Olympics

[Buddha 3]

I agree to the extent that it is very unlikely paintball will ever become an Olympic sport. However it is very easily televised and it wouldn't be that hard to set up for spectators if it were to become an Olympic sport. You clearly don't watch the PSP or mills events, both of which are webcast/televised and have hundreds of spectators. It seems to me you are not familiar with the speedball side of the sport and you were thinking more around the woodsball/scenario game.

Also I disagree with the point you make about only being a hobby... Pro paintball is a big thing, and for many of us the game is much more than a hobby. I think if you spoke to the likes of Dynasty, damage or RL (pro psp teams) and called what they were doing a "hobby" they would be rather offended.

Paintball easily televised? Hell no. If that were the case, it would have already been done*, rather than being condemned to the darkest recesses of webcasting. It is pretty much impossible to televise in any way that would be meaningful to anybody that is not a paintballer. It's a one way trip to Yawnsville.

The fact that we have a Pro division is laughable. How many of those guys are true pros, as in they earn their living from playing paintball. There are a few of them out there, but not enough to fill an entire division.
The amount of time and effort the avarage "pro" puts into paintball, is nothing compared to the time and effort a pro at any other sport puts in. Some of this is inevitable, as these non-pro pros need to earn a living outside of paintball, but the point still stands.

The only Olympics we'll see paintball in anytimes soon will be the special Olympics.

*Read the latest installment of Robbo's history of paintball.

 

[Dave284]

 

[M4rkm93]

Paintball easily televised? Hell no. If that were the case, it would have already been done*, rather than being condemned to the darkest recesses of webcasting. It is pretty much impossible to televise in any way that would be meaningful to anybody that is not a paintballer. It's a one way trip to Yawnsville.

The fact that we have a Pro division is laughable. How many of those guys are true pros, as in they earn their living from playing paintball. There are a few of them out there, but not enough to fill an entire division.
The amount of time and effort the avarage "pro" puts into paintball, is nothing compared to the time and effort a pro at any other sport puts in. Some of this is inevitable, as these non-pro pros need to earn a living outside of paintball, but the point still stands.

The only Olympics we'll see paintball in anytimes soon will be the special Olympics.

*Read the latest installment of Robbo's history of paintball.

Fully agree that we won't see paintball as an Olympic sport! Point I was making about televising was that other than the large cash sum it would take, recording it and turning it into a viewable series wouldn't be so hard. The PBaccess webcasts could stand as a live programme as it is. The viewing quality is great! Also the fact that this was in relation to the Olympics and not live tv on for example sky sports. Shooting and archery aren't huge huge sports and they are televised very easily in the Olympics, as is every other sport there. The air time is paid for by the nation hosting the Olympics I would have though lt so it wouldn't take any financial backing.

I still argue that Painball is more than a hobby for the "pro" players though. Even though they aren't classes as pro in the sense they play for a living there is still a hell of a lot of effort and commitment that goes into the top level.

Your closing line also made very little sense, almost as if you are trying to belittle the sport?

 

[Buddha 3]

Fully agree that we won't see paintball as an Olympic sport! Point I was making about televising was that other than the large cash sum it would take, recording it and turning it into a viewable series wouldn't be so hard. The PBaccess webcasts could stand as a live programme as it is. The viewing quality is great! Also the fact that this was in relation to the Olympics and not live tv on for example sky sports. Shooting and archery aren't huge huge sports and they are televised very easily in the Olympics, as is every other sport there. The air time is paid for by the nation hosting the Olympics I would have though lt so it wouldn't take any financial backing.

I still argue that Painball is more than a hobby for the "pro" players though. Even though they aren't classes as pro in the sense they play for a living there is still a hell of a lot of effort and commitment that goes into the top level.

Your closing line also made very little sense, almost as if you are trying to belittle the sport?

