Muzikman
10-12-2006, 10:12 AM
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06285/729273-28.stm
Westmoreland brothers hope to make a big splash with paintball
Pair uses television to bring their sport to the masses
Thursday, October 12, 2006
By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tony Tye, Post-Gazette
Bill Gardner, along with his brother Adam, own Smart Parts, a Westmoreland County company that is one of the country's leading manufacturers of high-end paintball equipment.
Click photo for larger image.
How much would you be willing to bet that watching grown men shoot each other with paint could become a televised spectator sport?
Five dollars? Ten? Or the cool million that a pair of brothers in Westmoreland County have on the line?
Bill and Adam Gardner own Smart Parts Inc., one of the country's leading manufacturers of high-end paintball equipment. The two, 43 and 39, respectively, encountered the sport in college and have grown the business they started in their Ligonier garage in 1989 to one with more than $30 million in annual revenue. Now their hope is to build a national audience by sponsoring events on ESPN2.
Founded about 20 years ago as a survival game played in the woods, paintball now has more than 10 million annual participants in the United States -- more than baseball or football, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
The vast majority of those participants play recreationally -- often outdoors, with groups of friends or co-workers.
For the minority who play professionally, paintball is somewhat like a cross between American Gladiators and capture the flag, with a whole lot of flying paint mixed in. Hiding behind colorful inflatable pylons, teams work together to try to grab a flag within a designated time period. But if players are pelted by paintballs, they must sit out until the next point.
For players, much of the appeal of paintball is the rush of adrenaline as they try to hold their gun steady while evading paintballs flying by at 200 mph -- which can cause painful welts upon impact.
The question is whether there's any pleasure to be derived by sitting on the couch and watching them.
To succeed on television, the organizers of professional paintball have had to create game formats that appeal to spectators as well as participants, much like the XGames and the Winter Olympics have done with skateboarding and snowboarding contests.
"When we started, it was all in the woods with camouflage," said Adam Gardner.
"It was fun to play, but difficult for spectators. Over the last 20 years, we've tried to see how could paintball be a good spectator sport. How could we make it better for television?"
The Gardners have been instrumental in that process. Much of their business growth arose from their success as professional players -- Adam Gardner wears a heavy World Championship ring on his right hand -- which attracted serious paintballers to their products.
Paintball has appeared sporadically on television for years -- first on ESPN in 1994 and 1996 and later on Spike TV, College Sports TV and the Outdoor Life Network -- but has struggled with production quality and user-friendliness.
"If you look at the '94 show, it was pretty much horrible, totally boring" said Chris Raehl, president of the National Collegiate Paintball Association. "Each time we do it, it gets better."
In 2004, the Gardners thought that they had finally found the right path. They convinced none other than Dick Clark of the "New Year's Rockin' Eve," to produce a paintball show and contribute voice-overs.
The camera work was basic, but the show was a modest hit. "Our first Dick Clark show wasn't the best, but it got really good ratings," said Adam Gardner, noting that the two airings combined reached about 900,000 households.
In December 2004, however, Mr. Clark had a serious stroke, which the Gardners say scuttled any long-term plans with Dick Clark Productions.
Shortly afterward, ESPN2 agreed to produce a television show in the spring of 2006 that would feature a rival paintball format with seven-man teams instead of the five-man teams favored by the Gardners.
Eager to get their favored format of paintball back on the air, the Gardners agreed to sponsor a show themselves, at a cost of more than $1 million with five-man teams.
To improve the production quality from previous paintball shows, they hired Paul "G" Goldberg, an Emmy Award-winner for sports programming.
Of all the sports he's produced for television, said Mr. Goldberg, paintball is the most complicated.
"It's the hockey problem on steroids," he said, referring to the challenge of building a television program around a tiny puck. "With the speed of the game, it's hard to capture the action."
Using 19 cameras and spending two months after the tournament editing footage, Mr. Goldberg thinks they might have figured it out.
"I had played paintball in college and I did love it, but I didn't know if I quite saw it as a televised competition," he said. "I was surprised. I've become kind of addicted to it."
When ESPN2 televised the U.S. Paintball Championships this spring, using the seven-man team format, it didn't exactly revolutionize the world of sports.
The show, wrote Sports Illustrated online columnist Steve Hofstetter, "was about as entertaining as, well, watching paint dry."
But again, the ratings were decent, with average ratings per show at about 300,000 households.
"It did what we wanted it to do," said Keri Potts, a spokeswoman for ESPN Original Entertainment. "It was enough that we would look at more programming of paintball."
These days, sports don't have to do Super Bowl numbers to have a television presence, said Syracuse University media professor Robert J. Thompson.
"The success of reality TV, the success of obscure sports, and then the success of poker, combined with the fact that there's all of this time on all of those channels," he said. "Put all that together and paintball seems like an inevitability."
Still, not every televised pastime can be a hit. Darts was a disappointment for ESPN, said Ms. Potts, though dominos is doing surprisingly well in Latin America.
Last Friday, the Smart Parts World Paintball Championships aired for the first time. It will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Friday afternoons and Sunday afternoons through Christmas Eve.
Ms. Potts said that ESPN will be closely watching the ratings from the 12-week Smart Parts paintball tournament to help determine which type of paintball to broadcast in the future.
But regardless of which format ends up on top, what's good for paintball is good for the Gardners. Not only do players in both leagues use their equipment, but any bump in the sport's popularity will increase their business.
