How to Make a Paintball Show Worth Watching?
This makes me wonder - what is the perfect way to show off paintball?
Paintball is one of the most exciting sports to play - it's an adrenaline shot in the arm just waiting to happen every time you step on the field. But, up to now, there really hasn't been any media coverage that adequately conveys the excitement and gives the casual observer any interest in trying out the sport. TV coverage is sporadic, and for good reason - it's typically focused on tournament speedball with little explanation of the rules or strategy and, quite frankly, it's pretty boring. And, as those of you who actually play paintball know, the game of paintball played by the average weekend warrior in no way resembles a match of Dynasty against Infamous.
I'm not sure what the best way is to showcase the amazing sport of paintball, but I'm sure there's a way. The key, I'm convinced, is by focusing on the sport that the common player is involved with - out in the woods with his friends. With basketball, while I know I can't do what Kobe Bryant does, at least I'm playing with the same rules and I can relate to the game. A paintball player who has never seen an inflatable bunker in his life doesn't care about crawling up a snake and he can't even begin to relate to the tournament events that occasionally make it on TV.
I don't know how it's going to be done, but if the paintball industry ever hope to use television to encourage new players to try paintball for the first time, they need to find a way to show what paintball is for the beginning player. I don't have the answer of how to put a game of paintball on TV that actually conveys some of the excitement players enjoy, but I do know that, up to now, it hasn't been done.
What do you think? If you have any ideas, send me an email or post a reply.
Comments
When you list the things that are wrong with paintball on TV you are answering your own question. The goal of the paintball industry when it comes to TV should be to bring more players into the sport. People are not interested in playing a sport that they don’t understand. It is important to continually discuss the rules of the game throughout the televised event. You have to not only consider people that start watching a show from the beginning but also people that tune in throughout the event.
If paintball wants to break into the television arena for the “weekend warrior” then they need to televise events like the SPPL where the game is more like a movie with a plot, goals to accomplish and clearly defined rules. This would be an interesting event and would be of interest to more than just the ESPN paintball type people. Games like the SPPL would be of great interest to all the people that watch the “Military Channel” and other similar programming.
With the proper budget a series of pre-determined televised events could be put together fairly simply. Since paintball is not a main stream sport, you don’t have to spend money on expensive commentators, and could focus the budget on the cinematography and programming content.
Some of my comments may sound a little off the wall but they are based on my experiences in television advertisement production and expanding new or young marketplaces.
The first question is, what is the point of putting paintball on television? For the producer of the program, it’s to make money putting paintball on television. That happens when you have the most viewers. It does not matter that the paintball put on television doesn’t look like the paintball played at the local field any more than it matters than 98% of the people who watch the Super Bowl do not play football and will never play football outside their back yard. Sports are televised for entertainment.
If you are putting paintball on television to get more people to play paintball, then you’re not doing sports broadcasting anymore – you’re creating an infomercial. Do some paintball programs make lousy paintball infomercials? Sure. But when they’re not trying to be infomercials, failure in that area should be expected.
As for the suggestion that things like the SPPL should be broadcast, that is just not a realistic suggestion. If you think speedball is tough to follow, just try conveying what is happening in the woods when you can’t even see what’s going on!
Broadcasting the game part of it is really not hard – it’s been done. Just look at the college programming. Where we need to do better is with the personalities of the players, and giving the audience a means to care. Watch the Olympics, where you have new athletes every year – there is a whole bunch of effort that goes in to making the public aware of those personalities. That is where we are falling short – getting interest in the players, and then delivering a contest that the audience can follow.
Lastly, there is nothing wrong with complicated rules. In fact, they are NECESSARY for the longevity of sports programming. You want the audience to be able to follow a basic concept (shoot the other guy first, tackle the other guy as soon as possible, hit the ball far, put the ball in the hoop), but if that’s ALL you have for rules, people will quickly get bored. Just look at all the rules in football – that sport is COMPLICATED, and is the MOST SUCCESSFUL broadcast sport.
Well I think if they are going to portray paintball on television or in movies all the rules and regulations should be followed, too many movies have projected a negative image on paintball, now the television side is allright but i believe they should do woodsball too and get the whole sport not just bits and pieces.
i feel that if you want your sport to grow you have to spark intrest first. they have awsome comercials during tornaments. Why not air them during prime time tv. Show a sixty second comercial during the monday night sitcom. you’ll hit both age groups in one sitting.