We're nearly halfway through the 2015-16 IFPA State Championship Series season, and we couldn't be more excited about the continued growth of interest in the SCS. The inaugural SCS season saw 5235 players participate, while the 2014-15 season saw that number grow to 6690 players. The 2015-16 season is on pace to shatter that record with 5808 players having already competed within the first half of 2014.

We currently have 35 states included in the SCS, which will all culminate in the IFPA State Championship finals. These finals will all be held simultaneously on February 13th, 2016, with 560 finalists competing for not only a State Championship title, but also a spot in the IFPA US National Pinball Championship.

View the current SCS standings HERE.

For those players north of the US border, the IFPA Canada Provincial Championship Series is also currently in progress. Current standings for the Canada PCS are available HERE. A reminder that the Provincial Champions will also qualify to participate in the US National Championship starting in the 2015-16 season.

A reminder that the official satellite spots for the IFPA13 World Pinball Championship will come from the 2015-16 IFPA US National Pinball Championship, and the 2015-16 IFPA European Pinball Championship. The highest finisher in each final that has not yet qualified for IFPA13 will win a free spot into the World Championship.

Nation's Brightest Casting is looking for the best and the brightest to come and compete on their show and they have extended this opportunity to the IFPA player base. 

About the show:
Contestants will come on and face a gauntlet of colossal mental challenges with the chance to win a huge cash prize. People who are great with puzzles, riddles and brain teasers are perfect show for this show!

Anyone interested in applying should email Nation's Brightest Casting at: 

casting@nationsbrightestcasting.com 

Applicants should include the following information in their email: 

Name
City/State
Phone Number
Email Address
Occupation
Recent Photo
How they heard about the casting
Short Bio
A detailed paragraph stating why they feel they are the nation's brightest 

Auditions are held weekly in our LA offices and over Skype!  

**THIS IS A NATIONWIDE CASTING CALL. 

**APPLICATIONS MUST BE 18+ YEARS OF AGE & A LEGAL US CITIZEN.

LIVE Bracket is located here:  http://challonge.com/IFPA12

Click the match to view details of matches in progress

Standings through Session #8 available HERE.

LIVE Streaming available at: http://www.twitch.tv/bitwalktv

Tie-breaker round currently in progress. 8 players for 4 spots for the 32nd place cut line to be played on Shrek. This will be on the live stream.

blog post courtesy of Daniel Spolar

Following the success of last year IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign fundraiser which raised over $23,000, the IFPA is proud to announce that we are teaming up with Project Pinball to help raise funds for their charity again this year. This IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 will not be limited to one month but run the entire year.

The IFPA plans on treating each of these Project Pinball tournaments as a unique event with the point allotment change this year. Each of these tournaments could be worth full value WPPR points decided by the tournament input information as what would be similar to the tournaments you are entering to our site now. Go to the “submit to the IFPA Calendar” link here: http://www.ifpapinball.com/calendar/submit.php, if you're interested in setting up an event and we'll work with you on getting it added to the IFPA calendar. We hope to set up events nationwide and use competitive pinball as a way to help raise funds for this great charity. The tournament must be scheduled 30 days before the tournament is to be held to qualify.

Below is the announcement from Daniel Spolar of the Project Pinball Charity:

After the success of the IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity July Campaign 2014 and the huge support that we received from the pinball community, we are returning with a bigger and better offering for our tournament players. The IFPA and Project Pinball Charity is introducing its new campaign that is not limited to just a single month but will run the entire year. The IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 will be a year long tournament fundraiser event. Plus, we are now offering a chance to win a brand new pinball machine of the winner’s choice for its grand prize as well as other super prizes to be won.

We are looking for people, organizers, tournament directors and players willing to get involve make this Charity Campaign come alive and so we can give to the Children’s Hospitals a special gift from all of us!

Organizers and Tournament Directors get your tournaments and dates ready to be included in this charity offering for your tournament players. We will be offering this Pinball Machine Sweepstakes and many other prizes and awards to be used for your tournaments. We will have the full details and requirements at http://www.projectpinball.org/organize-an-event. You will be able register your tournament on that page so we can add your tournament to our list and offer you our full support to you and your players.

