Most people may have heard that Richmond Italia has now taken over ownership of Procaps, the company he prevoiusly sold years ago.
What you may not know are some of the events surrounding Richmond's coup and so here are some of those details, warts an' all ... :-
Richmond Italia back in the saddle at Procaps ..
Most people in our industry and players are well aware of who Richmond Italia is, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick summary of his escapades.
He created a company called Procaps in the late nineties, it soon became an industry leader and enjoyed a phenomenal growth curve culminating in him selling it all for an alleged $110 million dollars ….
Now, that ain’t bad seeing as he started with a couple of paintball making machines but what he did have was the drive and personality to back up his aspirations for Procaps.
He was an outstanding success as a businessman and also as a personality within our sport …….. all of us guys on the tourney and pro scene knew Richmond back then, he was always coming to the events in the US and Europe and his success was based majorly on the fact he got out there and met people; he wasn’t a faceless suit and tie man.
He is an affable, likeable guy who doesn’t give it the Billy Big ‘Un just because he’s got a few bucks.
Mind you, it wasn’t all happy smiles during his times with Procaps, he had a well know spat with another industry magnate which in my view did no-one any good and both parties lost out in one way or another.
But these troubles were a harbinger of things to come as our sport struggled to come to terms with its own success.
Litigation was now the name of the game it seemed and people were suing competitors all over the place; a lot of us in the industry looked upon these dog fights as somewhat sordid and seedy but I suppose it was a rites of passage our sport had to endure before we could really mature into a serious outfit.
And with mainstream media at that time considering taking our sport to the masses via TV, the stakes were high and getting higher.
It’s somewhat of a cliché now that the only people who profit from litigation in the US are the lawyers, and in the US, far too many of their lawyers have absolutely zero morals when it comes to their operational ethos.
Amongst this melee of paintball wars, Richmond went on to create XBall and had the vision to launch it in its inaugural form as an international event held in Pittsburgh in 2002.
I think there was something like 10 different countries represented and it was no accident the eyes of the paintball world focussed upon that event; I think we all believed it was the beginning of something revolutionary.
The event was a resounding success even though the Yanks inevitably walked off with the silverware.
To be honest, the winners of the event were to a point, academic because everybody just wanted to see how the event would roll out ….
And I’ll readily concede the Yanks were by far the best team there ….
Richmond knew very well that should TV take a serious interest in our sport, the network would need a new format to film: the old 7 man game was never gonna hack it; at least with XBall, we gave ourselves the best possible chance .. and Richmond was bang on the money to think that.
Problem was, it was never gonna be enough …. Not even close.
At one point in the PSP pro league history, places in that league were being sold for over $200,000 …. That’s what the Russians paid to stake their claim into the PSP pro XBall league and so we ain’t talking about trivial amounts here.
Such was the promise of our tournament scene at that time, the PSP hierarchy could charge inordinate sums such as $200 grand but it was a promise that was to prove unfulfilled
Had TV picked up XBall, Richmond would have been sitting pretty seeing as it was his format that would have been used … unfortunately, as we all know now, it never unfolded that way and paintball on TV was just an epic fail.
And so, Richmond was now effectively shunted unceremoniously to the side-lines of our paintball industry.
I had always marked Richmond’s card as extremely pro-active and so we were all waiting to see just how he would handle the relative obscurity of side-line paintball.
A few years back, I got a phone call from Richmond asking me to go over and stay with him and Joanne, his other half, in Toronto to talk over a new idea,
His new project was 50 cal paintball ….. I must admit to being surprised because 50 calibre paintball had been passed over years ago for the better mechanical features of 68 calibre paint.
There were issues with 50 cal when it came out years ago, it wouldn’t break as easy and wouldn’t travel as far and so ostensibly, Richmond was backing a dead-horse here but if I knew one thing about him, he was no idiot and something must have changed for him to be coming out with it.
The reason I backed it at the time was because I knew the industry was really struggling back then and the whole of the industry knew, and still do, we need to reinvigorate our market and get more people playing and paying.
If it took 50 cal to do it, then I didn’t give a ****; as long as we managed to get more people playing then it mattered not where that growth came from.
Richmond had solved most of the initial problems with 50 cal paintballs and all that was to be done was to launch it on an unsuspecting world.
What Rich didn’t know was that Smart Parts and Kingman had both thought of the same idea and were due to launch their 50 cal project in roughly the same time-line and so Richmond effectively stalled his planned release … he had to try and work with Smart Parts and Kingman because by the time he had found out they were doing their own brand of 50 cal, Rich was too far in to pull out.
As to why he stalled the launch?
