Why paintball is NOT an "X-treme" sport

[Tyger]

Another thread muated into this, and I figured I'd start a diffrent one. Yes, I'm picking a fight.

The argument is that paintball is an extreme sport. So, let's take a look at "Extreme" sports, shall we? We can all agree that the sports of "Inline skating", "Skateboarding", "Snowboarding", "Street Luge", "Wakeboarding" and "BMX" are now considerd "extreme". What do all of these sports have in common?

They're all indivisual based. No teams, it's individual athletes competing.
They're all capable of injuring you simply by the nature of the sport.
They're all scored on artistic merits, with the exception of the "races" like sport climbing and street luge.
They're all fast. The runs take, maximum, 90 seconds.

There is more, but for now, this will do. Paintball, by it's nature does not fit any of those. Paintball is a TEAM sport. Paintball, by the nature of how serious we take our safety procedures, will not injure you 95% of the time. There are no artistic merits to any of the moves we do, nor do we get scored on them. And a paintball game's time? 2 minutes to 5 minutes.

Now to me, this sounds like it's a regular SPORT. Kinda like the football game I'm watching now.

Ok, so the argument has been brought up that paintall is "Extreme" becasue ofthe speeds, the pain, the ability to be injured. Ok. A football can fly pretty fast, they get hurt a lot, and they get injured on the field a lot too. They're not extreme, they're just athletes. And is there anything WRONG with that?

So why do we continually call ourselves an "Extreme" sport? I think it's the same principle that Whoopie Goldberg talked about in her off-broadway show. "They call you 'avant guard' when they're not sure what is is that you do." We call oursleves "Extreme" to get the intrest of the media. It's "Extreme" to get the money the "Skater culture" has. We're "Extreme" becasue it's a buzzword. It's a way to make more money.

Reality time. Paintball is a sport, when played at the "Sport" level. It's a "Game" to the rest of us. My injury list is pretty "Extreme", and I'm not that hard on my body. Injuries happen in all sports.

Paintball is not "Extreme". We don't have any moves with names, ther's no "artistic" score to a game. We have individuals who are known, but the game is still a TEAM game. WE're only "Extreme" becasue wekeep on stomping our feet an dscreaming "WE ARE EXTREME! DARN IT!!!!"

WE can be a successful sport on our own merits, without resorting to jumping onto an "Extreme bandwagon" with bungee cords.

-Tyger

(YES! I am picking a fight. Why?)

[GatoLoco]

aye. i agree

[RenagadeOfFunk]

I agree with you...just one thing you are a little off on...

"We don't have any moves with names"..

...what about diving head first into a bunker...(the superman/ground facial)

other than that i totally agree.

...who called it extreme anyway?

[TheDuelist]

In my opinion its not the players as a community that calls paintball extreme its the media and the people who have to classify paintball for marketing purposes. Paintball is looked at as extreme because it hasn't been accepted as "mainstream." We are looked at as a "rogue" player of a sport that started by upgrading grade school cowboys and indians games to full on military style battle re-creations. Todays paintball continues on that path but is also heavy on the colorful tournament competitions that the general public doesn't really know about.

I heard somewhere where paintball grew by 24% last year according to sales figures. Those sales figures have the sport classified as an extreme sport. Why, I don't know, but I think in the near future we won't be having this conversation. We are due to come into our own. Its just a matter of time. Paintball is still young and has plenty of room to grow. We've already begun to see some of the growing pains associated with its growth (smart parts as an example), but if we as players can help grow and mold the sport in the right way we will be seeing huge things come out of our efforts.

[FooTemps]

Well, we have 2 choice, non mainstream sport or extreme sport... what sounds better? extreme sport.

That is the exact reason why paintball is considered an extreme sport. Because it's not mainstream and "non-mainstream" sounds really bad.

[magking1971]

I will help you with this Tyger,
Right now I think that Paintball is "extreme", heck after all my crapy jobs and the toll it has taken on my body going out to get the mail is an "Extreme sport"
I just think people will name anything Extreme because it sounds cool and it might sell better.

