New Year - New Answers Needed ..but What?

[sundance1968]

next generation

a sport will only keep going if you can capture new blood, the next generation of player is tomorrows financial spender, lets face it paintball has a lot of competition what with computer games, consoles, and outdoor pursuits canoeing cycling even the gym to name a few, if american paintball is doing badly theyve obviously lost touch with youngsters and they need to focus on getting people interested. when people talk to me about paintball everyone just thinks its all about stag do's and people are amazed about when i mention walk ons and didnt realize tournaments existed.
what they need to do is target specific places like large colleges university's even pubs, night clubs why not ? and get the local sites onside to do a promotion day
when people have been paintballing and had a good day they will return but youve got to be able to get them to go the first time and try and hook em so to speak.
then you'll see players rising through the ranks and with them comes money, so in my opinion the key is getting people interested

 

[DJForbes]

sundance i see you joined about a year ago. was this when you started in the sport ?
if not can you remember what got you into it?

for me it was a friends birthday was hooked in seconds. took me a 2nd visit to find out about walk ons. then there was what gear to buy. and altho happy with my choice in gear it wasnt the best one for me

 

[sundance1968]

sundance i see you joined about a year ago. was this when you started in the sport ?
if not can you remember what got you into it?

for me it was a friends birthday was hooked in seconds. took me a 2nd visit to find out about walk ons. then there was what gear to buy. and altho happy with my choice in gear it wasnt the best one for me

first starting paintballing about 23 years ago with my friends from school just wanted to paste them at paintball lol and still do
and thats the age group to entice
ive got my sons into paintball much to my other halfs dismay

 

[DJForbes]

i think the problem with getting kids into the sport is that most clubs aint insured for paintball. altho the will go hill climbing,sailing, shooting etc. all dangerous sports/hobbies.

i do agree there the people to target. if i could have played 10 years sooner i would have. maybe the image people have of shooting paint at 300 fps make it seem far more dangerous than it is.

 

[Idioteque]

I agree with syd here the primary problem with tournament paintball is that its trying desperately to penetrate the mainstream in a bid for acceptance from the mainstream sports audience. Its kinda like the geeky kid from school trying really hard to fit in with the cool kids by buying similar designer clothes and behaving the same in order to be recognized accepted into the group and i dont know about your education in my school that kid just got beat up on a regular basis then gave up on being cool and turned into a goth

This can be seen with the overly lavish tournaments in the psp, nppl and millennium's that are trying to be some kind of olympic event. Instead of lavish locations/ facilities paintball tournaments should focus on being affordable at the pro level and the rookie level the recent folding of the hurricanes and numerous others has proved this. I mean look at what you get for your money at the Nspl/masters/cppbs for 200 quid in comparison to the millenniums with its minimum 500 quid entry fee.

Paintball tournaments do not need to be held in lasvegas in order to be enjoyable they just need to be competitive with as many teams playing as possible. Also when more teams are able to play this gives more players a greater purpose to invest in the paintball industry as a whole which means they buy more kit which helps the manufacturers. Because they are playing in more and more tournaments this means they are more likely to train more helping local sites develop and it also means that any close friends they have will see pictures/videos through social networking or hear by word of mouth and want to get involved.

Paintball on Tv and games does not advance our sport as they are both crap, i mean do you think one person played that last xbox360 game (which was by all accounts a load of guff) and was inspired to go and buy an ego the next day. Or they watched 2 minutes of the millenniums on euro-sport and was so enthralled that they are looking to join a local team. If any one on this forum started playing because they played that millennium game or they saw it on Tv you are a muppet as these are both terrible.

Tldr
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• Develop the grass roots baller with more newbie days etc.
• Makes tournaments more affordable for all, with deals on flights hotels and cheaper entry fee.
• This means more people play paintball and therefore buy more paintball crap and play in tournaments which then develops our sport
• Our sport does not need Tv coverage which no one will watch or rubbish novelty video games, the power of friends/word of mouth and social networking is far greater than the dying media that is Tv.

 

[sundance1968]

promotion and team names

its really up to the large manufacturers suppliers or large paintball site franchis's to organise local sites to open up for an afternoon or days promotion, at the end of the day its a gamble whether it will have an affect but if the industry is that bad theyve got no choice unless they just pull in the resouces and ride the storm and see where it leaves them.

personally in the uk i would like to see a league set up for novice players to represent theyre local area and this would encourage local community support, lets face it if nottingham paintball team played verse derby paintball team the old enemy! now that might even make the local radiolol
look at football its successfull because it involves the local community and they have supporters of an established area which they can identify Notts county football speaks for itself, wolverhampton wanderers speaks for itself, manchester united, now look at paintball what do our team names mean! i reckon drop your area name in and get it recognised with the local community
cant do it any harm
im not having a go at any current team names but having an area associated with a team in the long term may help the growth of the sport just an idea if i may be so bold,please dont take offence because i know how long it takes to come up with a team name! and at the end of the day our team has a silly name but do you want to be taken seriously or not?

 

[f1nut2]

grassroots

I first got into paintball like many people when i went for a punter day at my local site in Truro, Cornwall for a work event. Really enjoyed it and off my own back inquired about the team, wrote an e-mail to the captain and went and met the team the following week. Two weeks later had bought gear and have been playing ever since.

So many people that i see playing for a day dont see it as something they will do more than once maybe twice in a year and certainly not as a hobbie or a sport and often cost is a big barrier too.

Improving the grassroots of paintball, having bigger better and more affordable sites for punters to play on is in my opinion what needs to be built upon. Whilst at the same time not scaring punters off by letting 'own gunners' give them bruises to remember.

As someone who has marshalled at a rec site and captained and managed a team i would often watch out for people playing and see if they were interested in taking up the hobby. Being able to see a team play while playing themselves was often a good way to sell the game. I always encouraged my team to give the site as much support as possible and the rewards would follow. As players giving sites as much support as possible is also key in my opinion. getting things right from the bottom up.

Cheers

 

[Tony Harrison]

1. Stop undercutting each other.

2. Work together.

3. Stop selling paint so cheaply you are making next to nothing on it.

4. Forget paintball on TV for the moment - it's untelevisable to the unintitated, and way too much cash has been thrown at this idea. Rob (DerDer) and Patrick (Monkey with a Gun) already do a sterling job to promote the sport with their DVD's, and the PSP has invested serious cash into their webcasts. Also, Traumahead's work on the Eclipse webcasts is outstanding.

5. In the UK, more events like the CPPS put on in Blackpool are needed, backed with sufficient promotion.

6. WDP - sorry, APS - are doing something interesting in 2010 with their A-Ball series.

I'll let you have more thoughts later.

 

[DJForbes]

As sum1 said linking teams to areas would be good. however i thinking linking a team with a site is better. that way an area can have more than 1 team without clash in names etc.

i still think bringing paintball to the public is the best way. cash prizes will see people create a team just for an event. bring a few local pro teams along to talk with people and see what happens.

i always wanted to buy a mega arena however they cost alot and not to many opertunitys to use them around me. but a huge inflatable feild will get people intrested once there looking get them a marker and send them in

 

[Tony Harrison]

Less money. Fewer events. One circuit. One rulebook.