2007 World Championships and Series Recap

[Junkie]

The year-end event of the National Professional Paintball League's 2007 season, the World Championships, was held outside of San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium November 30th - December 2nd, 2007. The three day event included a massive trade show along 5 playing fields where the top 150 teams from around the world competed for not only $100,000 cash, but more importantly for the most prestigious title in the paintball industry: NPPL Series Champions.

Quoted by players, media and sponsors alike as being the greatest NPPL event of the year, if not ever, the San Diego NPPL surpassed many expectations. The event was watched on the NPPL's free live web cast, with television quality video and replays, by an estimated 50,000 viewers from around the world who watched on average in excess of approximately one hour each.

The NPPL has received many compliments on the quality refereeing at this event and we would like to thank all of those officials who did such an amazing job while enduring rain and cold. The refereeing program began undergoing changes only weeks ago, with a two day intensive training retreat, and already the result of the hard work is being realized. These efforts will continue and only intensify throughout the off-season.

NPPL's impressive Center Court had 23 foot high massive pillars boasting the champions of all 24 NPPL events, the largest grandstands to-date which were packed full with fans from around the world, and four VIP decks along Center Court sponsored by Spyder, JT, NXE and the NPPL. The atmosphere around all games and promotions held on Center Court was simply fantastic. Teams enjoyed the high quality artificial turf that the NPPL introduced this season, which worked well even with some rain and has allowed the NPPL to stage top quality tournaments at NFL stadium venues as well as on the beach.

Congratulations to San Diego Dynasty as they not only won the final event of the NPPL's 2007 season, they are also the 2007 NPPL Super 7 World Series Champions. San Diego Dynasty has been the NPPL Super 7 World Series Champions for now five years in a row, although several teams have come close to taking away the crown.

San Diego Dynasty battled it out against St. Louis Avalanche for 1st and 2nd place, while New England Hurricanes and Edmonton Impact placed 3rd and 4th respectively.

In the Semi-Professional League, A-Team took 1st and earned the Series Championship after defeating Impact in a best of three while Arsenal Evolution placed 3rd and SA X-factor finished 4th.

In Division 1, Dynasty Entourage won two in a row against Crims Underground giving Entourage first place for the event as well as the Series Championship. Naughty by Nature placed 3rd and Nurv finished 4th.

In Division 2, after a draw for their first match-up, Arsenal Kidz defeated Tombstone for 1st and 2nd while the Predators placed 3rd and 187 cRew placed 4th. This 4th place was enough to give 187 cRew a much deserved Series Championship title.

In Division 3, Rockstar Factory Red cleaned house by defeating HKN by Pbphoto.com in their first two match ups, giving Rockstar Factory Red the event title. The battle for 3rd and 4th wasn't as easy since Enigma had to win a 1 on 1 tie-breaker against Xclusive to place 3rd. Xclusive had plenty to celebrate though as they accumulated the most points over the season and are now Division 3 Series Champions.

All rankings and final scores can be found at NPPL.

On behalf of all of us at the NPPL, we would like to thank all of our important stakeholders - including players, team owners, sponsors, spectators - for an outstanding season and we look forward to an outstanding 2008.