New
Game
of Paintball
Paintball heads into 2005 with a positive attitude.
Our sport has 8,100,000 players.
Paintball is our sport. It's a great sport. Listen to us when we tell
you about paintball. Respect us and our buying power. Work with us, not
against us.
Why is paintball so strong and growing? Because it's fun.
Our game plan for 2002 is simple: keep it fun, and keep it growing.
The products are better overall, and less expensive at the low end, than ever
before. One single paintball used to cost 30 cents--look at what you pay
per ball today. A high end pump marker used to run over $400. Look at how many
good semi-autos cost less than $400 today.
We used to play only in the woods. Now we have multi-colored arenas plus woods,
plus the promise of more special scenario parks. Europe leads the way, with
competitions in major sports arenas. The RadarChron hand-held chrono, under
$100, had led to major changes in our sport's competition rules.
Mention paintball today and people say, "Great sport" instead
of "What? Ping Pong?"
We are a powerful sport that has not yet realized or exercised its power, but
that's about to change. Efforts underway by the newly formed Paintball
Products Manufacturers Association (PPMA) are mainstream, major, and very
welcome.
Paintball has more participants than surfing, scuba diving, kayaking, sailing, martial
arts, wrestling, boxing, BMX bicycling, street hockey, tackle
football roller hockey, badminton, racquetball, archery, ice hockey, trap and
skeet shooting, or sporting clays. We're slightly ahead of snowmobiling and
slightly behind snowboarding.
In the bigger sports picture, check these numbers. Paintball has 7.1
million participants. Softball, 9.7. Baseball, 10.9. Touch football, 15.5.
Soccer, 17.1. Basketball, 37.6 million participants.*
* Source: The SGMA Report 2001, an annual
report of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA).
