posted Jan 31st, 2005 - The very beginning of the National Skydiving League offered a beautiful situation for the teams, which represented their leagues at the NSL Championship. The NSL was founded in 1998 when Florida, Georgia and Texas joined forces and formed the National Skydiving League. Each of these three leagues ran its own regular season. The league champion teams of 1998 were invited to compete for the first set of NSL gold medals at the inaugural NSL Championship on November 21 - 22 at Skydive DeLand.

It was a treat for Convergence (Texas), Mr. Pink (Georgia) and Genesis (Florida). SkyVenture Orlando had opened the pockets widely in the company's effort to become involved with the skydiving business. The 1998 season was the first year of the well established cooperation between the NSL and the wind tunnel in Orlando, which was built earlier the same year.

The NSL re-invested the whole sponsorship funds provided by SkyVenture into the first NSL Championship. The three league champions did not have to pay for anything. NSL and SkyVenture covered the travel expenses, including air fares and rental cars and paid for the hotel accommodation in DeLand. Registration fees and jump tickets for the 10-round competition were also taken care of. Omniskore was ordered to provide scoring and DZ-TV for the NSL Championship 1998.

A few other teams from Florida attended the NSL Championship 1998 as guest teams, including Space Center FX, who won the World Cup the same year. Here are the scores of the meet:

The competition site at Skydive DeLand was well prepared to feature SkyVenture as the prime sponsor of the event. The local media attention was on a high level and paid back for SkyVenture's investment. SkyVenture's founder, Bill Kitchen, was interviewed by a local TV News station live on site, while other stations and newspapers covered the action, as well.

The skydiving publications wrote their own stories of the event, and SkyVenture had now become a part of the skydiving community and business in the U.S.A. The cooperation between the NSL and SkyVenture continued and gave the wind tunnel business a solid foundation for the impressive expansion that happened in the upcoming years.

The NSL grew at the same time. Five more leagues were born in 1999. The total of eight NSL leagues in the 1999 season was an unexpected progression, and the growth of the league system continued in 2000 and 2001. SkyVenture continued with support for the NSL. However, the initiating investment of 1998 was not copied in the following years. The league was already too big for a treat as provided at the NSL Championship 1998.

SkyVenture began to steer the investment into a different direction, and one of the results of the current sponsorship concept includes the NSL SkyVenture Competition. This current concept follows the SkyVenture mission to support the most improved teams and spreads out the benefits to more teams in the country, and recently also in other international leagues. SkyVenture Orlando and Perris SkyVenture together provided free tunnel time for NSL 4-way teams last year that had the value of more than $22,000.

SkyVenture's success is obvious, as one of the recent NSL News stories showed. The sponsorship concept for the NSL support has also worked very well and added a lot of excitement to the usual NSL competition business. However, the shift of the major investment from the championship event to the whole season did not allow the NSL to treat the league champions any longer to the same unique situation as in 1998.

Pamela Stevens, Southwest Skydiving League Director since 2003, showed a new way last year when she created the Grand Prize for the SSL teams. Several leagues have already offered prizes and special features in the past that returned portions of the registration fees to the participating teams. Stevens' SSL Grand Prize went a step further and re-installed the original idea of sponsoring the league champions to attend the NSL Championship.

The SSL winners of the AAA Class, Arizona Blade, and the AA Class, Elsinore Equinox, were invited by the SSL to compete at the NSL Championship 2004 at SkyQuest in Florida in November. The SSL used the league's own resources to pay for the largest portion of the total expenses to compete at Fantasy of Flight. This way, the SSL was represented strongly at the major event of the National Skydiving League season. Blade won the AAA Class competition, and Equinox took the silver medals in the AA Class.

Stevens' great new concept was spread between all league directors and well received by some of the leagues. The Florida Skydiving League already committed to sponsor the FSL champions 2005 in a similar way. The Carolina Skydiving League just recently decided in a competitors' meeting to follow the same example. CaSL Director Randy Garman informed the CaSL teams and competitors of the CaSL 2005 sponsorship:

"The CaSL has an official Sponsor for 2005 - huge thanks to Tim D'Annunzio at Paraclete Armor and Equipment, Inc.! The league's Season Champion in Intermediate and the League Season Champion in the Introductory Class will each receive a generous sponsorship. Champions will be awarded their choice of NSL or USPA Championship registration and competition jumps. Yes - you read that right - team registration and competition jumps PAID."

CaSL Director Randy Garman had other updates for the CaSL following, as well. The NSL News will follow up with more details very soon. The increasing league sponsorships for teams representing the league regions promise more exciting competition at the NSL Championship in the future. Ideally, all league champions will compete for NSL medals and trophies every year at Fantasy of Flight, as it was - once upon a time in 1998...