[Nomad]

I think Duelist gots it bang on:

It's everyone else who sees the sport that considers it extreme. I mean look at it, no matter flashy we make the markers or whatever type of milling on them, fundamentally people still see them as guns and many people see guns as a great big thing to fuss about. It's the fundamental fact that we shoot projectiles out of devices with the intention of hitting an opponent who is trying to do the same thing.

[Sir_Brass]

That also means we can't be apathetic about our sport either. If a company is doing something fishy, even if they claim to be "just doing business", don't stand for it. We can't let this sport be controlled by the companies else we'll never go mainstream. The companies have to be controlled by OUR demands, not their desires like they are now. They need to learn to guage the market for demand and answer it, not create the demand itself by promoting hype.

When the players finally take back the sport away from the industry, then we'll be more likely to go mainstream.

[Lethargic]

But at the same time, are we really just "another sport?" Paintball has the risk of serious injury if you arent careful, like the guy who broke his leg at world cup. Also, even if you are careful, everyone is still shooting at you. And getting shot by a paintball doesnt feel good in any sense of the word. Today's markers can fire 20+ balls per second. Nothing run of the mill about that. Add to that the fact that you can be bunkered at extremely close range, and the game becomes potentially quite dangerous.

Furthemore, any other extreme sport falls in hte same category. When I go out wakeboarding there is no guarantee that I will get injured. There is only a possibilty of injury. Whats more, If I am cautious, and never mess up, I wont be hurt. The same goes for skateboarding, BMX, motocross, whatever. The ability to be injured is inherant in all sports, not just extreme sports.

And no moves with names? What about bunkering, laning, superman slides, crawling the snake, hugging the bunker, etc, etc?!? All those are moves, and they all have names. We haven't gotten so far as naming moves after individual people yet, but that may come in the future. Granted, we aren't judged on how well we can do them, but anyone who hopes to be a decent player has to use them. And think about this: Football, soccer, baseball, basketball, and any sport you cna think of has it's own language too. They all have their own moves, so I don't think this is a feature to extreme sports either. Unless you want to admit curling is extreme as well.

Etreme sports are timed. So are non-extreme sports. An extreme sport has to be timed because the athletes are exerting so much effort. Paintball games are timed. Why? Well, maybe because the paintballers cannot play balls out, as hard as they can for a sustained period of time. It is exhausting to run around at top speed, while lugging a marker and half a case of paint around with you. The time limit simply reflects how long the activity can be done without exhausting oneself or making the game too boring.

We paintballers have one other thing that makes us the MOST extreme sport around. We carry guns around, and shoot them at each other. Find me another sport that does that (besides airsoft.) I don't see skateboarders shooting each other. The snowboarders aren't lighting each other up from 10 feet away. And I have yet to see a wakeboarder bunker anyone else while behind a boat. Paintball is extreme because of the fact that we are shooting 1000's of little gelatin balls at each other, while at the smae time, playing capture the flag or defend the fort. If for no other reason, paintball is extreme because we shoot at each other.

Until you can find me a sport that offers more of a sheer adrenalin rush, I'll continue to tell you that paintall is the most extreme sport around.

[Sir_Brass]

Also, even if you are careful, everyone is still shooting at you. And getting shot by a paintball doesnt feel good in any sense of the word.

Better than having a baseball potentially hit you in the head and kill you, or possibly bein trampled in basketball, or getting snap kicked in the balls in soccer, or being sacked then at the bottom of a dogpile in football.

I'd rather be lit up by a hailstorm of paint with my shirt off than have any of the above happen to me. Welts I can handle, but the above often require paramedics and/or a trip the emergency room.

[Scircal]

It depends on what your definition of "extreme" is....

I have to agree with those who say the "extreme" label is media driven. It's really a vacous term (more on this in a moment). It's applied to those sports that most people don't view as mainstream or even necessarily "a sport." People from the media, say ESPN, see a bunch of guys shooting a bunch of other guys and say "whoa, that's whacked!" Bam! Your "extreme" label is in the mail and should arrive within 3-5 business days. Paintball is certainly growing and that will, probably more than anything else, help change its label to "mainstream."

