Organized paintball competition is nearly as old as the sport itself, starting with regional tournaments held at National Survival Game locations in 1983 and culminating in the National Survival Game National Championship (won by "The Unknown Rebels" from London, Ontario).[5]
Though tournament paintball was originally played in the woods, the rise in popularity of teams such as Team Dynasty (then known as the IronKids) in the late 1990s saw speedball become the standard competitive format. The small size of speedball fields brings several advantages to competitive play. The artificial nature of bunkers allows each side of the field to be set up as a mirror image of the other, ensuring that neither team possesses a terrain advantage (as can be the case on woodsball fields). The flat, vegetation-free playing surface makes it easier for officials to see players and make the correct call and, coupled with the small field size, allows spectators to view the entire game at once or be televised.
Various leagues use different sets of game rules, commonly divided between newer repeat-point formats like XBall and RaceTo where a team plays multiple games against the same team, and traditional single-point formats where a team plays one game against several opponents. In both groups, the number of players on the field can vary from league to league or even division to division, although the most common number of players fielded at once is five, commonly referred to as '5-man'. '3-man' and '7-man' formats are also common, and while rare, 2-man, 4-man, 6-man and 10-man tournaments are not entirely unheard of. PSP and the Millennium Series use the RaceTo format, the USPL uses a 7-man format, and the National Collegiate Paintball Association uses XBall, 5-man, and 3-man formats.
Other variations on game rules include equipment restrictions, like limiting the number of paintballs that may be fired in a second, or prohibiting semi-automatic markers, or conducting competition in wooded areas with natural obstacles as opposed to level grass fields with artificial obstacles.
Due to the largely artificial nature of speedball, camouflage is of little strategic use. Clothing with camouflage patterns, common in wooded play, has been largely replaced in tournament play by distinctively colored team uniforms similar to those found in other competitive team sports.
The largest tournament event is the World Cup, including over 3,000 athletes and held each October at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Kissimmee, Florida.
From : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintball#Professional_play
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