Are we just a bunch of saps or do we have any power?

[Robbo]

There is a massive difference about being passionate about playing and quite another being passionate about our sport ..... the latter is an emergent property of having a sense of responsibility for something other than our own enjoyment or indulgence ...

We need to care about where our sport is going, what it delivers in terms of bang for your buck and to appreciate our sport is more than just our own involvement.
I fully realise there are many players who will live and die our sport and it's not that we need the majority of our player base to feel like that, we just need the majority to feel a bit more responsible than they already do ... that's all !

 

[Robbo]

I know it's the same in the north east, the players are passionate, the problem seems to be to transfer the passion into something that will make all the promoters work together with the industry. Now that is something in the north we would love to see, we used to have a fantastic 3 man league on a Wednesday night. Collapsed when greed overtook from the organiser, before that he was pulling 14 teams a week!

I don't know how that problem will ever be beaten but until it does we are fighting a losing battle.

Greed will always kill a promoter [unless it's a monopoly] and inaction will always kill 'value for money' for the players ....

 

[DJForbes]

fair enough ill withdraw my little rant.

However i think if you bring paintball up north things woul dimprove

 

[stongle]

It's all about the bullitz, init.

Lack of club structures, leagues, customer retention, rec to tournament player transition, blah, blah, blah…. Are symptoms but superficial in understanding why the UK tournament scene is fragmented, disjointed and ultimately unable to support a "sporting" league. The reason none of these admirable ideals works is the unregulated supply of paint to teams and individuals in the UK. If wholesalers (and retailers) are willing to sell paint to individuals at close to (or below) trade prices there is no incentive for anyone to align themselves with a club, site or organisation interested in the long term development of hobby to tournament paintball. Paintball academies or clubs have been about for years in the UK. Yorkie had been running a club / academy structure since the early naughties. Unfortunately every time the club started to produce talented teams and demonstrated good progression, the teams / players get poached by "cheaper" / better incentivised buying schemes to other teams.

If there is little to no juice in paint sales to the players, there is little incentive for sites, clubs, academies or even tournament to offer graduated pricing structures that support / sustain each level of play (customer, rec, hobbyist, scenario and tournament). Until the supply of paint is regulated to certain outlets, players have very little interest in supporting sites or even retailers.

Until you address this underlying problem (oh and MRRP being a f**kin joke due to incentivised buying, oooops I mean sponsorship), you won't solve anything in the UK. This is where the industry, fed and UKPSF should be aiming. It might appear that cartelising (sp??) paint supply, potentially making playing more expensive and limiting competition run contrary to the perceived need to increase player growth; but the real issue is to get someone to (fiscally) support player growth in the first place. And no one's going to do that for gratis.

 

[Missy-Q]

I know it's the same in the north east, the players are passionate, the problem seems to be to transfer the passion into something that will make all the promoters work together with the industry. Now that is something in the north we would love to see, we used to have a fantastic 3 man league on a Wednesday night. Collapsed when greed overtook from the organiser, before that he was pulling 14 teams a week!

I don't know how that problem will ever be beaten but until it does we are fighting a losing battle.

define 'Greed' in this instance

If the guy was getting 14 3man teams that's basically 42 people. It's hard to make something pay with 42 team-players to recoup from. If he wasn't earning anything out of it then he would have had to raise the price. Raising prices and 'being greedy' are not the same thing. If I had to stand out there and deal with 14 teams, totalling 42 players, on a Wednesday night, I would need a couple of hundred quid profit in my pocket, for sure.

As usual, people are thinking that , in order to 'help the game', people should 'charge less'
This the opposite of the truth. Getting your shxt cheaper does not help the game of paintball, it just helps you. It actually perpetuates the downward spiral of the industry and is actually destructive.

 

[Tony Harrison]

Unless a lot of people become a lot less selfish and start tinking of others, instead of just themselves, nothing will change. But then, where is the incentive for them to change? Unless they love the game - not themselves - this is not going to happen.

I'm going back to the roots of how I started playing, to working with rental customers.

Lords We Out.

 

[Missy-Q]

Unless a lot of people become a lot less selfish and start tinking of others, instead of just themselves, nothing will change. But then, where is the incentive for them to change? Unless they love the game - not themselves - this is not going to happen.

I'm going back to the roots of how I started playing, to working with rental customers.

Lords We Out.

JohnnyA
Who are you referring to? The players or the businesses/stores/fields?
Who needs to change, and think of others before themselves?

 

[DJForbes]

making money isnt greed it business.

ive never had any bad dealing with a site about prices. i do find punters get riped off but players get sepcial deals and these tend to be £10 entry £25-£30 a box. not to shabby in my eyes

its all about structure. once thats sorted it all falls into place.
just like any business the venue(s), price of product, the return, needs to be correct

 

[SabreWolf]

making money isnt greed it business.

ive never had any bad dealing with a site about prices. i do find punters get riped off but players get sepcial deals and these tend to be £10 entry £25-£30 a box. not to shabby in my eyes

its all about structure. once thats sorted it all falls into place.
just like any business the venue(s), price of product, the return, needs to be correct

You can say sites making money out of punters isnt selfish but if they could get paint at lets say £10 a case, how many of these sites would pass on the saving?
Not many would be the answer, and ripping off the punter is where a large part of the problem with getting people into the sport lies.
The regular baller is already hooked and playing regular but these are what you want from the punter that just visits for the day isnt it? you want them to come back but if they get ripped off, why should they ?
Its all well and good giving the regular paintballer a discount but that amounts to nothing when what you really need is regular fresh blood.

 

[Donk]

I do not think it is a cost issue, I think Pete has it nailed, most of the ballers in this country don't like change & are now too lazy to travel.

The X-ball format in my eyes damaged paintball as before that we had a number of 7 & 5 man tourneys to choose from & the "team" I was in had 3, 7 man teams (different levels) & we entered everything going & it cost no less then than it does now. We did however get lots more playing time, I remember 7 man going to full time on more than one occasion at each event.

John Sosta has designed a new format of paintball at great personal expense that delivers more field time & costs much less to play that x-ball, but players don't seem to be grabbing it by the balls...

I personally think F5 could reinvent paintball but we all need to support it