When will paintball be as big as football?

[Mantis]

As for the TV thing, I have to agree with Fong. Look at some of the absolute crap that's on TV now. It wouldn't take much for paintball to be more exciting to watch than some of this.
The other day somebody was telling me they saw an indoor field that had a see through roof, so people could stand above the field and see everything happen. Combine that with a couple oblique overall cameras, some gun or helmet cams, and specific bunker cams, and a TV director guy with a modicum of talent should be able to splice that into a fairly exciting show. Then we just need a guy with one of those pens drawing all over the screen with stupid commentary...

[Magsrule3]

Well right now there is over 6,000,000 players world wide. Only about a eigth of that play in tourneys.

[cphilip]

Originally posted by Army
Paintball as big as football? That's gonna take a really big gun...

Man!!! Army beat me to it! Exactly what came to my mind when I read the title.

Not realy a big Marker though Army...big hoppers and big barrels for sure. Imagine the cost of a case of those things? And I think Hopper ball would become the norm.

[TigerMan]

Well the ESPN thing goes deeper than just striking a deal with them. And as for them cutting some shows, they won't be cutting bowling anytime soon. Bowling is a sport that gets some of the highest ratings on cable. And Restola, I highly doubt NASCAR is more popular than football. Take college football for example, only 2 reasons why you don't see more people in the stadiums is because 1 they're out of seats and 2 they're aren't more students at the schools. You'll be hard pressed to find any good Division I college game without a sellout crowd, they're always packed. NASCAR gets great crowds, but look at how big the speedtracks are, they are huge and you have the whole league coming to one event, not having the whole league spread out playing mutliple games.

[media]

As long as a paintball commentator is nothing like John Madden. No single announcer has annoyed me more or actually made me watch something else like he has.

[bofh]

Football is bigger than NASCAR... and I'll prove it.

During the season... NASCAR will have a 200,000 person stadium sold out each weekend, the entire league will show up and race... so 200,000 people a weekend. Call it three leagues, (Winston Cup, Busch, and Craftsman Truck) not counting the weekly serieses. (Busch North, Winston West et al.) So three major leagues, each with a 200,000 (estimates) brings a total of 600,000 people a week

The NFL, only has about 60,000 people in a stadium. But, each weekend, there are 15 active stadiums. Each stadium has an average of 60,000. (yes some have more, I'm estimating) So each weekend, 900,000 show up to a professional football game. Not counting College football.

Which is more popular?

btw, I don't think Paintball will ever be as big as either of them.

media, I guess you missed out on Howard Cosell?