Why is "extreme" a vacous term for a sport? Because there are no set of criteria that you can come up with to define things like skateboarding, snowboarding, in-line skating, etc. that don't also define a mainstream sport. For example, let's take those criteria that were first posted:

They're all indivisual based. No teams, it's individual athletes competing.
They're all capable of injuring you simply by the nature of the sport.
They're all scored on artistic merits, with the exception of the "races" like sport climbing and street luge.
They're all fast. The runs take, maximum, 90 seconds.

Immediately, I can think of skiing as easily fitting in those parameters. That's a well-established mainstream sport. If you want injury to be the main component of the extreme definition, how about boxing? The whole point of that sport is to literally beat your opponent. It's hard to AVOID injury. And the scoring does have a big artistic component to it. Judges examine how well a boxer "boxes" his opponent, how he throws the punches, how he moves, etc. Want artistic scoring to be the main component? Figure skating. Not fast enough for you? How about diving? It's individually-based, very-much capable of injuring you (even killing you), it's scored on artistic merits and the "runs" take well less than 90 seconds. You can get diving scholarships to any of a number of major universities. I don't know any that give out BMX or wakeboarding scholarships. As for this:

Until you can find me a sport that offers more of a sheer adrenalin rush, I'll continue to tell you that paintall is the most extreme sport around.

... it's almost entirely subjective. Again look at boxing. I've watched guys get pummeled to death. Not just bruised, not just injured, but dead. Don't tell a NASCAR driver his adrenalin isn't pumping in the middle of a race (yet another sport where a miscalculation could be potentially fatal).

I could go on, but I think it's clear the "extreme" label really can't apply to any sport because of its intrinsic qualities. The one common factor so-called "extreme" sports share is their outsider (perceived or otherwise) status.

There is some drive in some of these sports to keep the "extreme" label because it could be synonymous with "non-conformist." That's a little pretentious, but you can talk to any skateboarder and get an earful if you say "skateboarding should be more mainstream." I don't think paintball really shares that culture.

So how does all this relate to whether or not paintball is an "extreme" sport? In my opinion, it's simply a sport. Different than most, yes, but still a sport. Paintball will lose its outsider label (just as NASCAR and others before it) as more and more people play it and moves into the mainstream.

[Lohman446]

We cant talk about being extreme in one sentence and then having a better safety record than BOWLING in the next... paintball is not an extreme sport - not that it isnt great fun

[SuiciDal Sn Y p ER]

Originally posted by Sir_Brass

I'd rather be lit up by a hailstorm of paint with my shirt off than have any of the above happen to me. Welts I can handle, but the above often require paramedics and/or a trip the emergency room.

agreed

[MayAMonkeyBeYourPinata]

Originally posted by Lohman446
We cant talk about being extreme in one sentence and then having a better safety record than BOWLING in the next... paintball is not an extreme sport - not that it isnt great fun

And because of this we aren't extreme.

I end up more hurt after a game of soccer, than i do after a day of paintball. Paintball in itself is not extreme, it is just a label that it has been given so it can fit into a category.

[Sir_Brass]

Look at alot of the regular 'extreme' sports. What is one common thing among them: the punk bada-- rebellious teenage stoner image. NOt that that image is necessarilly accurate for all participants, but it certainly seems to have a clear trend.

Paintball seems to like to hang onto this. Just look at the names of the guns and accessories for our guns, and at our apparel. We're definately promoting that punk stoner look.

I KNOW it's petty (the labeling of our sport as 'extreme' was petty as well), but it's also how we LOOK and behave. We should push a more respectful and conservative look. Go more for practicality than flash (work the flash into practicality). That will help as well. Basically, on the field we need to LOOK as respectable as possible (we'll always have that gun stigmata with us) and off the field look respectable and talk respectable.

Let's face it, people will judge us by how we talk and how we look. They won't care about who we really are, they'll just care about what we appear to be. We want to be mainstream then we need to appear to be mature and decent.