Such an honest conversation. Super revealing of where the industry is more or less "failing" the future of paintball. It seems it hasn't evolved much at all since I played my last event in 2012. Same pros. Same faces I'm seeing. Same pace of the game it seems. As someone who played soccer until college I was stunned at the lack of structure and evolution within the sport. Paintball is likely the only sport where there isn't a structured system of teaching fundamentals and having concrete expectations in the lower divisions. In soccer you will never see teams with a wide spectrum of skill levels within nation wide tournaments. It's crazy. I played my first local pball tourney after 8 years about a month ago (here in Denver) and when I arrived I see people drinking mountain dews and smoking cigs. No warming up. No stretching. There is no professional etiquette to paintball within the lower levels. I think this has a lot to do with the sport not seeing new pros and recycling the same teams for the most part. That's my small opinion. I think the chance we will ever see a woman break through into the pros within the NXL is close to none in our lifetime for these reasons. That's a whole other convo. Not that it is entirely necessary. But it would be cool to see a woman be a contender within the pro division. We are so far from that.
@@SVPPaintball ALSO I'll definitely be checking out your team's games at Cup. I'm gunna play for the first time in a long time with my old team. I'm pretty excited about it. I'm also really excited my ranking is so low that I can literally play any division. It's like a second chance at life lol.
To your first point, "Paintball is likely the only sport where there isn't a structured system of teaching fundamentals and having concrete expectations in the lower divisions." Totally agree. I think part of the issue is that there's an entitlement among players that feel they deserve the right to play paintball the way they want to because they're paying so much to play. It's pretty hard to force a person to pay $35-$65 a case of paint, thousands in gear, a few bucks here and there for entry and air (depending on the field), and then ask them to submit themselves to a coach or practice regime. I'm of the opinion that if players want to get better they MUST submit themselves to these coaches/owners who want to structure paintball, but it's a tall ask with this entitlement mentality. I think the other side of this coin is that paintball players don't clearly delineate themselves between casually competitive and hardcore competitive players. You have tons of players in D4 and D3 (possibly even D2) who don't consider themselves hardcore competitive players, yet still, compete in tournaments and play paintball somewhat frequently. You even see this among teammates on the same team. They just show up to the field, play for a few hours; go home, and then play in the next regional tournament. There's nothing wrong with this group of players, but these are the players that don't consider themselves athletes enough to get them to stretch and warm up, etc. To your second point: "...I think this has a lot to do with the sport not seeing new pros and recycling the same teams for the most part." I agree to an extent, but I think this goes back to the issue that these players don't see themselves as athletes. In addition to that, I think there's nothing that motivates them to get better. If you're the best player at your field, there's nothing that drives you to be better--even if you get stomped at a tournament. If you win your regional tournament (or do very well) but lose at the NXL, there's still that win you can hang your hat on without feeling the need to push yourself to the next level. Paintball players lack motivation in my opinion. They only seem to be driven to beat whoever is in front of them, not progress themselves and their skills (or beat their previous selves). To your last point: "I think the chance we will ever see a woman breakthrough into the pros within the NXL is close to none in our lifetime for these reasons." I agree with you, though I think the fix for this is INCREDIBLY complicated--as you know. I think the culture of paintball is quite abrasive, being a deterrent to all except those with a very specific stomach for that type of thing (this is applicable to both men and women, but when we factor in average gender statistics within sports, this skews heavily toward men). I think women find themselves alone in this sport, which I'm sure is also a deterrent for pursuing it further. I think the only way we encourage women to try out/play the sport is to create leagues and spaces for them to play the game, then work our way toward either integrating them or allowing them to continue playing in their designated leagues. I don't think we should segregate women from playing in the NXL or any tournament for that matter, but I think there simply needs to be spaces for women where they can play among themselves to try out the sport, progress with other women, and then either choose to integrate themselves or continue down the route of playing with other women exclusively. In the end, we definitely need more representation among women in the sport.
Thanks to both of you for the thoughtful discussion. A few thoughts from someone who played rec for the first time in December and has been back twice and watched a ton of speedball content since: 1. If fields are making their profit on paint, that does not seem like a sustainable model. It seems like fields just encourage shooting so you buy more paint. My first time we had objectives, and it was a lot of fun. My last time they were just lining up a dozen players on each side of the field and having us shoot at each other with unlimited respawn. I tried to have fun, but I was not really motivated to push or eliminate players because what was the point. Instead of low-cost, all-day field passes and high cost paint, I bet they would make more money and attract a wider customer base with more expensive but structured field passes and paint sold with a smaller mark up. (That’s obviously for the rec/woods side, not speedball.) 2. I fully support limited paint. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing 20% of a pod actually make it in the hopper. I bet with limited paint as many rounds would still fly through the air, but there would be significantly fewer on the ground. 3. Sideline coaching should be allowed and encouraged! What kind of sport doesn’t have a coach yelling at their players and crowds cheering during a play/point. Tennis is the only one I can think of. 4. The best ground shot might be from the baseline, but the best shots would be from a drone, cable camera, or scaffolding. 5. I ordered my own mask the day after my first time. Are cheap thermal lenses really that much more costly than cheap single lenses? Another area where first experiences could be improved and customer base grown.
