyinto a good night game in the woods.  by the time you come out, it'll be snagged all to Heck, and then you gotta run to the store and buy another one for 60 dollars, thats three times the cost of a decent BDU set, and thats just the JERSEY.

Or lets say its a sponsor jersey, and you can get it replaced for free... shagging it in a woodsball rec game at night is a CLEAR violation of your contract under the "abuse of equipment" clause.  They don't want you using it in the dirt and muck staining it all up and possibly tearing it. H ow good would that look as a sponsor? you wouldn't have them come renewal time, i guarantee that.

Bottom line people, just go and get some good Trade In's from Military surplus, ans skip the McDonalds stop on the way home, and guess what, everything breaks even.

For the start up team buying new equipment isn't that big of a deal since BDU's are cheaper than most paintball equipment.
However for more established scenario teams it can be more difficult.  You are known by your colors and what you wear.  When you sign up for a team you are not allowed to use equipment outside of what your sponors are.  So in order to use the jersey (or to sign up as the team) you must use certain gear (including jerseys).  So if the jerseys are not allowed then the team cannot participate and must put their attention to other events to satisfy the sponsors. 
To use an example if you expect dynasty to show up at any speedball event, you would epect them to wear blue, not anything else.  If you expected steelers to show up at an event, expect black and gold.  If you expect dale jr. to come to an event, expect Budweiser to be plastered over everything.  The point is if you are expected to put your sponsor or teams colors/logo on at every event you go to, you need to be able to do that.

An idea I had was that any team that had jerseys to wear.  They should be able to register them in advance.  Just leave it as custom jersys only.  They jersey, in order to be allowed must have a team name on it or something of that nature.  This would make people who just want to wear bright jerseys not be able to unless they had identical jerseys with either a team logo on them or individual names with identical jerseys.

This decision has probably already been decided by now but I just thought I would add my 2 cents anyway

[snake doc]

I can see the companies realizing that the market for woodball type of games is still a big part of the sport and creating more gear aimed towards this market. Jerseys have been created and I expect companies like Spyder and WGP will produce some as well.

That would be GREAT for the sport.

[Sparrow 69]

For the start up team buying new equipment isn't that big of a deal since BDU's are cheaper than most paintball equipment.
However for more established scenario teams it can be more difficult.  You are known by your colors and what you wear.  When you sign up for a team you are not allowed to use equipment outside of what your sponors are.  So in order to use the jersey (or to sign up as the team) you must use certain gear (including jerseys).  So if the jerseys are not allowed then the team cannot participate and must put their attention to other events to satisfy the sponsors. 
To use an example if you expect dynasty to show up at any speedball event, you would epect them to wear blue, not anything else.  If you expected steelers to show up at an event, expect black and gold.  If you expect dale jr. to come to an event, expect Budweiser to be plastered over everything.  The point is if you are expected to put your sponsor or teams colors/logo on at every event you go to, you need to be able to do that.

An idea I had was that any team that had jerseys to wear.  They should be able to register them in advance.  Just leave it as custom jersys only.  They jersey, in order to be allowed must have a team name on it or something of that nature.  This would make people who just want to wear bright jerseys not be able to unless they had identical jerseys with either a team logo on them or individual names with identical jerseys.

This decision has probably already been decided by now but I just thought I would add my 2 cents anyway

You make some valid points, however, I wouldn't expect teams like Dynasty to show up at a scenario event, its not thier style.  Not that it isn't good enough for them, but the tastes are so severly different.  Thats like a baseball team playing cricket, similar concept, completly different games.
However with that being said, If they DID show up, I'd expect them to follow the guidelines and any leage they were in, and have Blue Camoflage on!  Let's face it people, thered Blue, Purple, Orange, Reg, Yellow, and just about every color in between being used by militaries in camo all over the world.  It's not just a fashion trend, that stuff is actually used.  So I'd expect to see Dunasty with Blue Camoflage Jerseys, and Blue camoflage paintball pants, wearing Boots, and Blue camo Tactical Vests weating their Stylized Name on a backpatch, with members names on the front, with custom pods.   I'm sure they'd word Their sponsors into company patches, and have them on their arms, and on the badge spots on the vest, not to mention swapping their shockers out for Blackcell Ions, and playing "just to get back to basics and have some fun."
Why cant all  those sponsoded teams do the same?  Look at AnimalPaintball.com, where most people get their jerseys anyway, and guess what, Camoflage everywhere... 5 different patterns (I'm leaning towards the Urban Hustler myself if we go camoflage....

