Paintball...an extreme sport?

[Duncster]

Hi all,

From time to time I'll summon enough energy to enable me to browse through the myriad of useless posts and replies by the throngs of twat-head mooks who inhabit the boards of pbnation.com. I never find anything good (apart from the link to those Fox/NPPL vids), but yesterday I found a post by some guy who basically asked if paintball should serioulsy be considered an extreme sport.

Naturally, lots of flaming ensued from ****brained numbnuts who seemed to take great offence to anyone who dared insinuate that they weren't participants of an extreme sport (I'll bet most of them were about 10...) - like it really matters...

Take a look - do you think he was out of order? or do you think he really deserved the treatment he got?...

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?threadid=459398

Due to the responses he got, I'm actually starting to think he's right when he siad this:

'The whole move to call the hobby an "extreme sport" is a marketing ploy by the industry and in sadly embrased by youngsters who want to apear "cool" by claiming they play an "extreme sport". '

...please don't let the paintballing public of Euroland/UK get like this...


Dunc.

 

[chunk]

Originally posted by Duncster
Hi all,

but yesterday I found a post by some guy who basically asked if paintball should serioulsy be considered an extreme sport.


Dunc.

do a search theres been a thread about this before

 

[Duncster]

it's not just that, chunk dude... maybe I should have entitled the thread differently to make my intentions clearer...

When reading the referenced thread on pbnation, I actually got angry at the totally over the top response this guy got on one of the sports bigger forums... I wanted to see the response here, since that thread had been closed...

D.

 

[Pinchaaay]

Saves going back to and fro, here's his thread from pbnation:-


Over the weekend for grins I watch a promotional video that Brass Eagle puts out with it's player kits to watch the Rainmaker usage on said video. I had to laugh when the BE spokesmodel described the game as "an extreme sport". Sadly this is not the only time I have seen the game described as such.

For the longest time I resisted calling paintball a sport. To me it really didn't fit the bill. But then someone pointed out two things. first that things like Curling and Ice Dancing are considered to be sports. Then I took a look at th actual definition:

Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
A particular form of this activity.
An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.
An active pastime; recreation.

Ok, so I grudgingly accept that paintball is a sport. (however by this broad definition my other hobbies of arisoft and miniature wargaming are also sports. This is even more the case with the wargaming as I do play competitively and competed in the national DBM championships on a couple of different occasions) However I content that most players do not play it as a sport. Most play it as a game or hobby. The only ones who really can be said to play the game as a sport are the so-called "pros" and the upper end of the tourny crowd. Baseball and basketball are undeniably sports. However are YOU playing a sport when you play sandlot basebal or "shoot some hoops" in your driveway? of course not.

But back to the subject of paintball being an "extreme" sport. This is simply not the case. Extreme sports involved extreme;y dangerous activities that involve a very real threat of death or serious injury. (examples include skydiving, rapid running, and base jumping) Paintball simply does not fit the bill. The whole move to call the hobby an "extreme sport" is a marketing ploy by the industry and in sadly embrased by youngsters who want to apear "cool" by claiming they play an "extreme sport".

"Extreme sport"? Don't make me laugh and don't kid yourself.


__________________

 

[L J]

forgive me for being blunt, but dunc has already pointed it out, pbnation really does have a class 'crew' of tw**s on there dont it.

the argument he made i thought was actually pretty valid in my books. and then the kiddies come on and use the great insults of saying " go play warhammer" or " go have sex with your cat"

im just waiting for one of them to call him gay.. woops, meant festive

 

[PaRaDOx]

lol well wouldnt wry about it ppl who give responses best experiance of p8ntball is sitting inthere back garden trying to hit crows with there spyder aggressor (sorry spyder owners dont mean to offend)..

Adam

 

[H]

The problem with paintball is that there are so many different permutations and variations of it, from the top level NXL/NPPL right down to Joe Blogs going to play 'paint wars' for his mates stag do.

As far as I'm concerned, tournament paintball is a sport. Whether the guys at the top (PB companies or TV folks) want to class it as an 'Extreme Sport' then i guess they are free to do so, i don't have any objections. Because tourney ball isn't something that is established in the mindset of the general public (like football or golf), how the media portrays it will become how the public perceives it.

On the subject of PBNation forum 'kidz'. However PB is regarded doesn't matter, annoying, stupid kids will always be annoying stupid kids.

PS. sorry for the lack of much sense, been out tonight.

 

[sNoW DeFiAnT]

you cant really get more extreme then being shot at with projectiles going 200+ miles an hour. And it is obviously a sport.

But its like a lot of things. Snowboarding for example, some people just go up hit the slopes to have some fun with their buddies and do it as a hobby. But Some compete for thousands of dollars and to them it is life. Thats the difference between sports and hobbies, its all where you take it.

Paintball has every right to be a sport and not a hobby or game. Its just how it is to you that makes it that way. I'm crazy about paintball, paintball is life to me, and when people say its just a hobby or game you can imagine how it feels. If im limited because some people think paintball shouldn't be competitive or have tournies, then I can't do something that I love a lot while football players get millions of dollars for knocking people over and throwing a pig's skin around.

Basically paintball should be up there with all the other sports. But its what you make it, if you want to compete, compete. If you wanna keep it as a hobby, keep it as a hobby, dont force it to keep it that way for the other people who are insane about it, and to whom it's life.

 

[H]

'ball these days is the one of the things that matters most to me. I love playing and i love being involved.

To me it matters no less to my enjoyment whether it is a sport, hobby or activity. I know that 'ball will probably never be accepted into society as anymore than a jumped up wargame with guys in silly coloured shirts. Bah, i have no pretense that I'm some icon of coolness (have you seen me?!), so whether it is some hip, cool, MTV friendly 'Extreme Sport' doesn't matter one jot. It would be nice if it was accepted a bit more, and got some more exposure, but to be honest the more exposure it gets then it is more likely to move away from the thing that i love.

Maybe.....

 

[sNoW DeFiAnT]

Originally posted by TheBroz
It would be nice if it was accepted a bit more, and got some more exposure, but to be honest the more exposure it gets then it is more likely to move away from the thing that i love.

Maybe.....

ya i completely agree. But there are some ballers and non ballers out there that say that it shouldnt be competetive at all and there shouldnt be NXL or super 7s or milleniums. And that it should be confined to just being played at local fields. And these people say that all you do is pull a trigger, and that its for war junkies.

thats when i get mad. because its a sport that they obviously havent played, and dont know how demanding it is and how fun it is.