Paintball doesn't need larger demographics. The demographics are very good.
What paintball needs is a better way for an out-of-industry sponsor to REACH our demographic. That way doesn't currently exist.
Like it or not, we need Yank teams over here
- Thread starter Robbo
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What paintball needs is a better way for an out-of-industry sponsor to REACH our demographic. That way doesn't currently exist.
Missy, definitively or not, at the moment, they are failures and it is only if at some future stage we finally do go mainstream can those previous endeavours be reclassified as anything but...and until then, 'failures' is exactly what they are mate......we might not like it, and we also may believe they are stepping stones but as it stands at the moment Missy, we ain't cracked it ...but if we do, great !!!!!!
I think we can definitively say that the previous efforts were not a success, but we cannot definitively say that they were failures unless we have the abilty to see the future.
The only person I know right now who just might have the power to see the future is Lane Wright.
I mean, who knows what that guy is capable of anymore....
The only person I know right now who just might have the power to see the future is Lane Wright.
I mean, who knows what that guy is capable of anymore....
And this is exactly why I specifically said they are failures up until this point !!
As for Lane, I think a touch of jealousy may be creeping into your rhetoric Missy but I think it might be proper to leave that subject alone, don't you????
I wasn't trying to say previous efforts had been failures, I was only using the same word Pete had used since I was responding to him. The last ESPN2 show, for example, caused an immediate and noticable increase in the sales of at least a few of the manufacturers.
Which is interesting, considering that college paintball has been televised in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and has a signed contract for 2008 and 2009, and does not buy air time. I don't know of any other league that's been on the air more than 2 seasons in a row - and the other one was WPL.
I don't think you know me very well Missy. Pointing out when the industry is doing things that don't make sense isn't pulling the rug out from anyone - you can't pull the rug out when nobody is standing on the rug in the first place. The NXL got someone to spend a bunch of money putting paintball on ESPN, it didn't work out - no revenue appeared to make the television programming financially viable, and the show sucked. NPPL got someone to spend a bunch of money putting paintball on ESPN, it didn't work out - no revenue appeared to make the show financially viable, and the show sucked. Smart Parts spent a bunch of money to put paintball on television, and no revenue appeared to make the show viable, and the show still sucked. Now NPPL is going to spend a bunch of money putting a show on television. And out of the gate, it's already branded as a 'reality' type show, not as sports coverage. A good portion of the NPPL show is being financed by paintball money.
People need to understand that when you are spending paintball money to put paintball on TV you are NOT in the television show business, you are in the ad time buying business. We don't want to take a million dollars from paintball companies and give it to a TV production company and Fox/ESPN. We want to get Coke to give us 2 million dollars and then give a million of that to the TV people.
I understand that there may be a period when you have to invest some paintball money to get the ball rolling. But it is stupid to be spending that money on a hope and a prayer without understanding exactly how you are going to go from putting that TV show on the air to getting that out-of-industry money. Has anyone even asked these potential out-of-industry sponsors what they even WANT? I don't think they have, because the answer is certainly not a TV show. A TV show is a nice PART of what they want, but it's not the major item.
Hard work is important, but if you're working hard at doing the wrong thing it's not going to do you any good. And it may even damage you.
I'm all for the industry being successful at getting out-of-industry money and television exposure etc - in the right way. If it's done right, we all benefit. If it's done wrong, we all lose. And I'm not so blind as to just trust that someone is doing it right just because they have more 'industry cred' or were here first and they say so.
Or, put another way Missy, why should any of us believe you have any idea what you are talking about?
Hmm - so in your view, what is paintball missing that other sports have - in terms of allowing outside sponsors to reach the demographic target group of the sport?
I mean - the lack of tv is a given..... but apart from that, I can think of no other sport that lends a sponsor SO many ways to reach the demographic.
Event organisers in paintball are probably way easier to deal with for an outside sponsor, than any of the more mainstreamt sports - and way cheaper
Nick
They won't care. Many professional athletes in most sports are *******s.
What they'll say is "Interesting, but don't most paintball players not care about tournament paintball? So is tournament paintball really where we want to put our money?"
That is EXACLY the problem. They don't want many ways to reach the audience, they want ONE way to reach the audience, that includes many different methods.
Pacific Paintball is trying to solve this problem, although I have reservations about how successful their approach will be. It leaves too many interested parties on the outside.
Only if you include the rental type players. Otherwise the demographics are still sh!t. But I do concede that the company bigwigs probably include those people as well (and why shouldn't they?).
Guys, I am not sure if I have read the signs right or not but I have been speaking to a lot of the big hitters of late and this is what I think (please correct me If I am wrong Missy or Chi), the original brief or goal for paintball with regard to TV was to get the networks to fund a series that had as its premise, a league based structure, much like NBA or American football.
Basically, we paid for paintball to go on TV at first and then hopefully it would create a level of interest and that interest would then be noted by the networks thus having them (Networks) commission a series based upon a league type format, presumably XBall if the NXL had been successful or 7 man event type presentation had the NPPL been successful.
The SP production was a joke, it fell over at the first hurdle in not even realizing the games needed a backdrop of a crowd to catalyze proceedings and give it some form of spectator context, it was embarrassing.
The NPPL shows were better because at least it had a context whereby people, a lot of people, were already hooked on paintball and were seen to be enjoying it..this production at least got over the first fence but failed to finish the race because at the moment, we have yet to portray tourney paintball in a format which hooks non ballers to the silver screen, or even a major percentage of ballers whose numbers allegdly nudge 5 million.
Now, we are in a financial lull, companies are hurting bad because of a drop off in front end sales, the only silver lining to this cloud was a recent upsurge in sales that corresponded to paintball being aired on TV and so, I believe the emphasis has now changed from trying to promote paintball into the mainstream via league presentation over toward a more fundamental consideration of keeping the industry alive.
And to this end, i believe the industry now has to fund these TV endeavours to promote sales as against trying to create league presentations for the mainstream .. there is a significant difference here.
I might be wrong but this is how I see it....
Basically, we paid for paintball to go on TV at first and then hopefully it would create a level of interest and that interest would then be noted by the networks thus having them (Networks) commission a series based upon a league type format, presumably XBall if the NXL had been successful or 7 man event type presentation had the NPPL been successful.
The SP production was a joke, it fell over at the first hurdle in not even realizing the games needed a backdrop of a crowd to catalyze proceedings and give it some form of spectator context, it was embarrassing.
The NPPL shows were better because at least it had a context whereby people, a lot of people, were already hooked on paintball and were seen to be enjoying it..this production at least got over the first fence but failed to finish the race because at the moment, we have yet to portray tourney paintball in a format which hooks non ballers to the silver screen, or even a major percentage of ballers whose numbers allegdly nudge 5 million.
Now, we are in a financial lull, companies are hurting bad because of a drop off in front end sales, the only silver lining to this cloud was a recent upsurge in sales that corresponded to paintball being aired on TV and so, I believe the emphasis has now changed from trying to promote paintball into the mainstream via league presentation over toward a more fundamental consideration of keeping the industry alive.
And to this end, i believe the industry now has to fund these TV endeavours to promote sales as against trying to create league presentations for the mainstream .. there is a significant difference here.
I might be wrong but this is how I see it....