On Monetizing Paintball

[Drunkscriblerian]

So, I was talking with my SO about paintball's complete failure to become a recognized sport (and to be honest, I've given up on that ever happening) and after I described several game formats to her, she had some suggestions...which absolutely floored me and got me thinking.

Her ideas:

-strip a team down to a single individual (1v1 match)
-structure the field so that the players can't shoot each other right off (they have to move forward to engage)
-put a button in the middle of the field that either player can push to win the game (i.e give both participants a reason to push up)
-allow any and all gun formats

Y'all...even if I didn't play paintball, I would watch this. A mano e mano contest, driven by individual personalities that I can root for, a game format that I can understand even if I'm a casual viewer just tuning in for the first time, plus individual persons I can care about and cheer on? I'd be here for this.

Plus, it offers what paintball as a sport has been lacking and that's drama. Let's face it, most Speedball matches are boring as f**k to watch (because they're hard to film). Something like what I'm talking about would be easy to make exciting, for a variety of reasons.

-1: You got two guys fighting over a central domination point. That's easy to capture

-2: In this situation, literally any paintball-slinging device becomes competitive. I mean, if all I have to do is hit one guy one time my PGP becomes a viable contender against the latest electro. All I have to do is get position...which is a learnable skill, which would result in David vs. Goliath matches in tournaments (and you know that would draw in viewers)

-3: (building off what I just said) You got two guys shooting at each other. That's "boxing match" levels of easy to film and make exciting

-4: If paintball became popular enough under this format, corps might want to sponsor individual players rather than teams...and that seems more viable to me, due to how individual personas sell better than team vibes

Anyway, my SO came up with almost all of this (we talked a bit, some of it is due to me explaining paintball to her, but the main ideas are hers) despite never once playing paintball, but I think she's on to something that could actually work...both as a way to make professional paintball fun to watch AND something that would actually draw people into the sport because it would make it look cool.

Curious to know what the rest of you think of this.

[RedLeaderSB]

https://hormesisattire.com/pages/elite-1-on-1-tour

Like this?

[PumpMan10988]

She's nearly perfectly described the "Duel" and "Joust" formats. Plenty of videos from the last couple years. Seems like this didn't really take off either, though it is fun to watch (for paintball nerds at least).

https://www.youtube.com/@hormesisproductions/videos

[DieManInTheRough]

https://210paintball.com/pages/about.html

[Sherwoodsghost]

One theory of mine based on no factual evidence. The person that would green light paintball as a sport tries it out (ceo, president, partners, esc) goes into a match thinking "everyone is going down" just to be bonus balled by someone not knowing who the person actually is.

Theory two. Bad apples in the sport ruin many aspects of why it should be taken serious.

[boomersruckus]

Paintball just isnt interesting enough to show on TV. No matter the format. Combine the fact that its boring to watch, chocked full of cheaters, draws bad apples with huge egos, and is laced full of profanity, its always gonna be a niche sport supported by the players and not fans. There will never be an Ryan Greenspan jersey sold at a sports store. If there is, its a paintball store and its wanted by a member of the community. Mainstream isnt ready for the unedited version of regional divisional paintball that leads to the edited version of Pro paintball hosted by Matty and Rich. Paintball as whole has more bad ambassadors then it will ever have good ones. The fact that we have been enjoying it for as long as we have is a blessing.

[The Hobbit]

Paintball just isnt interesting enough to show on TV. No matter the format. Combine the fact that its boring to watch, chocked full of cheaters, draws bad apples with huge egos, and is laced full of profanity, its always gonna be a niche sport supported by the players and not fans. There will never be a Ryan Greenspan jersey sold at a sports store. If there is, it’s a paintball store and it’s wanted by a member of the community. Mainstream isnt ready for the unedited version of regional divisional paintball that leads to the edited version of Pro paintball hosted by Matty and Rich. Paintball as whole has more bad ambassadors then it will ever have good ones. The fact that we have been enjoying it for as long as we have is a blessing.

NASCAR is boring a plenty of people love watching it, same with the PGA. As much as people love dunking on the NXL here, I don’t believe it’s an issue with the format.

I don’t see any reason why the NXL can’t make it as a viewer sport. Now I don’t think it’s going to be competing with any of the major sports, but to carve out some consistent viewership should be possible. What I would guess is needed is someway to help the unfamiliar viewers understanding what is happening and why. A show that highlights teams and players, show cases the effort that is put in beyond the major events.


