The Tournament Season

In recent times, Talinz fighting has become one of the most popular sports on the planet. Channels are devoted to the depiction of the sport, to the point that even college and amateur leagues can be televised and attended by thousands. A thriving amateur fighters market, driven by solid product placement on more famous fighter’s vehicles, and the subtle economics of technical specifications, has made the sport as accessible as it is likely to ever be, with smart tech-heads poring over magazines of new modules whilst sturdy athletes itch for their next match. The perfect pilot would be both, of course, but often support and pit teams build around an ace pilot.

Every now and then, an enterprising soul will consider forming a Talinz baseball, basketball or football league, but for the most part these only catch on as relatively niche sports. For now, it seems like more traditional games have kept their niche safe, even though they have been taken down a peg or two as Talinz has conquered the airwaves.

The Talinz tournament season lasts from June through to the following April. The Baku treaty was signed in May, and in respect and remembrance the season is often put on hold accordingly. This gives the sports channels a chance to diversify into other sports, air highlights reels, speculation programs and the odd rare documentary on the war itself and the growth of Talinz. Over the May hiatus, behind the scenes, new pilots are recruited; team affiliations change and deals are bound and broken. More money changes hands in that 31 day period than at any other point during the season. Once the transfer window closes on the 31^st, teams are locked for the remainder of the season. Some have also suggested that the amount of backroom deals between sponsors and apparent rival companies and pilots during that month leads to an overdose of work for police departments too; sometimes it even reaches the headlines.

The major tournaments that make up the season provide ample business for any globe-trotting major team. The general arrangement of the global sport is fairly hierarchical. Amateur teams are run in unattached local leagues, or affiliated leagues. Local leagues tend to be more casual, and run at any time, but teams in affiliated leagues tend to be vying for the notice of a scout, or the rare grand prize of a promotion and sponsorship deal. Above that, countries tend to run professional leagues, sometimes with multiple tiers within them depending on the popularity of the sport. Here, teams often represent a town or portion of a city, though some unaffiliated or oddly affiliated teams do exist. Promotion between leagues often relies on being in the top two or three teams of the preceding season, and elevation is highly prized. It means more exposure, better sponsorship, more money and a prospect at becoming the best in the country.

The best players in the country might get to represent it in the continentals. The six grand continental cups are the second-highest prizes in the Talinz world, and the finals have an audience of millions in the stadium and at home. The sporting associations of companies will sometimes attempt to make conglomerate teams from the best pilots in the league, but often these ‘supergroups’ don’t do nearly so well as a well-oiled team built on sturdy teamwork that has strived from the bottom together.

Winners of the continental cups from the preceding season are then invited to the Grand Prix. A winner’s circuit. Each team takes part in only one match a month, only 6 teams. Competitors travel across the planet, taking part in odd, custom designed arenas, with increasingly bizarre gimmicks, as countries spend incredible amounts of money in a heady mix of one-upmanship and tourist baiting. These arenas are often used in the following seasons in lesser cups, or so their absurd costs are excused by project managers. Some complain that qualification is easier for some teams than others: indeed, by their very nature some continents have more countries and thereby more competitors in their continental cups. Others claim that this makes the less competitive continents greener, and ripe for the picking by more experienced pilots. Considering the high performance and success rates of African and Asian pilots in the Grand Prix, this theory seems to have a nugget of truth in it.

 At the end of it? The grand prize. An ability to be considered the world champion. Often pilots will work for years, grinding from the bottom to achieve the honour. But a quicker route to success is available. Teams will sometimes bring in new blood, and some of the older teams now contain none of their original line up, without any loss of position. Alternatively, retiring teams in some countries might be given the right to pass their mantle to a team of their choice in a lower league. Sometimes this is done as a practical joke, and teams obviously out of their depth are promoted up three leagues, only to fall back to a position at which they are stable, often to the irate protests of the supporters of the old team, whose name they still carry.

It is this combination of mobility and interchangeability that has allowed the fighting, much like the robots themselves, to become so popular. A team could rise from zero to hero in the space of just a few years, and a soul could really make a name, if they were willing to take part…