You are very much mistaken if you think that paintball will be easy to televise. The exact thing that you suggest has already been tried several times, and the TV companies looked at it, laughed, and walked away, shaking their heads in disbelief. This is what history has taught us. The fact that you like to watch the webcasts proves nothing. It is anecdotal evidence at best. You are a paintball fan. If you want to get something like paintball on TV, you have to draw in the non-paintball playing viewers too. Not gonna happen, seriously. It's been tried and some of the people that tried threw a lot of money at it. Not even the most obscure stations were willing to pick it up in any serious way.

And sure, it's so much more than a hobby to the pro players, I wasn't the one that used the word. But no matter how much we'd like them to be, most of them really ain't pros.

As for my closing line, a very wise man, who was balls deep in this game, once told me: There is only one thing wrong with paintball, and that's paintballers.

 

[Tom]

There are two tv shows that I'm aware of that had any form of success televising paintball.
1) has a very small cult following due to stylised scenarios, and breasts (x-fire)
2) has a reasonably regular late night spot every now and then, people discover it and it occasionally fuels a small burst of new rental players (mission paintball) it gives a fair representation of the paintball someone will find if they go to a rental site. (And if they watch the final episode then they get to see an 'international standard tournament '

X-fire technically made 2 series, but they were two 'half series' so tend to be shown in one.
I am only aware of its original transmission and virgin media making it available 'on demand' once

Mission paintball only had one series for the simple reason that the tv company that made it went by the principle of making things as one series, waiting a while and repeating it. This saves on the costs of filming again

 

[M4rkm93]

You are very much mistaken if you think that paintball will be easy to televise. The exact thing that you suggest has already been tried several times, and the TV companies looked at it, laughed, and walked away, shaking their heads in disbelief. This is what history has taught us. The fact that you like to watch the webcasts proves nothing. It is anecdotal evidence at best. You are a paintball fan. If you want to get something like paintball on TV, you have to draw in the non-paintball playing viewers too. Not gonna happen, seriously. It's been tried and some of the people that tried threw a lot of money at it. Not even the most obscure stations were willing to pick it up in any serious way.

And sure, it's so much more than a hobby to the pro players, I wasn't the one that used the word. But no matter how much we'd like them to be, most of them really ain't pros.

As for my closing line, a very wise man, who was balls deep in this game, once told me: There is only one thing wrong with paintball, and that's paintballers.

They manage to televise shooting and archery pretty easily as well as curling and the likes... They are pretty damn boring sports but they manage to get viewing numbers at the Olympics.

 

[Tony Harrison]

Most sports have a single focal point of action - football & rugby have several chaps chasing a ball, darts usually has an unhealthy looking person throwing pointy sticks at a wall.

With paintball, you don't have a single focal point.

You have 10 people on the field doing different things.

Two might be having a gunfight, one might be eating a burger, another would be checking his makeup, two would be going mental at a ref for missing a hit, two might be turning their guns up, one might be going the wrong way up the field and the other one might not be able to see anything, so is just sat behind his bunker.

So you see, no single focal point.

 

[Missy-Q]

I'm going to shoot myself soon if this doesn't stop.

 

[Missy-Q]

Part of the problem is that now we have the Olympics every 2 years.
I could cope with the 'Lets get paintball in the Olympics' noobthusiasm once every 4 years, but this is getting too much.
We don't even really need a new thread for it. There should be an Olympics thread stickied, so that the freshly minted 'why hasn't this been done yet' crowd can get all excited there whenever they want to, even invent 'fresh' ways to film the 'sport' so that it can at last be devoured by the masses, and we can all start having money-fights, while watching the game grow like never before.

Awesome.

 

[Kevin Winter]

They manage to televise shooting and archery pretty easily as well as curling and the likes... They are pretty damn boring sports but they manage to get viewing numbers at the Olympics.

It's bloody easy to look at someone pointing an arrow at the board, and understand the skill set he needs, and what he will have to do to win.
Watch the PSP webcast with a non baller, and you spend the first ten minutes explaining why there are no trees or camo, then another ten trying to explain how they will win the point, then the match.... non players simply have too much pre-conception of it being violent woodsball TA types on stag do's, and are simply bored.