College Paintball - The NCPA
In 1986 the first paintball club was formed, unsurprisingly at the United States Military Academy. In 1994 the first Intercollegiate Tournament was held.
However, it wasn’t until 2000 that the National Collegiate Paintball Association was formed.
The NCPA is now one of the most under-rated paintball affiliated associations in the nation. Many schools that have funded paintball teams are putting anywhere from $5,000-$15,000 a season for their team to compete in everything from regularly scheduled NCPA events to NPPL and PSP events.
This is money, coming not from players, not from industry sponsors, but from the colleges. This is great, because it is only an infusion, no company is losing money to sponsor a team that is fully funded by their school. That said, many teams also have small sponsorships with companies, especially the schools that consistently compete with the top teams.
Looking through the list of colleges with paintball clubs on the NCPA Site, I’m impressed that several colleges that I will be applying to have partially sponsored teams! Now I’m pretty excited about applying to these schools, because I know that my paintballing can continue into my college years without too much trouble.
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