1. I agree with you generally. You structure your costs on how long you expect people to play at your field. If people just show up to play for an hour or two, you'd make more money charging a higher entry and selling one bag of paint than you would if they bought one slightly expensive bag and paid cheap entry. The only catch here is that if rec players buy a case of paint and don't use it all, they are incentivized to return knowing that the most expensive part of their experience (purchasing the paint) has already been taken care of. Either costs structures have their pros and cons for sure. 2. Limited paint seems to benefit everyone but paint manufacturers, so we'll see if we ever move towards that model, especially because event organizers are in bed with manufacturers :P 3. Completely disagree. Sideline coaching ruins/punishes/actively disincentivizes players creativity when moving up the field. If you make a risky move up the field, and no one saw you move but you're now being called out by someone on the sideline, that's pretty cringe. Sideline coaching encourages chaotic speed over strategic methodology. The only thing we lost in sideline coaching was crowds reacting to what was happening on the field. 4. I agree. I just want to see more creative camera angles, period. James Dee is a channel I recently came across who does that really well (ru-vid.com/show-UCsOzgWt610q5t-4Y-xuZrcg). 5. I did the same thing after my first time. Not sure about the actual cost, but it seems like the cost you have to pay to ensure your first-timers have a good time. Thanks for the comment!
32 now, been playing since I was 13. Rec and Tourney...played at every field in GA. If you want to grow the sport, make the paint cheaper and the rental gear better. A new player coming in getting a shitty mask with a piece of shit Tippman 98 that is 10 years old ensures he will never come back. Paint breaking, masks fogging up, gun not shooting, shitty entry level paint that flys every which way = players never coming back. Lack of professionalism by refs is another issue. Now that I am an adult looking at these children reffing, smoking cigs, cursing, and being worthless...doesn't help. Solve the aforementioned issues and the sport will grow.
I would love to see paintball culture turn into an athletic scene like most mainstream sports. Once that becomes the standard culture I think we will see this sport expand and attract a lot more serious athletes. The gap between the bottom tiers and the top tiers are just too great.
Paintball was almost a mainstream sport during the mid 90s early 00’s. Paintball was on espn. I personally think they pushed paintball to older guys too much and it eventually suffered from that. They used half naked women to sell markers and the sport, making it less family friendly. If paintball didn’t do all that sexy shit during the maxim era, it probably wouldn’t have fizzled out of obscurity.
Agreed, but I also think the 2007-2008 housing crash saw thousands of people exit the sport, hurting its progress toward mainstream. I remember watching the ESPN broadcasts of the NPPL with Dynasty and XSV being the cover boys for the sport at that time. It was an exciting period of time. I really do think that if the economy didn't take a massive nosedive, we'd be in a much different place with paintball.
@@SVPPaintball you might be right. I got to ride the tail end of that boom with Destiny. Then it all tanked. I will never forget HB 2008! It was magical. Little old 19 year old me felt like it was a dream.
I love this video but disagree with the point made at 54:15 about a bunch of Columbus levels in the league. We are currently witnessing the changing of the guard. Yes, there are quite a few bottom tier pro teams, but it’s only because there are so many un retired older pros still balling. They are currently making those bottom tier pro teams better who will eventually end up at the top where the older pros are now. We are seeing it with NYX, LVL, Aftermath, etc… they are all growing every single year.
I agree. My only point is that it’s disappointing to not see top tier pro teams bring up talent to train them and share their wealth of knowledge. I believe teams like level will replace them, but if dynasty wants to remain on top, they’ll need to do something about their roster aging into retirement. But otherwise, I agree with you.
@@SVPPaintball I'm not sure I entirely agree, the previous generation of all-stars, people like Todd Martinez, Rich Telford, Travis Lamanski, and Rusty Glaze are all passing on their wealth of knowledge through coaching or staying active in the community. I see this generation of older players doing similar things. Sure, they may not all coach, but that knowledge will eventually transfer and make other generations even better than the last like they did to the generation before theirs. Dynasty specifically: "The dragon has always been bigger than any 1 player." - Dynasty on Tyler Harmon's departure. I think we are seeing this manifest with moves like bringing Blake and Marrcello into ownership. They see the writing on the wall. Knowing Marcello, he'll want to bring in new and younger blood...and will be passing his wealth of knowledge onto them. Urena is another great example of this. As far as remaining on top, it's interesting to see how these different models for team management will play out. From what I can tell we have a couple of different camps: 1. Farm teams - AC Dallas and Columbus Lvl (Level) are great examples of this, having several divisional teams that feed up and into pro 2. Money teams (I can't think of a better term for this) - The Impacts and Heats that are willing to spend to make the best rosters with the best talent in the league to remain on top 3. Drafting - Cherry picking Semi-Pro or top tier divisional players to bring up into Pro or adding to practice squads. This is pretty common across sports. You'll have a few studs and a lot of duds that have what it takes to be contending with the best of the best. I know it's a long-winded response but I had to get it all out lol
No, this is great; I loved it! I agree with your take, especially pointing out the coaching part. I hadn’t thought about that. I also really liked the way you broke down player development/acquisition. Also something I hadn’t thought of in that way. Thank you! This is a much more uplifting perspective than I thought :p
