Paintball as a sport - Question for players.

[phillips]

There are two massively different sides to paintball. Supair/tourney ball and woodland/milsim ball. Which is bigger? Which one would get sport status? I can't see woodland getting sport status. It's too Rambo masculine testosterone bollox, not TV/sponsor friendly. But Supair is not interesting to watch, if it were on TV, people from outside the sport would turn on and expect to see a Rambo movie, and would be bored with what they did see. Hell, before I started playing, I expected to be running into forts, shooting everyone, waving a flag, and going home in a chopper. Which doesn't happen in milsim.... It's just people in camo trading paint. Supair, to the layman looks like people not in camo trading paint. So the TV angle is out. So why would big companies sponsor paintball if there is no TV advertising? because I've drunk a lot of cherry vodka and coke, that's why.

It's funny I play woods and don't do any"Rambo masculine testosterone bollox" which is very funny coming from a player involved with the sport spawnign phrased like" we kill sukas".
Another thing is there is nothing wrong with mil sim paintball, infact more people enjoy that than sup air.
Respect other peoples sports/past times, I havn't heard any mil simmers calling sup air bollox.


To be honest how can it be recognised as a sport in this country anyway? Paintball is just to small, in America however it is HUGE, it's partly due to the public knowledge of paintball which is vast compared to the general public here.
They know about ALL types of paintball, all as equils including mil sim, scenario,woodsball( inc tornements) and Sup air. This is why paintball isn't ignored in the states and thats why they manage to get media coverage.
We jus thave the entirely wrong attitude, i.e. OUR type of paintball is th eonyl way forward or something to that effect.

 

[Cook$]

It's funny I play woods and don't do any"Rambo masculine testosterone bollox" which is very funny coming from a player involved with the sport spawnign phrased like" we kill sukas".
Another thing is there is nothing wrong with mil sim paintball, infact more people enjoy that than sup air.
Respect other peoples sports/past times, I havn't heard any mil simmers calling sup air bollox.

Jeez dude, don't take offence...
There is nothing wrong with mil sim at all. If that's what you wanna do, why should I care?

 

[andyrik]

It's funny I play woods and don't do any"Rambo masculine testosterone bollox" which is very funny coming from a player involved with the sport spawnign phrased like" we kill sukas".
Another thing is there is nothing wrong with mil sim paintball, infact more people enjoy that than sup air.
Respect other peoples sports/past times, I havn't heard any mil simmers calling sup air bollox.


To be honest how can it be recognised as a sport in this country anyway? Paintball is just to small, in America however it is HUGE, it's partly due to the public knowledge of paintball which is vast compared to the general public here.
They know about ALL types of paintball, all as equils including mil sim, scenario,woodsball( inc tornements) and Sup air. This is why paintball isn't ignored in the states and thats why they manage to get media coverage.
We jus thave the entirely wrong attitude, i.e. OUR type of paintball is th eonyl way forward or something to that effect.

The "Rambo masculine testosterone" is the veiw of paintball in general in the Uk. The idea of it being like this can be from the media in some respects (as you get videos and such of people talking commando style reffering to the oppostion as "the enemy". Radio one for example did this sort of thing). It is also due to the fact that guns are involved. The fact that very little people in proportion know about Sup air means that people tend to look at woodland as the only real paintball type sport in the UK and look at it in that way

America has the ability to promote paintball as it can stock paintball gear all over the place. They love their guns so paintball guns is a nice, legal soultion for shooting stuff. It is also widely available with paintball gear being available for example in Wall Mart compared to in Britain. They are able to stock guns, gas, inflatables and paintballs and these are generaly cheap This is able to promote paintball to the point where it becomes more expensive and competative. Then players move on to the sporting side of paintball

Of course it can be related to as a sport. "Soccer" as they call it over there is very small, but is still considered a sport, so why cant paintball thats small over here be considered a sport?