I don’t pretend to know the secret formula but there are plenty of niche sports that are successful.

[boomersruckus]

Attention span homie. Viewers want to be entertained. Paintball isnt entertaining to those who dont play it. Plain and simple. The only people who are broadcasting paintball is Major League Paintball or social media pages and the only people watching that stuff is actual players and maybe their families. There is zero interest from big name sponsors unlike the NASCAR and golf examples you mentioned. The paintball industry feeds off of its own consumers while big named sports organizations like NASCAR, PGA, NFL, MLB all get fed by their fans. The millions and millions of fans. America grew up with baseball, golf, and football. Played for over 100 years now and the fans grew with them. Give paintball 100 years and see if its still even legal to play. My assumptions are that it will remain a niche sport with manufacturers still trying to get rich off of their consumers.

[$L!mBo]

depressingly pessimistic and bleak outlook youve got there.
the point of this thread is to come up with some ideas that would help grow/revitalize the sport.
all the issues you bring up are obvious and well known.

[The Hobbit]

Again though the point that nascar and golf are boring as shit to watch, at least on tv, doesn’t diminish the marketability they offer. I also don’t think many casual golfer or non golfers will turn the pga on for more then a few minutes.

So why are they able to be successful? Both are more historically established? Easier for a casual view or non participant to understand what is happening? More money floating around within the “industry” to force it into the mainstream culture?

[$L!mBo]

i cant believe no one on MCB has pointed out the obvious. The best way to make things more interesting is to get rid of volume shooting, unlimited paint, the same boring setups and gear and get the emphasis back on SKILL and MOVEMENT

To make more, add less:

3man stock class

5man open pump PBSL style rules (50rnd non electric hopper and 10 rnd tubes, 200rnd cap)

Classic Mech League- Mech Mags and Cockers only, no R/T, single finger trigger only, revvys only

in all formats, ties are settled by 1v1 single shot 12g pistols
sudden death matches. each team picks their guy. first to land one wins

all played on hyperball and airball fields

"Goodluck getting any sponsors!!!"
"Wahhhh I wanna use my spacemech!!!"
"Milsim and Springfed should be included"

-if you build it, They (sponsors and new production) will come

-spacemechs are too reliable, too fast, too boring

-the only thing more boring than watching proball is watching the lapers play soldier

The only WiLD and CRAZY idea id add is to maybe have the events travel from venue to venue all over the country and encourage Rough N' Rowdy style matches.

-comedian commentary

-local dudes/teams signing up to settle personal grudges

-Refs in skimpy outfits recruited from the local "Gentlemen's Club"

-over the top pre-event trash talking/interviews/ backround story youtube promotion

Unsportsman like? You bet
Sensationalist trashiness thats gunna get the unwashed masses hooked? i think so

[Psycho91]

I like the mag and cocker only idea

maybe no gun fighter frames or pneumags either?

[$L!mBo]

i think "Revvys Only" works to negate any advantage youd get from shooting too fast

[Riot]

We don’t have any ladies to rent out to your gay sport, but we at the “Gentleman’s Club” appreciate the shout.

[Psycho91]

Maybe games where players use gear pre 2005 that would makes things interesting

[boomersruckus]

So you wanna take a niche sport, make it even more niche by taking away technology and hope that sponsors come? No matter how you package it, people dont watch paintball enough to cause the interest that will draw monetization. Seems like the people in this chat have to much invested emotionally in this sport we love and dont want to accept the truths. Accuracy by volume is the way the sport naturally progressed. Pump guns have been here from day 1 and they still are niche even in the sport itself. There is no amount of skill and athleticism that is gonna make 10 round tube ball any more fun to watch than what the NXL currently shows. 1v1, 2v2, 5v5, all to slow paced to be of interest. Maybe 50 vs 50 would be cool, all rocking PGP's with no reloads. Nonetheless, paintball is what it is, its for ego driven, try-hard, up and comers or its for been there, done that, old school cool peeps who wouldnt benefit from monetization anyways.

[$L!mBo]

How many pump
guns do you own? Any stock class?
Been to any pump/stock class only
events?
You have a very narrow minded view of this topic to the point that Im guessing you are taking things personally.
If youre a diehard speedball guy and the thought of folks liking pump and Stock class over being super agg is offensive to you, maybe you should try it out sometime.
And i would argue
that YES, pump
and stock class are infinitely more fun to watch than speedball.

