What Happens To Euro Paintball If....

[Gyroscope]

I don't know... if a minor channel with low viewer numbers suddenly got the only paintball coverage, we would all watch it. That might be enough of a bump for that little channel's share that some major netwrk would take another look.

Also, if competitive paintball is successful on TV, more people will try it out, boosting sales, making more sponsorship money available... and with a base in Europe already there, it may be worthwhile to develope it into something that could provide more rivalry, more drama.

Or not. I think that most likely short term outcome is that someone will try us out, ratings will be poor relative to network hopes, and the coverage will be cancelled. Pessimistic, but all the paintball players in the US wouldn't keep it on the air without outside interest from non-playing viewers.

 

[Beaker]

One thing is that it might not just be TV that can help paintball get going.

This pb radio show that seems to be taking off in the states, plus also newspaper/mag coverage can also be pushed.

The problem with comparing paintball to any other sport (especially to televise) is that there is no one focus of attention.

You can watch just about any sport and know whats going on by just following the focus point, the ball in football, the puck in hockey the axe in lumber jacking. But having 10 players all running in different directions shooting at at least 2 others etc means that to be spectator friendly you either go for the NPPL/Fox/MTV route of higlited games. We will NEVER make it to stadium ball in say the Xgames, purely because those in the nosebleeders wont be able to see jack of whats going on, give it Skate, MotoX and a few giant screens and you're away.

I don't think TV will harm paintball, purely because I don't think that it will (for the short to mid term) actually get into it with enough money to really want to shake things up. I bet that the DC deal wont end up anywhere near as big a "deal" once/if it actually gets to air.

Which leaves paintball on the minor channels, or at least minor money (in TV industry terms, to us it will be loads) coming in. Therefore, deals like Fox are about the best I think we can hope for in the next 3yrs or so, which I think is good, as it gives us exposure without the oppressing hand of corporate TV melding the sport into all sorts of shapes. Couple that with getting things into newspapers and radio etc and over time the exposure of paintball to the masses will increase.

 

[Red_Merkin]

so i guess the general consensus is that we need paintball to be on TV...

 

[duffistuta]

Nah, it's doing just fine as it is - more people are playing, tournaments are getting better, we don't need TV at all.

 

[NaffyNerd]

I'm wondering about NPPL's decision to schedule their Las Vegas tournament the very same weekend as Millennium's major Campaign Cup tournament. Whaddup with that? Has the fraternal embrace turned into a suffocating bear hug? Does Niall and the Millennium board feel back-stabbed? Or is this result of Millennium fence-straddling between Super 7 and X Ball?

What will be the impact on Campaign? Can Beard be in two places at once? How is it between PP and Millennium now?

Can't someone who is really intheknow enlighten us?

The atmosphere is charged with possibilities...

 

[duffistuta]

Intheno isn't about right now...bottom line is with NPPL, PSP, Millennium and now Millennium affiliates, events will clash. If you look at things from the NPPL's point of view, clashing with an XPSL event is far more damaging from an attendance point of view than clashing with a Millennium.

Impact on Campaign is likely to be that no US teams will play.

 

[stongle]

Word from the Shoe Shine man, is those dates were the only ones Vegas was available.

Major bummer and could'nt have come at a worst time, but no conspiracy theory.






Anyway, Intheno should'nt be trusted. He's the reason we went into Iraq in the first place.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Red_Merkin
so i guess the general consensus is that we need paintball to be on TV...

I think for European paintball to benefit in the way we are talking about, then the US has to be the conduit.
Many things (not all I concede) drift eastward from the US, things like, Skateboarding, BMX 'ing, fashion, lingo, music and so on.

If the Euro youth see the US youth having a good time doing some crazy sh!t, then they generally wanna follow suit.

We could independantly go fo the holy grail but the time scales are different.
If we try to go it alone, the time scale would be mid to long term ( 5 to 10 years ) but if the US get it on TV coupled with their huge demographic, then I think the time scale would become short to mid term, I'm talking about the Euro uptake here.

 

[Buddha 3]

Originally posted by duffistuta
Nah, it's doing just fine as it is - more people are playing, tournaments are getting better, we don't need TV at all.

Word.

My prediction for 2005: Paintball still a fringe sport, marginally televised...
Repeat ad infinitum for 2006 and onwards...

 

[camsmith]

Originally posted by gyroscope
I don't know... if a minor channel with low viewer numbers suddenly got the only paintball coverage, we would all watch it. That might be enough of a bump for that little channel's share that some major netwrk would take another look.

Do you mean a small channel like Bravo? I know they weren't exactly covering tourny-ball in Mission Paintball, however from a television perspective, the show wasn't scheduled for a second series and therefore (without criticising anyone involved with the show) can be defined as a flop. I don't know anyone outside paintball players who got the point of the show.

IMO, one of the main reasons for this is that it takes a large production budget (which smaller channels do not have) to produce a professional show, which gets an audience involved. The smaller channels do not have this budget (do they do more harm than good? A question for another thread maybe).

As mentioned by other people in this thread, the only way to get this budget is to get the financial backing to make it really good, and that will only happen if someone's going to get back more money than they put in. If this happens in the USA first, then it would cost Europe a lot less to import an existing "package" than to create one of their own, especially considering the general osmosis of youth/extreme culture that already exists.