Millennium Apathy !

[sumo89]

i know for me as well as a few others on my team that it is just the cost of it that stops me being able to enter it. Its all good and well saying that its only £30 more than a day at the UK Masters or whatever, but to raise a spare £200 is nigh on inpossible.

You may be jumping to conclusions that everyone playing ball in the UK doesnt have the drive or comitment needed. I belive that until sup air ball grows in popularity there are too few people with the drive and comitment around, as you have to rely on your teammates being able to go as well as yourself.

 

[sponge10]

what do brit paintballers want?

everything for nothing........

could'nt have said it better myself!!!

 

[Markie C]

I'm afraid that unless the site owners adopt different business strategies then this situation will worsen ..... we need new blood; the blood we have in our system already has proven to be acutaly inadequate in volume or quality.

We cannot make silk purses out of sow's ears, we cannot make a horse drink when we lead it to water......we need new players, young players, committed players and only then can we ever hope to get ourselves out of this sh!t.

But this means we are now reliant on a bunch of people who have proved time and time again they are incapable (for the most part) to see past their back pocket when it comes to investing in expanding the options on their site.

We need a lot more sites to offer Sup 'Air as a playing alternative as I have said many times before but I might as well go head-butt an anvil for all the good it will do.

I agree but disagree at the same time pete.

Bernie from go ballistic has tried in vain to help tournament ballers out in every way possible.

He spent X amount on a indoor reball place within 4 months had to shut it because not enough interest....


He has spent X amount on the redoing his site in dishforth and gave it the nq name still no one wants to get their heads down and train.

I think that new players are not aware from the off set what can be achieved in paintball as in playing at a higher level they just think that the local tournament is it.

Plus there is the cost of it all as well.

You think of the culture we are living in today its all about going out getting smashed and because no one really earns that much they cant justify paying that much for any thing (this is all speculation by the way i have no facts just my thoughts)...

down south Dave with d7's gets a regular turn out we do ok in manchester not sure about the rest...but making more supair sites do you think it is going to dilute the market ????? and make it so that to many players are few and far between ??
i am not sure,,, and this is not me saying don't open to many cause i wont get any business it has got to do with some thing i read the other day about maybe tournament paintball is on its way out and i really did see it and it made me a little bit sick inside because of what i have sacrificed for this thing then for it to implode because other people have got hidden agendas so it will make it all fall on its arse....

i really hope i am wrong because i have lost a lot to paintball in its supair form.......

 

[Robbo]

Markie, I had better explain what I am saying here, sites like yourself and others try to cater for ballers who have already made the jump from woodland / rec/ scenario to tourney; sites like yourself do not necessarily generate new blood though I will happily concede there is some generation.

New blood is for the most part, generated from the woodland site demographic being exposed to Sup 'Air, tourney etc, just like it always has done.
Now this is not an exclusive transition I agree and players can come into tourney via various routes but this is, and always has been the mainstay of our lifeblood.

The only other option to this was to have had paintball on TV and to generate interest in this way but I'm afraid this has too has fallen by the wayside coz if the US envdeavour failed, then our productions had zero chance.

I have been one of the worst over for flagging up this problem but i know many others have commented too, just as in this thread but let's face a few facts here.
No amount of moaning, especially from me, is gonna change one damn thing because all of our protestations ain't gonna mount to one player getting serious if he don't wanna, not one.
Appealing to any sporting conscience or ethos isn't gonna work either because that is not the reason most of us play, we acquire that after we have played tourney ball and generally not before.

I have moaned a lot, but I have also provided a blueprint of action whereby our sites, players and teams can move forward but this fell on stony ground, and always will do, all the time people just don't' wanna change or can't be bothered to change coz that is the bottom line here guys.

We just have to accept it, grit our teeth, not hope for too much and maybe tings will change.
But we now have to remember, there is a dark and more ominous dynamic at work in Paintball and that is one of a deep and significant Stateside recession which will pretty soon be sucking a lot of money out of the tourney circuit.

Things ain't gonna get better in the short term guys.

 

[Syd (NSPL)]

I'd like to throw another point in to this debate. Is lack of promotion a factor here? Do the Millennium home events get promoted in France and Germany by the sponsors and Millennium board? For instance, do Max promote the Max Masters at German events? I suspect they do.

Do the UK-based Millennium organisers and sponsors actively promote the Campaign Cup to the UK tournament demographic? As a domestic tournament organiser, I can say that no promotion has come to teams playing the NSPL other than the promotion I have personally done. Would the Millennium benefit from upping the promotion of these events to the home-country teams through domestic tournaments and via mailouts with orders shipped from sponsors, etc?

 

[Dark Stranger]

But we now have to remember, there is a dark and more ominous dynamic at work in Paintball and that is one of a deep and significant Stateside recession which will pretty soon be sucking a lot of money out of the tourney circuit.

