Pete,
I have to say that I have reached a point of utter despair when it comes to the topic of the future of the sport whether it be in the UK or as a world wide sport, your passion for what you believe to be the solutions to the problem is noble and I respect that. I am (although my passion is somewhat faded over the last few years) as passionate and in full belief that the solution is more complicated, but without a doubt, is running on the same tram lines as your ideas.
Without quoting you word for word and please tell me if I misinterpret your writings, you are saying, basically at least the following things:
For the UK to become more competitive we need to…
Grow the player base in which teams are pooled from
Separate (for want of a better word) the serious tourney players from the walk ons
Improve facilities (for a more professional look)
Improve the way teams train
Have a variety of levels in the sport i.e. rec /walk ons /Ams /intermediate/ Pro
Educate at all levels of the sport in regards to the Pro side of the sport
Improve facilities sport wide
All of the above is without a doubt things we need for the UK/world teams to become more competitive but we also need other things more complicated things, and please don’t switch of as these parameters I am about to mention are a whole other discussion and I am briefly touching on them for effect only, such as unified rules & regs, unified specifications as to the requirements at tournaments, minimum amounts of safety regs, Pro refs, government support.
An entire mouthful & huge mindset of things but none of which are unachievable. I am really hoping Pete that you will at least answer my post (not finished yet by the way) as I am truly interested in your thoughts on this and as of yet, and not for the lack of trying, I have been unable to obtain your opinion.
I think that what you suggest is great but in its current form unachievable, yeah sure the small minority of field operators may agree and perhaps a percentage of them may go someway to implementing the ideas. But for how long? And to what end unless the changes you suggest can be regulated a public trashing of certain individuals hoping for a moral reaction may work for short term but it needs to be implemented and then sustained in order to sustain the sport. (not suggesting you have trashed anyone, but it seems to be the way things are done)
There needs to be a regulatory body in charge of the sport, we need to be recognized as a sport and then set up as every other sport with regulatory bodies, guidelines, rules, government support, government funding… all of which is very achievable. I have posted on here more than once how this can be achieved within two or three different threads… No One has ever disagreed, No one has ever spoken anymore about it either… why? I honestly am asking the question WHY? Am I missing something is there some fundamental thing that makes what I say unachievable cause if there is then let me know I’ll then admit and say “**** didn’t think of that” but so far despite writing to 95% of anybody who is anybody in this sport I have yet to receive and answer in either a negative or positive vein.
Below I have pasted the previous post, posted back in June of this year… along these very lines…
Pete, would love your opinion… BTW if I don’t reply for a while is cause the time difference down here makes about a 10 hour difference…
**********************************************
It’s been a while since I tapped out a message on this board but this topic is one that really needs to be sorted out. For the sport to really progress and for the sport to have the longevity it needs to become main stream it actually has to have recognition as a sport in its own right… nothing new there, people have been talking about it for years and it just then fades away into a distant muttering that everybody knows needs to happen but then know body does anything about, this isn’t something that can be done by just one person and here in lies the problem…
Now educating the public and local governments is all very well but to its end a bit bloody pointless, the recognition needs to come from the major sporting bodies such as the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport), the Olympic Committee, Commonwealth Games Authority, American Sports Federation etc, etc..
This is something I have spent a great deal of time on over the last four years with running an Australian Sports Fed for Paintball and looking into just this scenario, now believe it or not most and I do mean most of these organizations have no problem with paintball being a sport, how it works, is basically for any sport to be officially called “A Sport” is has to reach certain criteria, i.e. length of time since its conception, certain amount of countries that participate, the international mix, amount of players participating, drug screening criteria (much easier to organize than you think). Etc, etc, paintball actually reaches ALL OF THE SPECIFIED CRITERIA to be recognized as a sport from the majority of these organizations, BAR ONE…
All I said paintball meets all of the criteria (generally) other than one…. All the organizations mentioned require that the sport already has setup an International Sporting Association with rules and regulations governing the sport, the organization must be Not for Profit, have at least eight different countries involved and have a legally recognized format, i.e. certain amount of board members that are voted in & out by the members of the organization, Insurances, Drug policies, Annual General Meetings etc, etc… That’s It! That’s all we need, once paintball is so recognized then it opens the door for government grants to be accessed to set up playing facilities, Tournaments, training centers… I **** you NOT!...
So where’s the problem? setting up such an organization is relatively easy, a large amount of paperwork and a lot of hard work but relatively easy never the less… So again where’s the problem?.... MONEY!
An organization of this size requires full time staff, equipment, members and lots of them and I don’t mean members paying 5 Quid a year and getting a membership card to say they have joined, it means members joining the organization paying a real subscription fee, approximately 150 pounds a year, it then needs the sports businesses to get behind the organization and join as corporate members at approximately 800 pounds a year, it needs the Tournament promoters to get behind it making it mandatory for only paying members to play there tournaments…. SEE where we are losing a bit of interest now…!
I have been trying to set up such an organization for the last three years out of hundreds of letters, brochures and emails I have sent I have to key members of the paintball industry I have probably ten replies… whoppy ****!... does this stop us doing it, hell no build it and they shall come… well maybe… we can set up in each country with any members and anybody being the country representatives but lets be honest we need the big names of the sporting industry to help carry this forward in each country, why are the majority not interested you tell me?
Is it that there is no short term financial gain?,
Is it that they don’t believe the sport needs to recognized in its own right?
Is it because they believe that by doing this they will some how slice their profit cake into too many slices…?
Is it because they believe the average paintballer won’t get behind the idea and pay the membership fees and therefore they would be wasting their time…?
Or am I just Wrong… Maybe its not what we need…
I’d love to discuss this idea with anyone, especially those Big Boys of our sport, or am I wrong, do we not need to be recognized as a sport, balls to it lets reinvent the wheel, why follow a pattern that has help develop nearly every other sport in the world…
Your thoughts?