[The Hobbit]

Y’all can tuck your cocks away, the paintball umbrella is large enough for both types of play.

Paintball has more in common with the automotive hobby than any other mainstream sport.

Both are very gear centric.

Both have multiple competitive formats.

There are hobbyists more interested in building/collecting then participating in competition.

Non competitive events exist for casual to experience participants.

There are individuals in both that hate the latest and would rather dabble in the old and obsolete technologies because they like that.

Point being there is room for all the various flavors of assholes in motor sports/car enthusiasts. Paintball can support its variety of assholes as well.

[boomersruckus]

Not tryna start any arguments or heated discussions. This thread was about what can be done to bring monetization to this sport. Go back in time and see why paintball is what it is today. A while back folks thought that if the players were on a field that wasnt full of trees, people werent wearing camo, and markers shot by not having to manually pump them, the sport would draw more interest. Sure did. We have paintball today as we know it because the old school original gangsters of paintball knew that it was too niche in the woods to do anything other than make people think paintball was playing war with your friends. Bright color jerseys, auto-cocking markers, pallet fields. Look at the difference between the early 90's championship games and the one in 1996. Youtube will help you with that.

As for how many pump guns I own...is that even relevant? The whole conversation is based on things that can draw more people to the sport and along with that, their money. Now Im being fed that a far more niche and quite honestly more elitist style of the game is the way to save it. LMAO. "That phantom has a hopper on it, not stock class bro.... You arent using 12g CO2, sorry man, not stock class". Ah man thats too funny.

I am an old has-been who plays paintball for fun now. No tourneys but I will play with the teams. I play big games, local walk-on games, and ironically pump only games. I dont particularly care how paintball develops to be honest. I lived through and played during the glory days as far as I am concerned. Everyone buying the old gear at premium prices seems to be trying to relive that swag from back then. Nonetheless, the paintball ship had been in port for a very, very long time and has set sail. There will be no big new thing for tons of reasons, some mentioned in posts above. My views are not narrow as I see them, they are realistic. Yall can day dream about the soon to be meteoric rise of pump gun, low volume play showing on ESPN Ocho but answer this.... When paintball came as close as it ever has to being mainstream, XBOX video games, why didnt it explode then? What has always kept our sport out of the mainstream spotlight?

I totally agree with you Hobbit, there are plenty of different types of assholes in paintball. The tourney asshole, the scenario asshole, the magfed asshole, and the stock class asshole to name a few, and while they all are different flavors to us inside the sport, the average person who we would like to take interest in our hobby all see it as paintball.

Btw, I currently own and use a black ghost, a sniper 2, a slab vert-feed cocker body pump build and I absolutely love to play pump vs any marker when at the field. I prefer my emek because it levels the playing field a bit more than the old rock it cock-it gats.

[$L!mBo]

https://youtu.be/q1i2kXo2a9Q?si=4u2XFnjNfiC4zqGW

https://youtu.be/GMk8bH7cRWc?si=QSRUYaA84Vm-J9Bo

a couple of my favorite pump on the airball field vids.

[$L!mBo]

Pump and stock class is very attractive for several reasons.

Less paint in the air means less confusion about who shot who?, did the shot break or bounce?, was it skill or just a lucky shot?

Too many times in speedball, there is fighting over these points and it is impossible to resolve because everyone is getting overshot and its considered normal to argue with refs and cry to get your way. "if the ref doesnt pull me, im still
in" "if youre not wiping, youre not playing" "its not cheating is everyones doing it"

It is far easier to see if a player was hit playing pump and the style encourages honesty and integrity. Wiping, overshooting and playing on is almost non existent.
Bigger moves off the break and action at and across the middle of the field makes for faster and more dynamic games.

Its boring and repetitive watching team after team break out to the closest bunkers and shoot lanes every game.
Its boring watching teams with the same gaudy graphic jerseys and gear hiding behind guns that all look and shoot the same.
Its boring seeing the low effort/zero creativity hypebeast crap that gets put into the gear and guns the speedball guys tell eachother they GOTTA HAVE and BUY every year
Its boring and discouraging watching all these dudes embrace and promote cheating and bad sportsmanship.

