UPDATE 2/21/17: NPPL Cancel First Tournament

For nearly 20 years, the NPPL was the biggest paintball league in the world; it had the best players and the best teams. But in late 2008, the league filed for bankruptcy; from 2009 to 2013, events were held branded as the USPL and later as the NPPL. Participation dropped every year until the league ceased operations entirely in 2014.

Chris Cole, the current head of the NPPL, has officially announced that the NPPL will be coming back in 2017. Cole had this to say,

We are trying to bring back the great old days, the glory of the past. I believe that there is change needed in the sport, to bring more people into the sport and bring back some of the players who felt like they were shunned.

The new NPPL will have a seven-man format and will not limit the airball and speedball fields. Cole didn’t definitively say what the playing fields would be like, but there may be woodsball, airball, hyperball, or spools styles fields. The upcoming tournaments will be held at current paintball fields, using the in-place playing fields.

The oddest thing about the league is that Cole says it won’t use a typical ranking system. There will be at least three divisions: pro, amateur A, and amateur B. Ranking will be based on a combination of what division you think you should play and what division the league thinks you should play, harkening back to the days of the old NPPL.

Marker rules at this point will be semi-auto. Electronic guns will be capped at 12 BPS, while true mechanical guns will be uncapped.

The NPPL is also working on a feeder series, much as the NXL is trying to do with the PCPL and MSXL. The feeder series events will be held as local events allowing players to play the format, but at a reduced entry and far less travel expense.

As of now, the rules are not set in stone and could change in the coming months.

Event locations, dates, sponsors, and more info should come by November.

Chris Cole is a paintball legend who helped found some of paintball’s most notorious teams, including GZ (Ground Zero), Image, and Avalanche.

Mark Knop is the owner of the NPPL name and its intellectual property; it is unknown at what level he will be involved at this point.

All info came from the AFPL Show