BBC Article: Paintball Olympic Sport

**TF_Aloha** · 07-09-2025, 10:55 AM

Originally posted by DocsMachine

Again, I'm all for getting the sport into the Olympics- I'll sign any petition or wear the official T-shirt as needed. But I strongly doubt it's going to happen, and after the initial first-year surge, it's entirely possible the sport will be worse off, not better.

The Olympics had a "legitimizing" effect on sports, and I really think paintball could benefit from that.

Non-players often see paintball as a children's game. This is good for getting Mom to bring little Timmy out for his birthday, but it sabotages us with anyone old enough to have a learner's permit. If you try to get co-workers to give paintball a shot, it's often like telling them you want to hang out at Chuck-E-Cheese. If we get nothing else out of more coverage, just getting the idea of a real adult game into people's heads could be worth it.

But I don't believe that paintball in the Olympics would ever happen.

**vijil** · 07-09-2025, 03:28 PM

I think the "could be worse off" is probably to do with the breakdancing fiasco at the Olympics. I think the longer term effect of Raygun has been that people ended up seeing a lot of breakdancing in their feeds and thought it was awesome, but also came away thinking that breakdancing shouldn't be taken seriously as an Olympic level competition. A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

I can absolutely see the same thing happening with PB.

And there's the usual issues we've had since day one, in which we don't have a proper federation, we have zero drug testing, and any governing body that does exist is heavily compromised by commercial interests. As long as the primary revenue model of paintball (and therefore the actual game design at the pro level) is based around maximising paint sales, I don't think we can consider PB an Olympic level sport.

ALL THAT SAID

It is really interesting to me that paintball seems to be getting more attention again lately, on TV in multiple countries. I have the sense that there's a kind of slow renaissance happening, but there's a lot less hype this time. Maybe we're finally coming of age as a hobby and sport. We've grown up and stopped being so desperate so maybe people will actually like us now.

**Trbo323** · 07-09-2025, 04:13 PM

Originally posted by vijil

I think the "could be worse off" is probably to do with the breakdancing fiasco at the Olympics. I think the longer term effect of Raygun has been that people ended up seeing a lot of breakdancing in their feeds and thought it was awesome, but also came away thinking that breakdancing shouldn't be taken seriously as an Olympic level competition. A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.
.

I can see this. Although the thing for me is if you asked me if break dancing should be an Olympic sport before raygun I would have said no, and after I still would say no.

Say what you want about her but she did single handedly, weather intentional or not, bring more awareness to her sport than probably anyone else ever. Hell, after that and after the moment that I went "break dancing is an Olympic sport?" I then went and looked up a few other competitors to get a comparison. So because of her I watched 100% more of break dancing than I normally do. In the end, no it doesn't interest me but I also wouldn't be surprised that because of her there was a spike in interest in break dancing.

I'll go ask my sister about that. She is actually in the break dancing community, not at that kind of level but still I bet she would have some insight

But, back on track compared to break dancing paintball I would argue is much more of a "sport" as you don't have judges handing out scores. Yes there are some that try to cheat although honestly it's getting more rare. In all the matches I've watched lately (a fair amount, like 3 whole events) I think I've only seen 2 gross major wiping penalties and potentially one case where a player got away with it. If you get caught you might as well hand the team the point so the consequences are fairly strict. The player wiping gets pulled and then also 2 teammates. If you don't have those 3 people left on the field you then start the next point down bodies. If it's a major penalty within the last minute of regulation the game is stopped and the point awarded to the other team.

The risk/reward these days makes it very risky to try.

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**TF_Aloha** · 07-09-2025, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by vijil

I think the "could be worse off" is probably to do with the breakdancing fiasco at the Olympics. I think the longer term effect of Raygun has been that people ended up seeing a lot of breakdancing in their feeds and thought it was awesome, but also came away thinking that breakdancing shouldn't be taken seriously as an Olympic level competition. A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree.

