Paintball is on the decline. i think thats a fairly well known fact.
I'd say it's a fairly often repeated statement, but is it a fact?
How do you measure it? By sales of new equipment? By Attendance? By the number of fields opening or closing? Through the number of stores?
Sales of new equipment were down the last couple years, but that could be attributed to a very strong second hand market. The funny bit is that the ones that got hit the hardest are manufacturers usually associated with the tournament market. I don't have the SGMA numbers but I think Tippmann is not hurting as much as others. Also, you need to know that the statistics only account for those sales that are reported, a lot of them are not.
Attendance at many fields in US is up, in some cases 100% year to year whichmeans people are coming out to play, but is it only because they can't afford that trip to Disney World or is it because the local competitors have all shut down? Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's both, sometimes neither.
Also, in a study from a few years back, almost half of the respondents listed "private property" as the location they played at.
Couple that with the fact that more and more fields are going FPO stateside, and you get...something...or nothing...I don't know.
Now, the number of brick & mortar stores has been falling in the US and that's a real problem, as it's already making paintball unsustainable in certain areas of the country - No store = no paint, no air fills, no new players. Low margins and competition from online stores are to blame.
On the other hand, paintball is still growing in Europe, maybe not so much in Germany, UK & France but it is in Eastern & Southern Europe - Italy is experiencing a very rapid growth with fields and stores showing up like mushrooms after it rains.
Asia has been a growth hotspot for a couple years now and with the first big tournament scheduled to take place in China, things are about to become very interesting.
And let's not forget about South America which in the next 5 years should show very nice growth in all aspects of paintball.