 

[phillips]

it might be times served, if you look at most sports they have been around for quite some time.
Football was started hundreds of years ago across villages in England, Tennis, curling, snooker, Pool, Swimming, Table tennis, American football.............they have all been around for a reasonably long amount of time, paintball is relativly infantile compared to most.

Is it just time?

 

[Tommeh]

theres no focus point in the game for the general public to be interested in watching paintball (what i mean is like football an rugby....theres one ball in paintball theres 10 or 14 players with more or less 1000 balls on em) on a screen or sideline. realisticly it may happen over in america because they have the money and the ammount of people to play to get the high enough ratings for it to be shown everyday like football is over here untill we get multi millionaires to invest in uk or european paintball for that matter where they can invest an make money from a team the more the leuges can invest in prize money, the more the public maybe interested.

well thats my opinion anyway
hope it makes sence

 

[andyrik]

theres no focus point in the game for the general public to be interested in watching paintball (what i mean is like football an rugby....theres one ball in paintball theres 10 or 14 players with more or less 1000 balls on em) on a screen or sideline. realisticly it may happen over in america because they have the money and the ammount of people to play to get the high enough ratings for it to be shown everyday like football is over here untill we get multi millionaires to invest in uk or european paintball for that matter where they can invest an make money from a team the more the leuges can invest in prize money, the more the public maybe interested.

well thats my opinion anyway
hope it makes sence

the spelling of sense does not make sense

 

[Niox]

I think that wanting paintball to be classed as a sport leads to several issues.

From what people say Speedball is most likely to be classed as a sport as it is the most sport like, so does this mean that Woodsball etc wont be classed as a sport? Paintball still wont be a sport then will it, just speedball.

I for one think paintball has come far enough in the short amount of time it has been around. Let's catch our breath, consolidate our position and take a step back to look at what we've accomplished and what we can do next instead of rushing ahead with such trivial things as TV coverage, we are in no rush or crisis are we?

I think that if paintball as a whole is accepted as a sport and gets the big shiny official sport medal then it will lead to a few more serious players. The TV advert revenues will allow more teams to pay their players meaning more competetive teams that are dedicated to playing every event. I also see paintball becoming a bit like footey (soccer for our US friends). Leagues being played and a lot of smaller local teams with new players being spotted on these local teams and being bought and moved on higher up the ladder to possibly playing on some form of national team. I think this will be true for both Sup' Air and Woodsball tournies depending on what flavour the wider public acceptance wants.

But if we are a sport will the public suddenly be interested... No, we will still have a long way to go to get the Gen Public on our side and that will take time.

Much love,
Niox

 

[Baca Loco]

Of course it can be related to as a sport. "Soccer" as they call it over there is very small, but is still considered a sport, so why cant paintball thats small over here be considered a sport?

Small is a relative term. Soccer is played in the less than overwhelmingly popular MLS (pro league with what? 12 - 16 teams?) but also at lots of universities and pee-wee soccer is everywhere in Florida and Cali for starters. On most Saturdays literally thousands and thousands of kids are playing soccer in youth leagues. The problem, such as it is, is that once the kids get a little older they realize, O my God, I've been playing soccer and quickly find something else to compete in.

 

[Mario]

O my God, I've been playing soccer and quickly find something else to compete in.

something good you mean?

 

[Raffles]

...I don’t see why paintballer’s don’t get behind it especially if someone else is doing the work in regards to trying to get the official status.

Exactly!

The idea of me starting this thread was so that I was able to dip in to the paintballers psychy and something really interesting showed up.

Newer players think the sport recognition will make paintball the new extreme sport that everyone will want to play - and loads of money will pour in.

The 'older' of us realise that the paintball utopia doesn't exist - but it may - just may - one day.

The trouble is - as long as the newer players expect it to happen overnight - it won't. It is going to take a lot of hard work, usually by the 'older' ones, to make it get anywhere near that goal.

Sport recognition is just one step towards that utopia - but a very necessary one. Russ & Co are working towards that step already - and the best of luck to them.

But, what's the next step after recognition?

Anyone any suggestions?