I don't think this one applies to paintball. Raygun was a skill issue. She was not a world class breakdancer, but she held the stage at a world class event. You just had to sit there and watch her spasm. Paintball is a different sport. A country could certainly put forth a sub-par team, but in paintball that would just highlight the skill of the rest of the field. Players that play out of the depth get shot in the face quickly and walk off the field. It will be obvious that there are levels to the game and as long as they implement some sort of Mercy system, the Rayguns will have an exceptionally brief exposure.

Paintball's biggest issue is filming. It's hard to film a match, especially live, and make it easy to follow. This means that paintball coverage could suck, but the worst conclusion is "this is bad to watch" not "this is a silly, unskilled joke."

**Trbo323** · 07-09-2025, 05:08 PM

Originally posted by TF_Aloha

I don't think this one applies to paintball. Raygun was a skill issue. She was not a world class breakdancer, but she held the stage at a world class event. You just had to sit there and watch her spasm. Paintball is a different sport. A country could certainly put forth a sub-par team, but in paintball that would just highlight the skill of the rest of the field. Players that play out of the depth get shot in the face quickly and walk off the field. It will be obvious that there are levels to the game and as long as they implement some sort of Mercy system, the Rayguns will have an exceptionally brief exposure.

Paintball's biggest issue is filming. It's hard to film a match, especially live, and make it easy to follow. This means that paintball coverage could suck, but the worst conclusion is "this is bad to watch" not "this is a silly, unskilled joke."

If they follow the NXL rule book there already is a mercy rule in place. If one team goes up by 6 points the game ends.

With the current system of point differential it makes sense that they would require this as it stops a top level team like dynasty from just running the score way up against a weak opponent in order to have a high point differential for better seeding later

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**DocsMachine** · 07-09-2025, 05:33 PM

Originally posted by Trbo323

Worse off how?

-That's my pessimistic side talking, but still applicable. Put it this way: Say a new big movie comes out this weekend, and it surprisingly features a prominent paintball scene. (Work with me, here.

)

Suddenly, there's 50,000+ people out there that want to try it out for the first time. What do they find? There's no local field. Nearest one is three hours away, and when they get there, they're given dirty equipment, paintballs that can't hit the broad side of a barn, and a field full of regulars that treat them as little more than moving targets.

The social-media backlash from something like that would be worse than no advertising at all.

Again, that's a pessimistic view, and yes, I'm sure your personal local field is better than that, but we all know that's all too possible and common a scenario.

I don't see how getting minimal promotion makes the sport worse off just because we wouldn't get the absolute gold medal forever prize of being on NBC prime time every year the Olympics are played.

-It's not a case of being top-dog from here on out, it's a matter of regular promotion.

The simple fact is that a great deal of people see paintball as- at best- a once a year thing. Somebody's birthday or bachelor party, not a regular weekend pastime. As such, it needs regular promotion, not a one-time blitz. An Olympic event would be essentially that one-time thing. It'd be big the first year, less big the second, barely mentioned the third, and likely as not, not shown at all the fourth.

Again, an Olympic event would be cool indeed. but what this industry really needs, is dedicated, long-term promotion.

Doc.

**vijil** · 07-09-2025, 05:51 PM

Suddenly, there's 50,000+ people...

Here in NZ back in the day everyone was super hyped. We had the made the big time. The biggest and most awesome tradeshow in NZ, Big Boys Toys, was going to have a paintball tournament.

So we all dutifully showed up. This was going to be so huge for paintball.

Small problem: the tournament organisers treated it like any other club event. They did nothing extra whatsoever. Zero promotion. Zero info. Zero outreach.

The whole thing was a complete waste of time and money. Meanwhile the RC drift club had brought bleachers, a PA system, had brochures and handouts, and consistently had 10x the crowd we had at the paintball field.

The thing is, if we HAD done all that, people showing up at fields would have had a crap experience. There was obviously no field promotion link either because the guys running it ... it probably didn't even occur to them. So maybe I was also relieved.

