I don't think the message has been quite right, and I don't think the access has been there either. Paintball STILL isn't on the map of the people whose opinion matters, and that's a huge obstacle. The people who spend marketing and advertising dollars already know what BMX, snowboarding, etc, are. Since they already know what it is, they're willing to spend money on it. They didn't become aware of those things on accident, a decade or so ago, the people involved made a huge push to make them aware. The resources to do that push I don't think have been available to paintball people.
There's a huge difference between going to someone and trying to sell them on something when they don't know what it is and going to someone and trying to sell them on something they already want to be a part of. We have to move ourselves from the first category to the second category. Doing that on a large scale takes resources, because people who don't know paintball is valuable are generally not going to set aside the time to even listen to you so you can show them why it's valuable. They have far too many other things going on and hear from far too many people who think their thing is the next great thing.
Even the act of someone not affiliated with paintball buying a paintball league in and of itself is an indication to others that there might be something worthwhile there.