"Eventually," said Bill Gardner, "one day, we might make our money back."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Anya Sostek can be reached at asostek@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1308. )
Westmoreland brothers hope to make a big splash with paintball
Pair uses television to bring their sport to the masses
Thursday, October 12, 2006
By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tony Tye, Post-Gazette
Bill Gardner, along with his brother Adam, own Smart Parts, a Westmoreland County company that is one of the country's leading manufacturers of high-end paintball equipment.
Click photo for larger image.
How much would you be willing to bet that watching grown men shoot each other with paint could become a televised spectator sport?
Five dollars? Ten? Or the cool million that a pair of brothers in Westmoreland County have on the line?
Bill and Adam Gardner own Smart Parts Inc., one of the country's leading manufacturers of high-end paintball equipment. The two, 43 and 39, respectively, encountered the sport in college and have grown the business they started in their Ligonier garage in 1989 to one with more than $30 million in annual revenue. Now their hope is to build a national audience by sponsoring events on ESPN2.
Founded about 20 years ago as a survival game played in the woods, paintball now has more than 10 million annual participants in the United States -- more than baseball or football, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association.
The vast majority of those participants play recreationally -- often outdoors, with groups of friends or co-workers.
For the minority who play professionally, paintball is somewhat like a cross between American Gladiators and capture the flag, with a whole lot of flying paint mixed in. Hiding behind colorful inflatable pylons, teams work together to try to grab a flag within a designated time period. But if players are pelted by paintballs, they must sit out until the next point.
For players, much of the appeal of paintball is the rush of adrenaline as they try to hold their gun steady while evading paintballs flying by at 200 mph -- which can cause painful welts upon impact.
The question is whether there's any pleasure to be derived by sitting on the couch and watching them.
To succeed on television, the organizers of professional paintball have had to create game formats that appeal to spectators as well as participants, much like the XGames and the Winter Olympics have done with skateboarding and snowboarding contests.
"When we started, it was all in the woods with camouflage," said Adam Gardner.
"It was fun to play, but difficult for spectators. Over the last 20 years, we've tried to see how could paintball be a good spectator sport. How could we make it better for television?"
The Gardners have been instrumental in that process. Much of their business growth arose from their success as professional players -- Adam Gardner wears a heavy World Championship ring on his right hand -- which attracted serious paintballers to their products.
Paintball has appeared sporadically on television for years -- first on ESPN in 1994 and 1996 and later on Spike TV, College Sports TV and the Outdoor Life Network -- but has struggled with production quality and user-friendliness.
"If you look at the '94 show, it was pretty much horrible, totally boring" said Chris Raehl, president of the National Collegiate Paintball Association. "Each time we do it, it gets better."
In 2004, the Gardners thought that they had finally found the right path. They convinced none other than Dick Clark of the "New Year's Rockin' Eve," to produce a paintball show and contribute voice-overs.
The camera work was basic, but the show was a modest hit. "Our first Dick Clark show wasn't the best, but it got really good ratings," said Adam Gardner, noting that the two airings combined reached about 900,000 households.
In December 2004, however, Mr. Clark had a serious stroke, which the Gardners say scuttled any long-term plans with Dick Clark Productions.
Shortly afterward, ESPN2 agreed to produce a television show in the spring of 2006 that would feature a rival paintball format with seven-man teams instead of the five-man teams favored by the Gardners.
Eager to get their favored format of paintball back on the air, the Gardners agreed to sponsor a show themselves, at a cost of more than $1 million with five-man teams.
To improve the production quality from previous paintball shows, they hired Paul "G" Goldberg, an Emmy Award-winner for sports programming.
Of all the sports he's produced for television, said Mr. Goldberg, paintball is the most complicated.
"It's the hockey problem on steroids," he said, referring to the challenge of building a television program around a tiny puck. "With the speed of the game, it's hard to capture the action."
Using 19 cameras and spending two months after the tournament editing footage, Mr. Goldberg thinks they might have figured it out.
"I had played paintball in college and I did love it, but I didn't know if I quite saw it as a televised competition," he said. "I was surprised. I've become kind of addicted to it."
When ESPN2 televised the U.S. Paintball Championships this spring, using the seven-man team format, it didn't exactly revolutionize the world of sports.
The show, wrote Sports Illustrated online columnist Steve Hofstetter, "was about as entertaining as, well, watching paint dry."
But again, the ratings were decent, with average ratings per show at about 300,000 households.
"It did what we wanted it to do," said Keri Potts, a spokeswoman for ESPN Original Entertainment. "It was enough that we would look at more programming of paintball."
These days, sports don't have to do Super Bowl numbers to have a television presence, said Syracuse University media professor Robert J. Thompson.
"The success of reality TV, the success of obscure sports, and then the success of poker, combined with the fact that there's all of this time on all of those channels," he said. "Put all that together and paintball seems like an inevitability."
Still, not every televised pastime can be a hit. Darts was a disappointment for ESPN, said Ms. Potts, though dominos is doing surprisingly well in Latin America.
Last Friday, the Smart Parts World Paintball Championships aired for the first time. It will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Friday afternoons and Sunday afternoons through Christmas Eve.
Ms. Potts said that ESPN will be closely watching the ratings from the 12-week Smart Parts paintball tournament to help determine which type of paintball to broadcast in the future.
But regardless of which format ends up on top, what's good for paintball is good for the Gardners. Not only do players in both leagues use their equipment, but any bump in the sport's popularity will increase their business.
"Eventually," said Bill Gardner, "one day, we might make our money back."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Anya Sostek can be reached at asostek@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1308. )