Paintball and politics plus conspiracy theories...

[Buddha 3]

I seriously doubt that proper tv coverage will happen anythime soon, all we'll get is a short notice in the 'oh look, something weird' section of sports television. And it makes sense. It's an extremely hard to document game. If a camera is looking at the wrong guy for just an instant you could miss it all! Bird's eye view cameras won't work, because you'll be too far away from the players to see what's happening. There is no central focal point. You would need way too many cameras to make it worthwhile. All you'd get, when covering a game, is some people running frantically at the break, then everybody crawls into their bunkers, and the next five to six minutes would be dead boring. Just people sitting there and nothing much happening. Then suddenly everybody starts running again, one team walks of the field, and the other team seems happy while one of them is having a jog carrying a snot rag...Wow. Exciting!

 

[Hotpoint]

Originally posted by Liz

That won't be the reason why it won't become an Olympic sport - there are plenty even more expensive sports that are included. All the equestrian events for starters

True enough. During my talks with the Sports Councils they bought up the issue of how expensive Paintball was to play as a reason not to recognise us. I pointed out that the costs of Polo for example were more than ten-times more expensive per participant than Tournament P'ball

Quite a lot of the Winter Olympic Sports are freaking pricy too! A Bobsleigh doesn't come cheap

 

[Liz]

Originally posted by Hotpoint


True enough. During my talks with the Sports Councils they bought up the issue of how expensive Paintball was to play as a reason not to recognise us. I pointed out that the costs of Polo for example were more than ten-times more expensive per participant than Tournament P'ball

Quite a lot of the Winter Olympic Sports are freaking pricy too! A Bobsleigh doesn't come cheap

Hotpoint - if you want more info on the costs of equestrian sports, I can supply you ball park figures quite easily for the Sporets Council to compare. Too many years competing (albeit at a lower level).

 

[Hotpoint]

Originally posted by Buddha 3
I seriously doubt that proper tv coverage will happen anythime soon... It's an extremely hard to document game. If a camera is looking at the wrong guy for just an instant you could miss it all! ...There is no central focal point. You would need way too many cameras to make it worthwhile.

Can't argue with most of that. I've always thought that we'd never get coverage of smaller events because of the issues you raised. On the other hand the more important Tourney's (Toulouse, Campaign etc) would be worth the multiple cameras required to record the game properly

Any info you might have would be much appreciated Liz (nam et ipsa scientia potestas est). If you've got any costings data easily available email me at jonathan.hayes@mapeley.com

BTW for unfamilar readers the latin translates as "Knowledge is Power", and yes I am being pretentious

 

[TJ Lambini]

I still think cost is an issue...

Dunno bout tha UK, but in tha US you can get a horse lesson or go on a trail ride for maybe $15; or go on a dry ski slope for less...there ain't tha same shortcuts in pball just cos of paint prices so you can't get tha trickle down to youth quite so easily.

But I maintain that Olympic accreditation is not particularly worth courting, cos it won't happen and it ain't important.

 

[raehl]

I'm probably going to get a smack for this, but...

Play stock.

Solves pretty much all the problems - not expensive, changes the dynamic of the game from shooting (can't see it) to moving (which spectators can see), and hell, ROF reduction has some positive image consequences.

Those of us who have batted this broadcast concept around extensively know that the killer in terms of paintball on TV is the midgame. Start, cool. End, cool. Middle, sucks. Why? Very little movement. There are a couple formats floating around, I have one myself actually, that make some VERY significant changes to the way the game is played, and one of these days I'll have enough money lying around to build a field to see if the format works.


As for the Olympics, just becoming an olympic sport doesn't do anything for you if NBC doesn't decide to cover the event. And for them, to gamble on paintball over another sport probably isn't worth it. They might do it if they can find a good story in the athletes (that's the key - we don't watch the olympics because we really care about swimming, we watch it because NBC makes the swimmers interesting) but it's a pretty big risk for them to devote time to a new controversial sport when they have the tried-and-true sports to cover.

As for expense, you don't HAVE to pay a lot to play paintball. We get most of our rec players to play at $30-$35/day, and tournaments we keep under $100/player, including entry, air, and paint. A lot of times that can end up close to free depending on how good a club is at working their college activities funding system. (For example, we have one club that got $14,000 to set up a field on campus and another that got $70,000.) And if you start playing stock paintball, your costs decrease even more.

There's certainly plenty of room for paintball to grow, but you need to think out of the box to make it happen. People can stick with the half-case-per-game centerflag format we have now if that's what they want to play, but it's going to be very difficult to use that format to get paintball to a point where it's as interesting to watch as play.

Although it should be noted that that's not necessarily a bad thing - not everyone wants to be on TV.

- Chris

 

[RePete]

I'm surprised at the number of nay-sayers and can't-do-ers. Every problem has a solution.

The problem with following the action in Paintball always gets mention, as does the high number of cameras required. I thought the little map on the Toulouse video was a neat idea that went a little way towards addressing this. And if the player numbers are reduced, does this no ease the camera requirements? Seven-man must be easier to film than ten. Will X-ball be camera number friendly?

A couple of years ago, all the hubbub seemed to be what the USPL was going to do with things. Patents over digital film technology and stuff that made the paint easier to see on telly and the like. What ever happened to the USPL? [Insert conspiracy here]

The image thing. My goodness, we've already come so far. Compare the videos that Tyger dredged up. And that's not even old school. The stadiums, the uniforms, the colours. Hell, a lot of markers don't even really resemble guns nowadays. And when I tell people what I play and show them, it's not "Oh my. That looks so war like". It's "Oh my. I didn't realise people played that". The battle lies in that last statement IMHO. And for people who want to say it's violent or war like. What is boxing? What is fencing? Admittedly these sports came to fruition when societies views of war were much different. Honourable, nay chivalrous. But I find the war connotations surrounding tournament Paintball fading every day.

I want to be able to play any given weekend in social/tournament leagues like people play rugby or cricket, I want to be able to see ball on TV, I want to be able to walk into nearly any bookshop and find at least a couple Paintball rags on the shelves, I want to be able to walk into a sporting goods store and look at a new pair of kneepads, I want to be able to tell strangers I play ball and have them ask "Do you play that one in the woods, or that one with the colourful blow-up things?". It will happen.

 

[RePete]

Originally posted by RePete
...Every problem has a solution...

Bleah. Quoting myself...

Obviously the hard part is getting people to agree on the solution.

 

[raehl]

You don't want to get me started on the USPL...

Good concept.

Crap execution.


As an engineer by trade, I can attest to the fact that having the best product means nothing if your sales and marketing of the product stink. The USPL utterly failed to present their product in a manner that would allow it to prosper.



- Chris

 

[Buddha 3]

You don't want to get me started on the USPL...

Originally posted by raehl
I can attest to the fact that having the best product means nothing if your sales and marketing of the product stink.
- Chris

And as somebody heavily involved in marketing, I'll second that.

But I still think that paintball is hard to properly do on tv. Even if you do get all the cameras, and whatnots. To the people that don't play, there's nothing going on. Even if you manage to get all sorts of cool digital toys that'll allow people to see the balls better, there still is no centre of activity, like in most other sports. Most games just take one ball to the field, we bring about 15.000 per game...