We have been working with the IFPA and have greatly appreciated their help, guidance and insight with the new WPPR point changes and their assistance to bring this to the pinball community. The IFPA will allow WPPR points to given to those participating in this charity drive to help entice players to attend. The IFPA points will be determined by Tournament Director’s information submitted as they would for a regular tournament. No extra WPPR point value will be offered just because this is a charity tournament as it was in the past, but hey, you can win a pinball machine and still help people!

Quick Details:

Each pinball tournament that is held as an IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign Tournament (and meets the requirements) will be eligible to receive entries to the Pinball Machine Sweepstakes for a chance to win the grand prize- a pinball machine and many other awesome prizes. The only way to enter this exclusive Pinball Machine Sweepstakes will be limited to these tournament offerings, no person can buy into this offering directly.

There will be 4 Pinball Machine Sweepstakes entries allotted to each charity tournament.  3 entries will be earned by players for their high final rankings and 1 entry given randomly by drawing a player’s name that did not earn an entry by final ranking. So every player has a chance to win even if you finish in last place.

This fundraiser campaign will be kicking off on March 12, 2015 at PAPA Headquarters during PAPA 18 and continue running until January 31, 2016 with the help from our friends at the International Flipper Pinball Association.

The Long Version:

A lot more of the details, clarifications, requirements, limitations and rules will be posted Thursday 5, 2015 at 10:00 pm est at http://www.projectpinball.org/organize-an-event

Let’s make this IFPA/ Project Pinball Charity Campaign 2015 a huge success so we can continue to give the patients, kids, parents, doctors and nurses that could use our special help by providing a pinball machine for their enjoyment.

We are a registered 501(c)3 Nonprofit Organization 46-3417202. For more information on Project Pinball Charity go to our home page http://ProjectPinball.org or we can be contacted at ProjectPinballCharity@gmail.com

With the 2014 pinball season coming to an end, the World Pinball Player Rankings continues to show no signs of slowing down within the competitive pinball community. We wanted to take a quick look back at the growth we've seen during 2014.

We're proud to say that the total number of players the IFPA is now ranking at the end of 2014 is 29,369. This represents a 34% growth from the end of 2013 where we had 21,882 players. In addition, the number of players that played in an IFPA endorsed tournament during 2014 was 13,353, up 36% from the number of players that were active during 2013.

We’ve also seen incredible growth in the number of tournaments popping up all over the world. Total number of events for 2014 was 2454, up 53% from last year.

The IFPA wishes to thank everyone in the competitive pinball community for continuing to support everything we do to spread the world about our incredible sport to the masses.

Qualifying for the 2nd annual IFPA State Championship Series is now complete, and it's now time for us to find our qualifiers for the 33 different IFPA State Championship finals. These finals will all be held simultaneously on February 7th, 2015, with 528 finalists competing for not only a State Championship title, but also a spot in the second annual IFPA US National Championship.

The final player count for the 2014-15 SCS reached 6690, up 28% from last year's total of 5235. View the final qualifying standings HERE.

IFPA State Representatives should be sending out emails to the top 50 from each state shortly. Important to note that if the IFPA does not have your email address on file, we have no way of being able to contact you. If you feel you should have received an invitation to one of the IFPA State Championships and did not, contact the IFPA immediately at ifpapinball@gmail.com, or Click HERE to edit your profile.

Registration for all 33 states closes on Tuesday, January 13th at 7pm CST. Any player that has not accepted their invitation by that time will be ineligible to participate.

Remember that no player is allowed to compete in multiple IFPA State Championships. Players that qualify for more than one IFPA State Championship will have to make their choice during this open period of registration. This will mean that many states will go far past the top 16 players in order to fill all 16 spots.

Any questions about the SCS, or anything IFPA related, please contact us at ifpapinball@gmail.com

Updated: As State Representatives alert us to who is attending, we will be updating this page.

