It's been a long time since I posted on here and with no disrespect to the board, mainly because as this post suggests, nothing of real consequence and change has happened in the sport I felt worth throwing in my two pence for.
All of the points made about the changes arising from the advent of the WBPO are valid and I believe the changes that have been made are excellent and can do nothing but promote the sport and bring it back on track to a growth rate that is necessary.
One of those points however has not been mentioned and it will be huge if it pulls off. I know over the years that people have talked about paintball hopefully being an Olympic sport and the like, which I don’t think will ever happen, for many reasons, not the smallest of which is the fact that we are firing projectiles at other human beings but that a whole other story and quite frankly not a necessary outcome for our sport to grow.
However, paintball being recognised as a sport but the international sporting bodies is a HUGE point and one which I believe is part of the plan as far as the WBPO is concerned.
Years ago I looked into this and did my best to begin the process but failed, end of story. However although I can’t remember the exact requirements it goes something like this.
For a sport to be recognised as a ‘sport’ by the National and international bodies including the like of the Australian sports federation and Australian institute of sport and of course other countries sporting bodies. It must meet certain criteria and they are (roughly) as follows.
The ‘sport’ must have an international governing body and a worldwide set of rules. The governing body must have representative and incorporated sporting bodies in a certain amount of countries around the globe (can’t remember how many) and those national bodies must be organising sporting events around their respective countries using those set rules (again a certain number per year) there are other regulations to that, set AGM’s, certain amount of members etc. etc.
One this is achieved and paintball is recognised as a ‘sport’ it then opens up all sorts of opportunities in the form of local government grants and assistance for people to be able to operate local ‘paintball clubs’ the grants cover things like land being provided for very cheap rents, assistance with planning and building, the ability to raise funds as a not for profit club and the list goes on. All the benefits that other sports clubs such as soccer, hockey etc. are afforded at a local level.
So this allows more people (on a financial level) to form more clubs and get more people playing our ‘sport’ the more people playing the sport then of course in turn means more product sold, more money flowing into the industry and then in turn feeding the higher levels of the sport.
It’s a long process but one, I believe is absolutely necessary for the real, ‘viral’ growth of paintball.