Legacy out of NXL, LTZ to follow

[Chicago]

The revised sports figures are now suggesting it's something like 5 million but either way, that is academic because your rebuttal is based upon some points that just don't hold up.

Depends how you count. SGMA says 10 million, they count anyone who played at least once. NSGA counts closer to 5, they count people who play at least twice. So, 5 million people play once a year.

About 1.5 million play 15 or more times a year.

First off, sales pick up when paintball is on TV and dip back down when it is not ...this is undeniable and therefore indicates that TV has a positive influence.

I'm not denying that this is the case. What I'm saying is that the 'pickup' you get when people are seeing the sport for the first time is more than when they see it for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th times.

If we had 10 million participants, we wouldn't be in the sh!t we are now, trust me on that one.

Why do you think that?

Health of business is based on lots of things beyond size of market. You could have 50 million participants, but if you had too many people trying to sell to them, you'd still have a bad business climate. The biggest reason paintball is in a sorry state of business affairs right now is when paintball was growing 20% a year, a lot of companies invested a lot of money expecting that trend to continue, and it didn't, and they got in trouble.

Also, I'd question whether business is really that bad. TOURNAMENT SPONSORSHIP is in a crappy state, but I don't think that's a reflection of the sport as a whole, it's just a reflection of businesses realizing that there are better ways to spend their money. Scenario games are bigger than ever. you have to remember that pro paintball players don't make paintball companies any money. Tournament paintball players don't make paintball companies much money. What makes paintball manufacturers money is those kids who play in the woods a few times a year.

Something has to be wrong if what you're saying is right.
Your rebuttal also depends upon the 500k viewership being stable i.e. the same people seeing it.

500k is the pretty standard number from ESPN2. Both the NPPL and NXL shows did about that well. Probably be lower on FSN.

And also, you guys have 300 million people over there I think and at any given time, there will be kids coming into 'that age' when paintball becomes an option, it's a fluid demographic Chris as you well know mate and not a fixed one.

I wholeheartedly agree here - paintball needs to focus on kids, because that's the untapped market. Anybody out of high school has already been exposed to the sport. And I think if you think just a bit about my involvement in paintball you can see I heavily favor this approach.

I certainly don't have all the answers in terms of market analysis, and I don't think anybody does because I talk to a lot of the people who are at the top of our industry and most of them are thrashing around trying to keep their head above water and at the same time not really knowing how they got here.

That's because most of them are just guys who played paintball in the 80's or early 90's who started paintball companies when no one else started paintball companies and got here mostly by virtue of getting in the game first. Talk to the guys running the big corporate companies like JT and KEE and I think you'll see a different perspective. Those guys know EXACTLY what they are after.

you also know a lot of these guys, listen to the rhetoric and then try to reconcile it with your post because I can't seem to do it.

First mistake is listening to their rhetoric.

That 10 million figure has been bandied around now for a year or so and has now been halved by the very same people who came out with it in the first place. And as Dave YB suggested to me and I put it in the magazine 'Pete, how the hell do we even know if it's 5 million, we just don't'.

That 10 million figure is straight from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. It's based on a representative survey of the entire country, and is about as good as you can get in measuring something like this. It's way more accurate than presidential polling, for example, they do something like 60,000 samples each year. If they say it's 10 million, it's probably 10 million. And if it's not 10 million, if they say we're 10 million and another sport is 5 million, we probably at LEAST have twice as many participants as the other sport does.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. If the SGMA says there are 10 million, then advertisers think there is 10 million.

He's right, we don't and present sales figures suggest something is fundamentally wrong with our previous understanding of numbers and reasons for playing.

Depends who you talk to. If you're talking to DYE, you're going to get an entirely different perspective than talking to JT or Spyder. The high-end gun manufacturers are having a tough time - the vast majority of gun sales are in places like Wal-Mart now, and on the low-end, and there's just no reason to spend $800+ on a gun anymore when you can get an ION for under $300.

 

[Chicago]

The vast majority of those people have run around in some wood "playing soldiers".

If we really wanted to attract huge numbers to play MORE than the 2 times per year that the 10 million number covers - in the current climate - then we should put on a TV show that pushed playing recball on a competitive level, because that is what most of the 10 million think paintball is - and what they can relate to.

No, we should scrap the TV show idea entirely. A TV show is a stupid way to try and get the 10 million people to play more. If you want the 10 million people to play more, you provide them with an experience that is more fun, more convenient, and more economical. You find a way to push fields that suck out of business. You don't let people with 15 bps electros play with newbies with rentals. You provide a social atmosphere at your playing location. You have rewards and referral programs. You create a good direct marketing program.

If you don't have those things, you can put on a TV show, people will show up, not have a good time, or forget about it, and not come back.