Richmond is an innovator and prefers to unroll new ideas and be the only game in town, leastwise for a period of time anyway before it gets copied.
I gotta say, I think it kicked him right in the nuts when he found out what Billy and Adam of Smart Parts and Arthur Chang at Kingman had also planned but he was in too deep now and so he continued on albeit with a revised plan of action.
At the very least it took the wind out of Richmond’s sails but this did not deter him in forging a tentative alliance with Billy and Adam at Smart Parts and forged ahead with the launch.
50 cal did not make the entrance it deserved because Rich had been let down badly on the supply of markers he was promised .. the markers were all being made in the far-east and so this made things extremely difficult for Richmond and effectively undermined the whole project to some extent.
After all this, Richmond still harboured a burning desire to get back to the front line of paintball and even though he had sold ProCaps years ago, he still remained on the board for some time and witnessed the gradual demise of the company while ran by a Mr Rob Molyneux, he was a suit and tie man and had about as much to do with paintball as Hulk Hogan has with ballet.
Procaps was a company built on personal relationships not on a bottom line ethos of dollars and cents.
The inevitable downslide was gathering pace and everyone in our industry knew there was only one way Procaps was headed … to the dead-box.
The only real question that remained was, would anybody come in to buy it?
The company did have considerable assets but the real problem was the marketplace and anybody forking out a few million bucks for the company would need to know he could make that back [and then some] in one of the worst recessions our sport has ever endured.
Richmond was either stone-cold stupid or was too sentimental for his own good because to invest considerable so much capital in buying a paintball manufacturing company seemed liked commercial suicide.
Rich successfully regained control of his most valued offspring in spite of what commercial analysts might say.
In fact, Rich wasn’t stupid at all, he may be a bit sentimental but more than that, he was an extremely accomplished businessman and can new angles that the rest of us fail to identify.
And to be honest, I’m not sure it was just business sense that made him buy back Procaps, it’s a belief in oneself and an almost spooky insight as to what’s going on around him.
Whatever the reason, he’s back where he belongs but will it benefit paintball as a whole?
I think it has to; Richmond isn’t the sort who runs his business on low margins and high volumes, and because of this he is free to focus upon making a top end product and at a fair price.
Procaps paint has never been the cheapest, and I doubt it ever will be because like most things in life, you get what you pay for and it is this philosophy of Richmond’s involvement in our sport again that will prove beneficial to paintball.
What you may not know are some of the events surrounding Richmond's coup and so here are some of those details, warts an' all ... :-
Richmond Italia back in the saddle at Procaps ..
Most people in our industry and players are well aware of who Richmond Italia is, but for those who don’t, here’s a quick summary of his escapades.
He created a company called Procaps in the late nineties, it soon became an industry leader and enjoyed a phenomenal growth curve culminating in him selling it all for an alleged $110 million dollars ….
Now, that ain’t bad seeing as he started with a couple of paintball making machines but what he did have was the drive and personality to back up his aspirations for Procaps.
He was an outstanding success as a businessman and also as a personality within our sport …….. all of us guys on the tourney and pro scene knew Richmond back then, he was always coming to the events in the US and Europe and his success was based majorly on the fact he got out there and met people; he wasn’t a faceless suit and tie man.
He is an affable, likeable guy who doesn’t give it the Billy Big ‘Un just because he’s got a few bucks.
Mind you, it wasn’t all happy smiles during his times with Procaps, he had a well know spat with another industry magnate which in my view did no-one any good and both parties lost out in one way or another.
But these troubles were a harbinger of things to come as our sport struggled to come to terms with its own success.
Litigation was now the name of the game it seemed and people were suing competitors all over the place; a lot of us in the industry looked upon these dog fights as somewhat sordid and seedy but I suppose it was a rites of passage our sport had to endure before we could really mature into a serious outfit.
And with mainstream media at that time considering taking our sport to the masses via TV, the stakes were high and getting higher.
It’s somewhat of a cliché now that the only people who profit from litigation in the US are the lawyers, and in the US, far too many of their lawyers have absolutely zero morals when it comes to their operational ethos.
Amongst this melee of paintball wars, Richmond went on to create XBall and had the vision to launch it in its inaugural form as an international event held in Pittsburgh in 2002.
I think there was something like 10 different countries represented and it was no accident the eyes of the paintball world focussed upon that event; I think we all believed it was the beginning of something revolutionary.
The event was a resounding success even though the Yanks inevitably walked off with the silverware.
To be honest, the winners of the event were to a point, academic because everybody just wanted to see how the event would roll out ….
And I’ll readily concede the Yanks were by far the best team there ….