This was about 2006. The whole experience (and a couple of other very similar ones) was part of why I ended up in marketing.

**DocsMachine** · 07-09-2025, 07:20 PM

There was a Superbowl commercial that stuck with me, from years ago. Some hipster 'tech start-up' types were in a fancy office, milling around somebody on a laptop. They'd just paid to have their commercial aired during the Superbowl, and were watching a 'hit counter" that apparently registered sales.

After a breathless few moments, the first sale ticked in. A moment later, a second... then a third. Smiles all around. Then there's ten sales. Twenty. Thirty. Cheers, popping champagne, patting each other on the back.

Then 100 sales. 200. 500. A thousand... eight thousand, fifteen thousand. Smiles start to droop, people start looking stunned.

Fifty thousand. Climbing towards seventy thousand. Heading towards a hundred thousand. Everybody's looking at each other with dazed "holy s**t, now what do we do?!?" expressions.

The ad, overall, as I understood it, was apparently for some company in the business of helping businesses through a crisis like that- I think some sort of skilled temp worker service. But anyway, the same idea could go on here. This industry is already down to a threadbare shoestring as far as products and production goes. Nobody has the money to keep huge inventories anymore.

If we had fifty thou new players in the space of a month, I'm not sure we'd have the gear for them, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if we ran critically low on paint for a while. And that, as I said, could be worse than no surge at all.

Again, don't get me wrong. An Olympic team would be great (probably) but wouldn't by any means be a long-term solution to our ills.

Doc.

**uv_halo** · 07-11-2025, 10:55 AM

I think it's worth being specific and clear to the style of paintball we're talking about.

Every mention of paintball in the Olympics to date has been centered on speedball. The very same format that over decades has failed to become viable on television, anywhere in the world- unlike every other sport in the Olympics. Ultimate (frisbee) has been more successful on television and, it hasn't made it to the Olympics.

Touching on what @DocsMachine said about guns. What is everyone's reactions to airsoft possibly being an Olympic sport? What makes paintball so different? That Google Gemini answer to why airsoft isn't suitable for the Olympics has eerily similar complaints that paintball does:

Lack of Unified Governing Body and Standardized Rules- Sure we have a few leagues but, there isn't a single one in paintball.
Challenges in Judging Fair Play and preventing Cheating- Paintball is better but, just a look at this thread shows that it is far from settled.
Cost and Equipment disparaities- many guns can shoot paintballs, all of the ones made for competition to this point have been very expensive compared to the rest. It doesn't have to be this way but, it's what the competitive player base wanted/wants.
Focus on Recreational Activity: Check out this excerpt (underlined emphasis my own):

Airsoft is primarily a recreational activity enjoyed by people of all ages, and its focus on simulation differs from the athletic focus of Olympic sports, according to Wikipedia.

Paintball is all about simulation. At the most basic level, it's a simulation of a shootout between teams of people. Speedball is a gimping of this concept (make the fields smaller, cover more abundant, increase the ROF, everyone shooting the same projectile) that limits the number of possible winning strategies, and it's not what most uninformed people imagine when someone invites them to a 'game where your'e going to go into the woods, break up into teams, and shoot each other'.

Speedball seems to me to be a quick adrenaline rush, and it needs to be short so, you can quickly get another adrenaline rush if you're eliminated early, and it tends to draw hyper competitive folks who want to try to destroy the competition (for the sake of their egos) and, not really work as a team. Not saying everyone who enjoys this form of paintball fits these descriptions but, compare them to the average scenario player (who doesn't moonlight as a competitive speedball player).

Honestly, I don't think we should focus on making paintball a sport but, rather a recreational adult activity revolving around "going into the woods, break up into teams, and shoot each other'. Something like mini-scenario play- in other words, fields providing an experience.

**The Jayster** · 07-13-2025, 10:03 PM

I think this is intrinsically linked to the now perennial subject of the decline of paintball compared to its heyday in the late 90's/early 2000s. It is of note that even the Olympics are declining in popularity. To put it crudely people are getting lazier, especially the younger generation. I'd say video games and online activities, coupled with bad diets (not to mention widespread drug use) are chiefly to blame. ALL sports are experiencing some decline to various degrees.