[snake doc]

I read a post that mentioned TV coverage which is exactly what the thinking should be. How do we market this? Player recognition is KEY for fan interest....if it is just a bunch of guys running aroung in camo and no way to tell them apart....it isn't going to be much fun to watch and ESPN 6 or whatever isn't going show it. With all the protective gear it will be hard enough to distinguish players, but a custom jersey (Animal plug) would allow that. It also gives the league some individuality. Otherwise it is going to look like a Civil War re-enactment with everyone wearing BDU's

[Sparrow 69]

it will be on channel 218 on the dishnet.  I believe its the recreation channel...  Again, you have valid points, but then again, your not looking at every angle.  Hockey teams often look alike, with very similar colors, and yet you can tell them apart.  If a team in in all black, and a team in in all marpat, guess what, I'll know who is who, not to mentioon the Huge Team name on the back of the tactical vests.  On another note, I agree with your animal POaintball Plug.  Like I said, They have five different patterns of Camo, with 8 colors each.  But now what happens when two people pick the same layout and color?  Same issue, except with different gear.  Have you ever watched "Armchair Commandos," The show from Spec ops?  Take a look at it, they wear very similar maurauder sets, and yet theres no trouble telling them apart.  I'm sure there is something in the works for it.  A lot of thought went into this League, with questions starting way last year.  I'm sure this is a question asked early on.

[snake doc]

But Hockey teams as you mentioned have different colors, emblems, font styles, etc. Camo is pretty much camo on TV. Individuality makes people watch football not 11 clones lined up on a field. Same thing with paintball...go for a uniform concept.....get a bigger audience BUT allow personality to show on the outside by showing some style and people will attribute that with the game play.

Round 2 Winnahh! Snake Doc!!!

[Sparrow 69]

how can you consider that a win??? Far from it.  This IS about uniformity,  not individual style, its team versus team , not these 3-10 guys versus those 3-10 guys.  And as far as all that goes, lets look at how the cover that in paintball. NPPL rule states you must have 2 uniforms of drastically different colors to even be considered to register.
Camo looks like camo on TV?
How could anyone ever confuse this:

with this:


I'm not seeing it happen.... and wow, what personality they both show!

[snake doc]

So, they can wear purple and grey camo...but not purple speedball jerseys? I hope a team DOES show up in something like this......

www.backstreet.fi/shop/images/Housut/thumbs/rhinored.jpg

Seriously, some of the people would hate it, but it would bring a lot of life and personality and it IS camo.

[Sparrow 69]

Ultraviolet Camophlage, Ie the purple, serves a function.  The Purple inks don't reflect UV and therfore cannot be seen in NVG's....
Thew Rhino reds are cheap reproductions of the Savage BDU, which works in hostle terrain like the amazon with lotsa of red ferns hugging the ground.
The fact of thye matter here is its an image.  We don't want it looking like another speedball league.  Even if they wore their pretty little jerseys (just like WE have) the logos and sponsors are primarily covered by the tactical vest which is Mandatory no matter how you slice it.  Not a pod pack ion leu of it, but a tactical vest as a requirement.
The point is speedballers laugh at you if you wear BDU's to their games and you cant even play in certain leagues unless you sport a paintball jersey.  Why cant we say the same thing in reverse? why do we have to bend? why do we have to cave on this issue? wear your colors by all means, but no, not in a traditional speedball jersey.  I'f it isn't camo or a BDU it isn't in. enough said.