Richmond knew very well that should TV take a serious interest in our sport, the network would need a new format to film: the old 7 man game was never gonna hack it; at least with XBall, we gave ourselves the best possible chance .. and Richmond was bang on the money to think that.
Problem was, it was never gonna be enough …. Not even close.
At one point in the PSP pro league history, places in that league were being sold for over $200,000 …. That’s what the Russians paid to stake their claim into the PSP pro XBall league and so we ain’t talking about trivial amounts here.
Such was the promise of our tournament scene at that time, the PSP hierarchy could charge inordinate sums such as $200 grand but it was a promise that was to prove unfulfilled
Had TV picked up XBall, Richmond would have been sitting pretty seeing as it was his format that would have been used … unfortunately, as we all know now, it never unfolded that way and paintball on TV was just an epic fail.
And so, Richmond was now effectively shunted unceremoniously to the side-lines of our paintball industry.
I had always marked Richmond’s card as extremely pro-active and so we were all waiting to see just how he would handle the relative obscurity of side-line paintball.
A few years back, I got a phone call from Richmond asking me to go over and stay with him and Joanne, his other half, in Toronto to talk over a new idea,
His new project was 50 cal paintball ….. I must admit to being surprised because 50 calibre paintball had been passed over years ago for the better mechanical features of 68 calibre paint.
There were issues with 50 cal when it came out years ago, it wouldn’t break as easy and wouldn’t travel as far and so ostensibly, Richmond was backing a dead-horse here but if I knew one thing about him, he was no idiot and something must have changed for him to be coming out with it.
The reason I backed it at the time was because I knew the industry was really struggling back then and the whole of the industry knew, and still do, we need to reinvigorate our market and get more people playing and paying.
If it took 50 cal to do it, then I didn’t give a ****; as long as we managed to get more people playing then it mattered not where that growth came from.
Richmond had solved most of the initial problems with 50 cal paintballs and all that was to be done was to launch it on an unsuspecting world.
What Rich didn’t know was that Smart Parts and Kingman had both thought of the same idea and were due to launch their 50 cal project in roughly the same time-line and so Richmond effectively stalled his planned release … he had to try and work with Smart Parts and Kingman because by the time he had found out they were doing their own brand of 50 cal, Rich was too far in to pull out.
As to why he stalled the launch?
Richmond is an innovator and prefers to unroll new ideas and be the only game in town, leastwise for a period of time anyway before it gets copied.
I gotta say, I think it kicked him right in the nuts when he found out what Billy and Adam of Smart Parts and Arthur Chang at Kingman had also planned but he was in too deep now and so he continued on albeit with a revised plan of action.
At the very least it took the wind out of Richmond’s sails but this did not deter him in forging a tentative alliance with Billy and Adam at Smart Parts and forged ahead with the launch.
50 cal did not make the entrance it deserved because Rich had been let down badly on the supply of markers he was promised .. the markers were all being made in the far-east and so this made things extremely difficult for Richmond and effectively undermined the whole project to some extent.
After all this, Richmond still harboured a burning desire to get back to the front line of paintball and even though he had sold ProCaps years ago, he still remained on the board for some time and witnessed the gradual demise of the company while ran by a Mr Rob Molyneux, he was a suit and tie man and had about as much to do with paintball as Hulk Hogan has with ballet.
Procaps was a company built on personal relationships not on a bottom line ethos of dollars and cents.
The inevitable downslide was gathering pace and everyone in our industry knew there was only one way Procaps was headed … to the dead-box.
The only real question that remained was, would anybody come in to buy it?
The company did have considerable assets but the real problem was the marketplace and anybody forking out a few million bucks for the company would need to know he could make that back [and then some] in one of the worst recessions our sport has ever endured.
Richmond was either stone-cold stupid or was too sentimental for his own good because to invest considerable so much capital in buying a paintball manufacturing company seemed liked commercial suicide.
Rich successfully regained control of his most valued offspring in spite of what commercial analysts might say.
In fact, Rich wasn’t stupid at all, he may be a bit sentimental but more than that, he was an extremely accomplished businessman and can new angles that the rest of us fail to identify.
And to be honest, I’m not sure it was just business sense that made him buy back Procaps, it’s a belief in oneself and an almost spooky insight as to what’s going on around him.
Whatever the reason, he’s back where he belongs but will it benefit paintball as a whole?
I think it has to; Richmond isn’t the sort who runs his business on low margins and high volumes, and because of this he is free to focus upon making a top end product and at a fair price.
Procaps paint has never been the cheapest, and I doubt it ever will be because like most things in life, you get what you pay for and it is this philosophy of Richmond’s involvement in our sport again that will prove beneficial to paintball.