There's 2 months left in the 2014 IFPA State Championship Series season, and we couldn't be more excited about the growth of interest compared to 2013. Last year the IFPA saw over 5200 players compete in the SCS, and this year we've eclipsed that with 5870 players having already competed through November 2014.

We currently have 33 states included in the SCS, which will all culminate in the IFPA State Championship finals. These finals will all be held simultaneously on February 7th, 2015, with over 500 finalists competing for not only a State Championship title, but also a spot in the IFPA US National Pinball Championship. The State Championship tournament details are being added to the IFPA calendar as the State Reps finalize those details.

View the current SCS standings HERE.

For those players north of the US border, the IFPA Canada Provincial Championship Series is also currently in progress. Current standings for the Canada PCS are available HERE. A reminder that the Provincial Champions will also qualify to participate in the US National Championship starting in the 2014 season.

We are also excited to announce that the official satellite spots for the IFPA12 World Pinball Championship will come from the 2014-15 IFPA US National Pinball Championship, and the 2014-15 IFPA European Pinball Championship. The highest finisher in each final that has not yet qualified for IFPA12 will win a free spot into the World Championship.

Global BC news out in Vancouver talked with Fraser Valley Flipout organizer, [player]Tommy Floyd[/player] (ranked 2171st in the world) and [player]Emily Reilhan[/player] (ranked 2407th in the world) about the upcoming tournament. Click HERE to watch the video.

As the month long tournament for the Iron Man Vault Edition kicks off, we wanted to share some additional coverage that’s hit for the RadioShack pinball promotion.

Organic coverage continues to spread with placements in The Contra Costa Times, SFGate.com, San Jose Mercury News, and Consumerist, with impressions reaching almost 75 million.

AOL News put together a great video, and the New York Post included the tournament news in their “Weird But True” column.

The Flippin' With the Greats League raffled off the second prize of the preseason, with [player]Tim Zollner[/player] winning a set of 3 Hall of Fame GGAF Medallions featuring players Dan Hampton, Steve Largent, and "Mean" Joe Greene, all with matching serial numbers, along with a set of Penn State medallions from a past Limited Edition promotional strike.

This coming week's random draw prize package for registered FWTG League participants is really special (and valuable!). Gridiron Support and Rich Gannon are showing their appreciation with a VERY limited "proof" (stamped in coin) struck Rich Gannon 2002 MVP Medallion with color fill trim. Only a handful of these Gannon "proof" Medallions were produced, so you want to get your hands on this. None have ever been sold. In addition, Rich has provided us with an autographed action photo. After the winner is drawn, Rich will also be sending along a personal handwritten "thank you" note to the lucky FWTG League player.

Don't sit on the fence…Get in on a shot at this valuable package!

The week #3 prize will be raffled off on August 28th at 9pm CST. All FWTG League members at that time will be eligible for the prize.

A reminder also that the player leading each division at the end of the preseason will win the "Preseason MVP award" and earn a spot into the Grand Final and play for a NIB Pinball Machine. Currently Andrei Massenkoff leads the NFC West, Damien Charlety leads the NFC South, Jon Drew leads the NFC East, Zach Sharpe leads the AFC South and Josh Sharpe leads the NFL North. Updated FWTG standings are available HERE.

For details on the FWTG LEAGUE, including how to register, format, prizes and more, click HERE.

Gridiron Support is currently offering a Preseason 10% discount on "Tier 1" and "Tier 2" IFPA/FWTG personalized League Medallions. In addition, Gridiron Support is offering special "group" sales discounts on Medallion orders of 3 or more. Call Vicki (Gridiron Support) at  612-999-FWTG (3984) for more information!

The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund (GGAF) is a non-stock, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization providing financial grants and ‘pro bono’ medical assistance to retired NFL players in dire need. The organization focuses on the humanitarian side of post-football related issues, which include coordination of social services to retired players who are in need due to a variety of reasons including inadequate disability and/or pensions.

Get behind Coach Ditka's Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund and "LIKE" Gridiron Support on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gridironsupport.org.