You think younger players see speedball and think "wow! i NEED to get in there!"
You think the speedball guys are going out of their way to make sure the first timers have fun and come back?
Ive never seen anyone shooting a newer electro offer to let a rental kid use it for a game or two.
Younger players, rental guys and pretty much everyone agrees that getting lit up by some overshooting aggy jerk is the last thing they want to happen to them.
You never see anyone complain about getting shot ONCE. they know what theyre signing up for at orientation. they want to shoot their buddies and if they get hit, they are not expecting to get torn up by super aggresive strangers.

"Wanna go play paintball this weekend?"
"Naw, last time i got lit up. those dudes shooting the fast guns are too crazy for me"

i guarantee we have all heard that more than once.

[boomersruckus]

Your making points about how "you" see paintball-speedball-stock class. You need to think of what people who have no idea or care about the sport would need to see to be interested in it. Your suggestions are not wrong and I agree with several of them but what I think and what you think are irrelevant. Its what the big named-big money spending sponsors think. And the reason that what they think matters is because it takes money to make money and there isnt a single slimy hand money grabbing corporate entity that would buy up paintball as a whole and market the hell out of it to get even more filthy rich if there was even a remote chance of that actually happening. There is no money in paintball. As long as there is no money in it, there is no money to make from it. As long as thats the case, we can argue about how to make it mainstream until the next 30 years of my paintball life passes and I will be riding in a home-made tank shooting the nova nerf launcher at Fulda Gap getting ready to celebrate my 76th birthday. All the while still loving a niche sport.

[boomersruckus]

Also, I let some random walkon rental kid celebrating his birthday use my CS2 before I even really broke it in, like less than a case of paint through it. I often go out of my way to make sure rentals and walkons have a good time and actively ask them so. OH, and I have nothing to do with the fields I am at when I do so. But I agree, overly aggressive douche canoe players ruin the sport for newer and younger players and pump matches rarely result in players complaining about over shooting.

[Socalpumpballer]

It’s never going to happen paintball is too expensive and hyper niche playability so instant barrier to entry kids can’t just pick up and play at a public park. also it doesn’t translate well to being a spectator sport. You can watch monster trucks or nascar and never personally drive those vehicles ever in your life and still appreciate it. Watching a bunch of guys run around through a net with a million different angles and having no idea where they are shooting isn’t good tv. That’s why people can watch professional dodge ball which is almost the same concept as paintball but 1000% easier to follow. Plus you can literally go in your back yard and play dodge ball. You’re not going to have a pick up game of paintball

[$L!mBo]

speak for yourself.
im literally having folks over to run stock class in the woods out back my house this saturday.
Pump
and stock class are extremely watchable AND affordable on hyperball and airball fields

[Socalpumpballer]

Watchable to people who know what it is. Monetization means appealing to normies. Also a pick up game of backyard paintball means one person is supplying for everyone or everyone already plays paintball and has their own gear. That’s not the same as having the family over and causially dusting off a football or basketball ball

[Morgenstern]

Speedball has zero mainstream appeal, never did and never will. The only reason anyone outside of the sport would be interested when they hear “paintball” is because they picture a camo dressed war game in the woods, which is impossible to televise. The paintball that gets televised is a fringe novelty version of an already fringe hobby. The industry focused on it while airsoft ate its lunch.

[boomersruckus]

You might be right but thats where the only shot of mainstream is coming. Major League Paintball is a hella attempt at introducing a recognizable name to be the shepherd of our sport. Simply naming it what they did gives it an air of credibility. We all know its just a power play by someone in the industry but it is at least following suit with the naming convention of other recognized sports.
As for zero mainstream appeal, 100%. In 2003, Huntington Beach NPPL added Astro-Turf for the first time and FOX sports was there to film some of it. Cypress Hill played as the Stoned Assassins and there were 250,000 spectators over that weekend. People were so stoked about what was next and....nada. There just isnt a way to demonstrate the excitement of the actual play to the viewers watching it. Its even worse through the TV. Crappy camera cuts, poor shot choices, you name it. It all reduces the amount of interest. I cant even watch an entire xball match on youtube when they drop them. Its just not providing the stimulation needed to maintain interest.

[Riot]

Titties, probably.


Beyond the obvious, it’s too hard of a sport to follow, whether it be tournament ball, pump, or otherwise…. Too many balls, too many bodies, too many cameras, in too short a time span.


Oh, and maybe add Brook Burke and 2am commercials…

[boomersruckus]

I 2nd the Titties comment. Brooke Burke man....