The dominating 'elite' of paintball still has an obtuse focus on speedball which irks me. The bulk of paintball players are rec/woodsballers. OTOH, speedball does serve a crucial function where the image of the sport is concerned, especially in regions where people running in the woods shooting at each other might be frowned upon.

I will tell you one thing however: I'm convinced that a video of people playing woodsball or from a scenario/big game would gather far more interest than people playing speedball. Speedball really is an obscure niche where the general public is concerned.

**uv_halo** · 07-14-2025, 12:38 PM

vijil i Speedball was primarily designed to increase the viewership of paintball, so it would go to follow that speedball would get more views. Add to this the on-field drama, cheating, and overshooting that speedball encourages, this is a similar appeal that reality TV runs with.

Woodsball isn't really about viewability. That doesn't mean you can't get visibility. Capture the experience of a woodsball or scenario game. The fact that we're limited to a mostly standard level of performance (.68 roundball or .68 First Strike, fired at 280 or 300FPS), there really isn't much interesting to talk about gear-wise. But all of that is aside the point- we don't need more people watching paintball. We need more people playing paintball. That's why it's important to have a sellable experience.

"Do you want to live the experience of storming the Normandy beaches, and have beers with the Germans when the battle is over?"

"Do you want to rescue the VIP and escort Him/Her out of hostile territory, while coordinating the efforts of your counter snipers and bodyguards?"

"Will you defend this fort with a handful of compatriots or, will you be one of the hordes attacking it? Defenders have unlimited ammo but, only respawn every 5min. The attackers respawn every 2min but, they can only carry 100rds. Choose carefully".

Vs

"we're going to split up into two teams. Camo is useless because we'll all see each other from the start. The field is setup in such a way that you have to completely eliminate the other team to even consider capturing the flag and returning it. It's only going to go for 15min tops."

There's your problem.

**vijil** · 07-14-2025, 03:43 PM

I think we fundamentally agree in general.

I agree that speedball as it currently stands is a poorly designed TDM game. However, I don't agree that this has anything to do with the deliberate lack of simulation, camo etc. - I don't agree that the field size is necessarily a problem, and I don't think that the style of bunkers is an issue.

It's a game design issue, fundamentally.

Existing attempts like the NSL, moneyball and a couple of others were almost as badly designed in part because they were designed by people who don't understand incentive balance in game design. They are not evidence that it can't be done.

There is one thing I used to agree with you on, but no longer: the primary reason speedball as it stands sucks is because it's designed not so much for TV as to sell more paint as a form of marketing. They just said it was about TV, but they were full of it.

So... yeah. Anyways.

By understanding the gameplay impact of loadouts, bunker density, ref cognitive loading, player cognitive and physical effort, flag positioning, rof and team size you could improve it massively, but they don't want to do that. And that's before you start thinking about things like game and point length, point structure (pull vs hang, endzones), respawns and subs, player classes etc. etc. - there are literally thousands of combinations that nobody has tried because, well, read Tom Kaye's quote in your sig uv_halo .

Nobody has any appetite to actually test anything. What paintball really needs is a bunch of players of all kinds to show up and alpha test a whole lot of wildly different ideas over a day, filmed and interviewed, then they come back a week later and beta test changes, so on, until something comes out that strikes the right balance of gameplay depth vs watchability.

(we always used video game terminology - "modes" and "maps" and "respawns" - punters understood that more easily and honestly it makes sense)

**Trbo323** · 07-15-2025, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by uv_halo

I think it's worth being specific and clear to the style of paintball we're talking about.

Every mention of paintball in the Olympics to date has been centered on speedball. The very same format that over decades has failed to become viable on television, anywhere in the world- unlike every other sport in the Olympics. Ultimate (frisbee) has been more successful on television and, it hasn't made it to the Olympics.

