I think you all better read this !

[manike]

It would be very interesting to see a set of demographics or to try and work them out somehow.

We could possible work out tourny player numbers from entrance to events such as NPPL, Pan Am etc. Wouldn't be too hard.

We could work out recplayers from field attendances and possibly higher end gun sales? (not sure that would work).

And back yard renegade players from paint and marker sales from places like Walmart etc, since most fields in the USA require you to use their paint and few rec players would want to use BE stuff from Walmart

Certainly the demographics for the USA are very different to the UK and Europe. The renegade paintball scene in the USA is HUGE. And it doesn't mean that they are all flouting safety and goggle regulations and chrono's. Many do still take this into account and have private renegade fields with safety precautions (a fair proportion do not, but still...) I know quite a few USA recplayers who play at organised fields and at renegade sites, when they can't be arsed to travel the 1.5-2 hours to their 'local' field they are still safety concious though.

In the UK I think Bully mentioned there being something like 300 regular tourny players. Doesn't seem like that much does it? And the rec scene here is not too large either, most players in the UK are 'weekend warriors' out with work etc. So your average baller over here has probably never read a magazine (they are hard to get in shops here) and hasn't got a clue about the top end of the market.

In the USA I don't have a clue how many tourny players there are, but the Rec scene is phenomenal. And having met a fair proportion of the demographic at big events, they may have heard 'vaguely' of the NPPL, but don't give the slightest about it. They don't see how it effects them. From what I was told the renegade scene is even larger in the USA and I'm not convinced they will have even heard of NPPL or care about it.

We care about it because it is the visual and foremost part of the sport and we heralded it as the way forward for paintball. Which it is/was for a long time.

Just my opinion though

manike

 

[Bigdog]

With the super 7 having been announced, what will Nexus be doing next year?
Will it be x-ball, or 7 man?

 

[TJ Lambini]

Depends whether

the 16-team X-Ball Conference featuring 10 US and 6 Euro teams is ratified or not I'd guess.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Bigdog
With the super 7 having been announced, what will Nexus be doing next year?
Will it be x-ball, or 7 man?

At the moment, we are going for the X-ball.............

 

[Bigdog]

Originally posted by Robbo
At the moment, we are going for the X-ball.............

Rock on guys, got to watch Rushers a couple of times this year & if they keep improving like that It should be good.
Best of luck.

 

[Hotpoint]

Originally posted by manike
It would be very interesting to see a set of demographics or to try and work them out somehow.

In the UK I think Bully mentioned there being something like 300 regular tourny players. Doesn't seem like that much does it? And the rec scene here is not too large either,

Depends on how you define "regular" really. The number of Tourney players in the UK is between 800 and 1000

Although less than comprehensive (due to the limited number of sites who bothered to respond) if we extrapolate the data from the UKPSF Site surveys for the last couple of years there are currently around 300-400 Thousand people who play Paintball in the UK annually. The vast majority are one-time recballers though

Sounds like a lot but given that there are 175 UKPSF member sites (and not all sites are members btw) that only averages at 33-44 per site per week

 

[Buddha 3]

Re: Gotta disagree there boys

Originally posted by Robbo
And this is precisley why I made that earlier distinction betwen players and occasionals and suggested that players are interested in what goes on !
Pete

So basically the cause of your disagreement is the interpretation of what defines 'player'.

Perhaps we should find that definition first, before going on.

 

[manike]

Thanks Jon for the numbers

Would that 800-1000 figure be the total number of tourny players, who say participate in at least one tourny a year? or is is those that would look to attend multiple events in a year?

So if we look at the UK ratio of 1000 people who play tournies and who might know about the top level of the sport as compared to some 300,000 who are probably one of players and who I doubt would know such stuff (I agree with Beaker here, I snowboard once a year, sometimes twice and love it, but have no clue about the top end of that sport).

So it's just my conjecture but that would mean 0.3% of UK paintballers know about the top levels of the sport. Now how many of them care or think it effects them?

Anyone else got any numbers we can analyse?

I wonder how these ratio's would relate to the USA.

manike

 

[Robbo]

Buddha's right and I thought I had done, leastwise for my assertions but it seems to have got lost somewhere and we are basketing together the whole gamut of ballers and then deducing the percentages from there.
Firstly, define what is meant by player (which is what I based my original opinion on) as against occasional baller, get the numbers for that and then do your analysis.

'Garbage in, garbage out', originated in computer sciences but wholly applicable to statistics, if you are gonna try and get serious, then do it seriously

Robbo

 

[TJ Lambini]

Still tricky

Out of some 6 million participants in 2000, 1,172,000 played 15+ days a year...does that make them 'players'?

Even if we create an acceptable definition - i.e. must play X no. of times a year, must own at least own gun/loader and goggles - we have no way of getting hold of those figures cos no-one knows!

It's always gonna be guesswork to some degree, but I reckon my 100k or so North American ballers who care about what happens in the Pro leagues is pretty accurate. And that's a damn good figure for a sport so young.