Lisbon Benfica and Sporting Portugal get Paintball into the media!

[Bunkerkidz]

Last Saturday, teams Lisbon Benfica and Sporting Portugal had an exhibition match in Lisbon, and we had the pleasure of having several members of the media present to cover it, from all of Portugal's major sports papers. Lisbon Benfica had the pleasure of counting with the presence of Jeff Abott, CEO of DYE Europe making a comeback on the field, and we were the winners of the match, by 5-2.

As such, both teams were recently featured in 4 separate publications, with good, informative articles that portray paintball in a positive light.
I think this is a very good step for paintball, as it's helping it to become recognized as a legitimate sport. For instance, I've had several people come up to me and ask about it, saying that they saw it on the paper. :tup:

Lisbon Benfica also got an article just about our team in a major publication.

Scans of said articles above.
REVISTA J

RECORD

RECORD

O JOGO

A BOLA

And finally.
JORNAL BENFICA

(High resolution pictures can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilbelford/)


Hopefully this will keep up and set a precedent for all other countries and teams to do the same.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our sponsors who make this possible: DYE Precision, Tadao Technologies and Ponto de Mira.

With best regards,
Gil Belford.
#17 SLB

 

[Basik]

Who are Sporting Portugal? Are they another team with the backing of a football club?

 

[Tommy210]

That's fantastic!!!!

Congratulation boys!!!!

 

[Jeff Abbott - Dye]

Who are Sporting Portugal? Are they another team with the backing of a football club?

Sporting Lisbon are another Portuguese Soccer Team, Benficas rivals, who have taken a paintball team under their wing.

Good job guys!

keka

 

[Mikey D]

Great stuff Gil
I spoke to him about it in Malaga, and although it's not going to just throw us into the sports pages weekly, its a very big step being associated with the clubs.
Key thing people need to realise is that they didnt go searching for money galore off the clubs, so dont go writing to your local Premier League team asking for thousands of pounds.

Be interesting to see if it takes off anywhere else

 

[jamtheman188]

Great Stuff!
I like the way in one of the articles they have player profile pictures. Portrays paintball as more of a proffesional sport, to people who will have probably never heard of tournament style paintball.
Shame I have no idea what it says.

 

[jacktheman2]

Nice one MR belford. Like people said before grate exposure for paintball . I wish the team all the best

 

[Sherman]

Scans of said articles above.

Those pictures are size of a stamp. Can't make much of those, any bigger ones?

Good job!

 

[Basik]

Those pictures are size of a stamp. Can't make much of those, any bigger ones?

Good job!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilbelford/

Go on that, click on article you want, then click all sizes in left hand corner of pic

 

[Bunkerkidz]

Those pictures are size of a stamp. Can't make much of those, any bigger ones?

Good job!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilbelford/

Go on that, click on article you want, then click all sizes in left hand corner of pic

What he said.

Thanks a lot for all the support everyone.

The best thing about this is that I don't really have to explain to people what I do, now, when I bring up the fact that I play Paintball, people actually know what it is.