Touching on what @DocsMachine said about guns. What is everyone's reactions to airsoft possibly being an Olympic sport? What makes paintball so different? That Google Gemini answer to why airsoft isn't suitable for the Olympics has eerily similar complaints that paintball does:

Lack of Unified Governing Body and Standardized Rules- Sure we have a few leagues but, there isn't a single one in paintball.
Challenges in Judging Fair Play and preventing Cheating- Paintball is better but, just a look at this thread shows that it is far from settled.
Cost and Equipment disparaities- many guns can shoot paintballs, all of the ones made for competition to this point have been very expensive compared to the rest. It doesn't have to be this way but, it's what the competitive player base wanted/wants.
Focus on Recreational Activity: Check out this excerpt (underlined emphasis my own):

Paintball is all about simulation. At the most basic level, it's a simulation of a shootout between teams of people. Speedball is a gimping of this concept (make the fields smaller, cover more abundant, increase the ROF, everyone shooting the same projectile) that limits the number of possible winning strategies, and it's not what most uninformed people imagine when someone invites them to a 'game where your'e going to go into the woods, break up into teams, and shoot each other'.

Speedball seems to me to be a quick adrenaline rush, and it needs to be short so, you can quickly get another adrenaline rush if you're eliminated early, and it tends to draw hyper competitive folks who want to try to destroy the competition (for the sake of their egos) and, not really work as a team. Not saying everyone who enjoys this form of paintball fits these descriptions but, compare them to the average scenario player (who doesn't moonlight as a competitive speedball player).

Honestly, I don't think we should focus on making paintball a sport but, rather a recreational adult activity revolving around "going into the woods, break up into teams, and shoot each other'. Something like mini-scenario play- in other words, fields providing an experience.

Originally posted by uv_halo

I think it's worth being specific and clear to the style of paintball we're talking about.

Every mention of paintball in the Olympics to date has been centered on speedball. The very same format that over decades has failed to become viable on television, anywhere in the world- unlike every other sport in the Olympics. Ultimate (frisbee) has been more successful on television and, it hasn't made it to the Olympics.

Yes because it's the most abundant competitive format. I'm not saying it's perfect but any means but if paintball ever gets a shot at the Olympics it's going to be 5v5 speedball without some major shift across the whole sport to something different

That Google Gemini answer to why airsoft isn't suitable for the Olympics has eerily similar complaints that paintball does:[LIST][*]Lack of Unified Governing Body and Standardized Rules- Sure we have a few leagues but, there isn't a single one in paintball.

Sure but I counter with, name me a sport in the Olympics that has this. Most sports have national leagues but the majority don't have one single set of unified rules AND a single governing body across the whole world. Soccer is the only one I can think of that might

I've heard this before that it's a necessity for a sport to be in the Olympics but just in the US we have national leagues, they don't answer to a worldwide league/rules yet many of the sports are in the Olympics

[*]Challenges in Judging Fair Play and preventing Cheating- Paintball is better but, just a look at this thread shows that it is far from settled.[*]

And? We have refs, no they are not perfect machines but they do good. With how much doping has to be tested for in the rest of the Olympics I really don't see how this is an issue. Anyone cheating on the paintball field will be far more visible. Hell, any foul in basketball or yellow/red card in soccer is also because someone cheated, why is this an issue?

[*]Cost and Equipment disparaities- many guns can shoot paintballs, all of the ones made for competition to this point have been very expensive compared to the rest. It doesn't have to be this way but, it's what the competitive player base wanted/wants.[*]

We suddenly care about how much pro players are... Not even spending, they are sponsored, carrying out onto the field? Again, compared to the rest of the Olympics, having expensive gear is par for the course

Honestly, I don't think we should focus on making paintball a sport but, rather a recreational adult activity revolving around "going into the woods, break up into teams, and shoot each other'. Something like mini-scenario play- in other words, fields providing an experience.

