Going Down?
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
I detest the whole idea of indulging 'c' celebrities in their pathological need to be seen .... I cannot, will not, look at sh!te TV and the people who populate it ... it makes me wanna go get medieval on a few celebrities 
Celebrities, Paintball or otherwise have FA to do with the decline in the paintball industry. The fact is it’s a tiny pie, and there’s not enough to go round for everyone.
A Billion USD is a rounding error at any reasonable sized company. Given the global market is so small, the Return on Equity for any global brand is not worth significant investment, especially at the tournament end where the return is near FA.
At the small beer end of the market, small sites, small fry tournament organisers etc there’s always a stipend to be made, but short term these people aren’t going to push paintball forward no matter how much they believe their own BS. Sure, Paintballers might think that 100k a year is a good living, but that’s chicken feed. It’s a few nights out with ladies of the pole.
Paintball will only move forward when the serious companies (purely business motivated or business first, paintball second) see sufficient return to be made, and that will always come first from the site / customer or rental market due to mass.
If tournament players want paintball to survive or in the next 10 years thrive, then they have to invest time support into the customer end of the market – not poaching customers, supporting and promoting local sites etc etc. Whilst the average site owner is often seen as the enemy of tournament paintball, until the money goes up the chain to the big wholesalers and paint distributors (sites buying paint and kit), these companies are going to reduce / withhold sponsorship and support. Remember the average tournament player has done nothing to deserve sponsorship other than incentivised or bulk buying discount. Dye could give 2 or 10 million free bullets a year to Nexus, however the actual return on this investment will likely be exactly the same regardless of whatever end of the scale the sponsorship is at; even if Nexus suddenly win every Millennium event.
A Billion USD is a rounding error at any reasonable sized company. Given the global market is so small, the Return on Equity for any global brand is not worth significant investment, especially at the tournament end where the return is near FA.
At the small beer end of the market, small sites, small fry tournament organisers etc there’s always a stipend to be made, but short term these people aren’t going to push paintball forward no matter how much they believe their own BS. Sure, Paintballers might think that 100k a year is a good living, but that’s chicken feed. It’s a few nights out with ladies of the pole.
Paintball will only move forward when the serious companies (purely business motivated or business first, paintball second) see sufficient return to be made, and that will always come first from the site / customer or rental market due to mass.
If tournament players want paintball to survive or in the next 10 years thrive, then they have to invest time support into the customer end of the market – not poaching customers, supporting and promoting local sites etc etc. Whilst the average site owner is often seen as the enemy of tournament paintball, until the money goes up the chain to the big wholesalers and paint distributors (sites buying paint and kit), these companies are going to reduce / withhold sponsorship and support. Remember the average tournament player has done nothing to deserve sponsorship other than incentivised or bulk buying discount. Dye could give 2 or 10 million free bullets a year to Nexus, however the actual return on this investment will likely be exactly the same regardless of whatever end of the scale the sponsorship is at; even if Nexus suddenly win every Millennium event.
Why does paintball HAVE to be related or dependant upon big business ?
Surely as a sport / hobby it can exist without Corporate Entities and their needs and desires ?
Surely it used to ?
There used to be enough cash to be made for companies to make paintballs even when we were putting them into home made hoppers made out of drainage pipe. At what point did the sport become beholden to multi-nationals ?
I assume PGI made a profit in the early days (or years) ? What happenned that made it unviable long term ?
Surely as a sport / hobby it can exist without Corporate Entities and their needs and desires ?
Surely it used to ?
There used to be enough cash to be made for companies to make paintballs even when we were putting them into home made hoppers made out of drainage pipe. At what point did the sport become beholden to multi-nationals ?
I assume PGI made a profit in the early days (or years) ? What happenned that made it unviable long term ?
Aside from the fact that people were paying 10 times per bullet in these halycon days you refer, one also assumes you have the 2 million in capital required to set up your own paint plant?
And if you think the sport isn't already beholden to the multi-nationals, your either advocating a return to 100 quid a case and the only event worth playing was Mayhem or you think Dye, SP etc are run in peoples spare time out of their garages???
People stopped advertising in all the printed press ..... hence the demise of the vast majority of titles.
I thought it was when Beaker expensed all those Romanian ladies of horizontal refreshment.
Actually, those ladies of the night were on an hourly rate and I don't think £3.64 was gonna break the PGi bank somehow ....