why paintball isnt on mainstream TV

[Fanatic]

to start out, i would like to know the views of fellow AO'ers on what their opinion is on why paintball isnt of mainstream tv (ESPN,etc.) and not just a shot or a segment on our sport. now i have seen the xball on and found it nice. just so nobody can say "yeah it is!"

well in my opinion, if you compare our sport with other x-games sports out there i found something very familiar.

one is that if you compare xmoto, boarding, surfing, inline, bmx, and others. the sport is centered on the individiuals performance, actions, and talent. as for paintball, it is the team event and rarely directs any attention to a single player on a team.

which in turn draws the question on how about team sports like baskerball, football,etc..why are they on and we are not?

if cable TV can have the wine network or the polka hour
i think there is a chance for our sport yet

lemme here your views

[nippinout]

Because it is BORING to watch.

Watching bowling on TV is boring, but I LOVE going out with friends to bowl.

Sure, it's cool to see paintball on tv, but why? I think it's merely for the sake of it being paintball.

[Duke Henry]

I don't think boredom has anything to do with it. I find many sports boring on TV. That is, "sports" like bowling, curling, golf, etc. are all a snoozefest to me. However, if I was a fan of golf, I would probably like watching golf on TV (probably, because I can't say for sure - not liking golf at all...).

To me, the reason you won't see paintball on the TV anytime soon is because it is largely unprofessional. Overall, the whole "professional" tournament scene is a joke. Reffing standards don't exist, unsportsmanship is rampant, and this will be the case for a long time. Don't think I am a tourney-hater. Woodsball has the same problems, with wipers, bad reffing, and questionable players also.

I am probably going to take heat for this, but if I could sum it up I would say this: this sport encourages young players. Practically by definition, young players are immature. Without proper role models (i.e. mature adults, because oh yeah there are plenty of immature adults out there) these kids actually hurt the sport they claim to love.

The sport does nothing to encourage honour at the higher levels. That is, when you consider all of the blatent cheating that goes on and how refs are known to look the other way, because they are playing an event in the future with some of the offending teams reffing then. It is a joke.

Start with getting universal rules, a completely separate reffing core with no ties to the game (look at other successful leagues like the NFL and their reffing policies) and let's go from there!

[irbodden]

I think it's because of some legal actions taken by some guy in the industry... his name is like Lob Wong or something?

[logamus]

baseball has to be the most punishing sport to watch but for some reason people still subject themselves to it.


i dont think there is a large enough audience to warrant tv coverage.

[Curly]

Originally posted by irbodden
I think it's because of some legal actions taken by some guy in the industry... his name is like Lob Wong or something?

From what i have heard, a lot of big name companies sued espn after they aired paintball. From what i understand espn basically made the industry pay to have paintball shown because they claimed that no advertisers would back it. So the industry had to pay for the airtime, then espn made them all buy advertising on top of paying for the air time. Espn then broke the contract and showed the paintball in the middle of the night when it was supposed to be shown in prime time. Thus a lot of companies that put money into the airing sued espn.

This may or may not be correct but it is my understanding of why espn will not show paintball.

[ZSigErik]

Another theory I have is...

In other sports, such as football, baseball, there is ONE thing to focus on, a ball. Paintball doenst have ONE focus, becuase more then one person is doing something at a time to achieve a common goal. Each move not realy more important then the next. Football, everyone watches the guy with the ball, well paintball does really have "one guy with the ball".

The way I see it, paintball just isnt exciting to people OUTSIDE of the sport. I can name a million girls who love to watch football with me even though they really dont understand whats happening. Now imagine an even harder to sport to follow, paintball. IT just doesnt appeal, I mean yea we may be the 3rd largest extreme sport in the world, but without good solid fan base, we wont go ANYWHERE.

[Ironmag]

If you wanna talk about boring sports, don't forget about NASCAR Racing. Nothing better than watching cars go in circles for 3 hours straight. Only excitement is when there is a crash. Sad but true. Sorry if I offend anyone but it's true.

[adam shannon]

IMO paintball is just as fun to watch as play. if i cant afford to play i am almost as happy watching/reffing.

paintball has a problem..there is no one single focus of a game. TV doesnt like that, they want to be able to follow a ball, or one single athlete. i film tournaments at my local field...even with one camera in a tower and 2 on the field you still miss alot of the action. and this last time was just a 3 man...given 7-10 players on each side yur gonna miss alot. watch some of the video at warpig...tell me if you can keep track of who's winning and how many players are out, and where all the players are by watching one camera angle when there are 20 people on the field.

all that said it can be done...but it would be confusing to the non-paintball player. thats why tv wont risk it. most people that watch football..me included...have never played a single down with pads on, but we still watch.

in addition to the confusion think of the "mothers of america". these are the clueless people who dont know the number of violent video games they've bought for their kids x-box...but would write the president when a commercial ran on nbc for a paintball tourney because it espoused violence and showed people shooting eachother with scary realistic guns.

and last but not least....$$$$. paintball and all the major players in the industry still operate like a good ol' boy flea market. everybody would wrangle over who gets the lions share of the loot and who's products got more airtime. and whos banners and logos were all over the field. and the first time somebody didnt get their way they would just pull their support and take their toys and go home.

were talking about the same guys that couldnt get together on one tournament circuit. in the end it boils down to $. if espn and nbc and fox were having a bidding war over paintball coverage there isnt even one central body that speaks for the sport. can you say NFL, USFL, XFL, CFL, NFL-europe.

its not that TV isnt ready for paintball...paintball isnt ready for TV.

[frost]

well to tell u all there is going to be a paintball show called the splatterfactor on tnn last like i looked it was still up and ready to go and they where making shows but i havent look at it since try lookin at splatterfactor.com i think thats the website

[Blennidae]

I agree with nippinout. To the casual viewer its boring.

I remember watching a game on TV during at a time when I had not played in awhile. My impression was "so this is what paintball had become, a guy standing there just throwing paint downfield."

If I had never played and that was my first exposure to paintball, I would have no interest in ever wanting to play.

As for the 3rd largest extreme sport, what is that based on, and what are the top 2?

[Fanatic]

we would just need those cameras in the NFL

the ones that are over the field following the game on both sides

and the universal ref idea is great..maybe the sport can hire retired refs from pro games...the old geesers would be so cool to watch

[Miscue]

PB on TV sucks. They need a revolutionary new TV format for PB if it's going to do well.

[Phil]

What is boring about watching speedball is that everyone runs to a bunker strait away and then hides. There is some movement but not enough. I think it would be interesting if there were a 60 second bunker rule. You can only hide behind a bunker for 60 seconds. That would get em moving

[acecl22]

i think that it would be too hard to have a time limit on the bunkers, but if they just made the game time limit realy short, everyone would move alooot more