Paintball Epiphanies

[cockerpunk]

I agree, such a joke, and the true definition of insanity.

That's another epiphany I had at some point: the people running paintball at the top level are largely incompetent. Those who are competent probably move into a different industry that can pay them properly. I'm a marketing manager and I'm pretty sure nobody in PB could afford me. The fact Kore hired John Dresser as their marketing manager proved that to me. No offense to John, nice guy, but you don't hire someone with near zero actual marketing qualification or experience to run the biggest marketing role in the sport unless you either can't afford real talent or you just don't care. I think it's probably all of the above.

For paintball to work on TV (if it's even possible) the whole thing needs to be redesigned from first principles. No chance of that unless the incumbents are liquidated. If the powers that be were actually interested in growing the sport, leagues would be streamed for free on twitch and YT. The fact they've monetized the streams proves they've given up on the long term and are just extracting what they can short term.

people used to ask me why i never got into paintball as an engineer, and i was offered a position at a still large paintball company when i finished college ...

this is why. paintball as a business is nonsensical. there is no correlation between being a good engineer and making good products and success.

i do not regret the career choice to not become involved in paintball. when 22 year old me decides this is nonsense ... its really nonsense.

[vijil]

It's a real shame.

If paintball had been in good hands it could have done well. Maybe even as well as frisbee golf or pro unicycling. Alas, such glorious heights were not to be.

[cockerpunk]

eh, paintball isnt the only thing that is run by idiots. *waves hands around generally at the world*

it turns out trying to eek every dollar from every human transaction/interaction was a bad idea to base building the entire world and all its rules and interactions on. we built the world wrong, not just paintball lol.

[vijil]

Whether or not that's true, there's no need to get political to explain paintball. Plenty of sports handle their business vastly better, because for whatever reason they aren't run by cynics. Unicycling and disc golf are two examples.

It turns out nickel and diming your players for short term gains is just bad business in the mid to long.