Things ain't gonna get better in the short term guys.

I thought the tourney scene in the states was always expanding?

 

[Russell Smith]

Not sure I agree if paintball is on the decline to extinction but we all agree something must be done.
The thing is the majority of people are just waiting for someone else to do it! and those who investing cash into ventures that on paper look as though they may be beneficial to paintball (and themselves) seem to be looking at the current player base for customers so the benefit to paintball is negligible.

What is required is the regeneration of a player base, nice and simple to say and seemingly impossible to achieve, except it is not impossible it just needs cash and time.
At the moment teams have to go for the new player who has some cash to spend on equipment and tournaments so we have to look at a very specific demographic.
I believe we must invest in the youth and we need to start in the schools and we also must except the fact that the local customer rec-ball centre will gain from our endeavours but where did we all start....
Like I said it needs cash and time - so where do we get them from!
For the cash we have tried to work with the site owners because they will get the initial most profitable benefits to finance a DVD that will be going to every high school and youth centre nation wide and the costs incurred with this sort of promotion even when you have cut all the expenses to the minimum still works out at £1.60 per dvd + postage.
We have worked out a deal with a group of site owners who will be financing the first 10,000 and they are in production now.
Will it be the answer! not sure but it can only help, the dvd's are a promotion for the sites to the schools/clubs but we have also included how to get to the next level if you want to try it and the sites will also have a stack of magazines to hand out......

We can but try....

Russ

 

[Gadget]

What do the Brit Paintballers want?

I think the majority of us want to have some fun, hang out with our mates, buy some shiny toys and shoot some fools.

There is however a minority who take the game seriously and want to compete at the highest level.

The problem is that there are too few of the take-it-seriously types to support a major-league tournament series.

Personally I'm firmly in the former camp - paintball is a fun sport which I take part in when I can fit it in around the rest of my life.

In order to be a 'proper' athlete and take the sport seriously, you need focus on the game and fit the rest of your life around it.

 

[Robbo]

I thought the tourney scene in the states was always expanding?

DS, I'm afraid the front end sales is the problem, the tourney scene money from the industry has a lag attached to it and will soon become a factor, in fact it is kicking in now.
Last night I spent a fair amount of time on the phone and just to give u an idea of who I spoke to (not to name drop but to provide validity to what i am about to tell you), I talked to Bobby Long, Ollie Lang, Rich Telford, Bryon Bennini to name but a few and I came out the other side of those conversations feeling somewhat depressed.

There is a feeling that a a number of pro teams are just about to fold or are coming up to that point. Factory teams seeming to be the ones who are least affected...but in my opinion, it's only a matter of time before these are too.

We are going through an extremely rough patch at the moment and the sooner we have a clear out (market forces will determine a number companies biting the dust) the better.
It will then distribute their sales (the companies who have gone) to the survivors and therefore push up sales and profits...hopefully.

As a consequence of this transition, we will see the pro / tourney scene deeply affected. I am not gonna go into too much detail because it serves no propose but believe me ..things are bad and they are gonna get worse and so the state of UK paintball is but a pimple on our sport's ass, nobody gives a sh!t about it because there are more fundamental problems to deal with...problems like survival.

And to be honest, if not enough people over here really care about our fate or World status, then why should anybody else?

We won't die on the vine because I believe there will always be a rec scene but the tourney scene over here in terms of producing high end teams?
No chance .. absolutely no chance, we ain't and won't get the resources, we don't have the expertise and we don't have the required player demographic...end of.

There is however a light at the end of the tunnel and his name is Bruce Friedman, this is the guy who has purchased the NPPL. I have spoken to him at length on several subjects and maybe his vision will become our vision and i think he is our only hope ....let's hope he can succeed.
He told me his plans and I think he is most definitely on the right track, it's a 5 year plan and so there is no short term revival gonna happen.
Let's hope he succeeds because if he does, we all do....

 

[rancid]

Paintball's economic fortunes are cyclical... since i started in 88, its been two good years, 1.5 settled years, 2 miserable years. In the words of our lord jon anderson, 'it goes up, it comes down'.

Unfortunately, these days the downs seem worse cos of the ridiculous captaincy within the industry and the opium-fuelled investments over the last couple of yours. So the flood may take out a few more weighty companies than in previous years. But the clean out will be good long term.

I disagree with Robbo re site owners not pulling their weight. If i had a local shop the last thing I would be doing is stocking Tesco's ownbrand. Local siteowners having a hard time? Mmmm not so sure. I dont think it's their responsibility to promote.

I think also we cannot see supair in isolation. All sports are struggling for attendance. I sit on the board of the British Federation of Sport and Play and this is a problem across the whole of sport. So, we must consider that this is a 'competitive youth' problem and not just paintball's.