I don't disagree with this but I also don't see any harm in including it in the Olympics. I really don't see this as a "one or the other" scenario. We can have both a competitive level on a world stage and also a more fun focused experience at the local level. If I go down to my local community center to play basketball I don't expect to be bashing elbows and getting hip checked out of bounds because it's so competitive but that forum of basketball does exist in the Olympics and the more fun relaxed version also exists at my local community center.

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**uv_halo** · 07-15-2025, 02:30 PM

Originally posted by vijil

I think we fundamentally agree in general.

I agree that speedball as it currently stands is a poorly designed TDM game. However, I don't agree that this has anything to do with the deliberate lack of simulation, camo etc. - I don't agree that the field size is necessarily a problem, and I don't think that the style of bunkers is an issue.....

Tons of agreement here. Game design knowledge would help things quite a bit. I still stand by the size requirements. If the field is so small (as commonly seen today), you eliminate a whole bunch of potential strategies outright- Feints, flanks, etc. Player density is tied to this as well, once you get past a certain size (i.e. you can't flank because there's no way you won't run into somebody before crossing the '50').

I don't really care exactly about cover and concealment specifically (in 1995, one of my favorite fields was a castle with just a few palets around it, all inside a warehouse. But, fields should include equivalents to cover and concealment (again to afford more potential strategies).

Technically, Speedball existed before TV. In my first experience (1992)- It was a concept field at the end of the day (a great way to blow off paint after a long day of large format, long duration games), whiile it was smaller than any of the main fields it was still fairly large (long enough to not be able to shoot the other end at the start). After the ESPN 95 event (and the lessons learned from it), events went completely out of the woods but, were still longer (like that early Televised event in the UK, with pallets on end), Then the event fields got shorter over time while different leagues also tweaked the number of players on the field, and occasionally the win and penalty conditions. The main goal being to increase the visible action (crucial for television). Think back to the creation of X-Ball, the dream of our favorite guy, Richmond Italia. I disagree that it was primarily about selling paint, especially when you consider how paint prices effectively decreased until after this point. Consider how much Richmond would get from advertisers if paintball went mainstream. That was the goal. The fact that paint costs were getting more expensive (multiple games in a match, ROF, etc), were an added bonus.

You bring up a very important point in the comments above. When the industry (incl. Media, and Field operators) makes the wholesale push, it is both an external message and, and internal (existing player base) message. And that message was parroted by way too many players. The whole mantra in the 2000s to "get a Tippmann, get gud, get an electro marker, join a team" epitomizes it.

**uv_halo** · 07-15-2025, 03:10 PM

Originally posted by Trbo323

I don't disagree with this but I also don't see any harm in including it in the Olympics. I really don't see this as a "one or the other" scenario. We can have both a competitive level on a world stage and also a more fun focused experience at the local level. If I go down to my local community center to play basketball I don't expect to be bashing elbows and getting hip checked out of bounds because it's so competitive but that forum of basketball does exist in the Olympics and the more fun relaxed version also exists at my local community center.

I wasn't weighing or asserting the validity of the Google arguments, you and I actually agree on the details. My point is that there really is no distinct paintball counter argument that wouldn't apply to Airsoft as well. I'm not aware of any airsoft leagues but, assuming there are not, for airsoft, leagues are mostly beside the point. However, I bet Speedsoft players and hosts would want that.

In regards to efforts to get it into the Olympics- I'm not opposed to something like speedball getting into the Olympics. The problem I have with it, could've been avoided if, the industry (incl.the field operators) and, the media didn't try to convince us that it was all just paintball, and more specifically, the way paintball is meant to be played. Imagine if basketball had to be significantly changed for the Olympics (i.e. making the court smaller, increasing the number of players, or, not allowing any physical contact between players) and then every basketball court changed to make the same changes. How would the basketball player community (all those playing in local courts) take it? That's a similar level of change we're talking about. It's not just a matter of a more casual game. Casual vs competitive should not be the difference between paintball (as it began) and speedball. They each can be competitive and casual.

BBC Article: Paintball Olympic Sport

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