Paintball NewSplat: Where's Paintball to Go When Small Fields Close?

What's the future of paintball, if most of the small fields have to close down?"

Although I was talking with an individual, I could sense a shared concern from many of the others, so I asked the question: "Is there anyone here who has NOT experienced a decline over the past year or so?"

Surprisingly, a few hands came up...then silence, as many eyes drifted past one another in the audience. Finally, a person who had not raised his hand spoke in a soft and confident voice: "I have been in business for seven years. I used to have two full-time employees and a half-dozen extras who worked weekends when we had walk-ons. I had to cut back to just me, and my wife helps at the field now on weekends. Just the two of us, and I bring in a ref or two if we get a decent booking. But now I'm going back to work. I mean a day job. I have applications out, and I've closed down the shop and field during the week. I'll be working weekdays 9 to 5 again for someone else. I'm here to see if I should hang in there, or if our industry is in the toilet."

This scene was at a recent PTI "Paintball Success Tactics" seminar, and the audience was varied. There were people who were considering a new business venture, and there were those who had existing paintball businesses, some doing well, but most on a downslope and hoping to turn things around. Some had arrived believing their problem was unique, or perhaps only local. Now they were networking with others from all over the country who had similar problems, and they were eager to meet with business owners who were holding their own in today's declining market. As an insurance agent, I have recently talked with field and store operators from all across the country, and I am discovering how difficult it is to earn a living in paintball. While this may be no different than many other self-employment options, I have seen the downturn. Although there are large paintball businesses that bring in significant incomes, gross receipts and margins are generally down. And the real problem is margins, not gross income. Paintball businesses on all levels seem intent on beating each other up.

It is not uncommon for a new paintball business to be run like a hobby, with low cut-throat margins, little profit, and no money left to pay the bills. Those are quick to die. However, there are many other paintball businesses that have been running successfully for years, and now find themselves in a serious decline. Fewer paintball business owners than ever are able to buy a house and a car, and live comfortably without a second income. And the profit picture is no different with large manufacturers and distributors. I see distributors fighting over the good customers, as everyone eyeballs the shrinking margins.

So there I was, standing before a group of hopeful business owners and new business prospects who wanted a quick solution, and I had no silver bullet. However, there are some common denominators shared by some of the paintball businesses that seem to be doing better than most. Ironically, it appears that some of the older businesses that resisted the industry drive to high-impact small-tournament speedball fields and high-performance equipment may now be enjoying a windfall, as old and new players alike are headed for the woods, with a zeal for milsim products.

Paintball markers that resemble real military guns used to be taboo, and I personally opposed their use at paintball fields, but times are changing and I now believe that field operators who have woodsball opportunities are missing a bet if they don't promote some form of milsim or scenario games. Mini-scenarios are quite easy to organize, and require only simple props and easy scenario setups. If business is down, I encourage fields to develop something special, and perhaps invest in some new milsim paintball marker inventory, for sale and perhaps for rental.

There have been many military knock-offs over the years, but most marker manufacturers did not recognize the opportunity until recently. Browsing the pages of the most recent APG issues brings up many new milsim products from major manufacturers, and tons of milsim and scenario products from small aftermarket companies. The Paintball Training Institute has even jumped into the arena, and will be offering classes on the Smart Parts SP-8 (a tournament performance marker with a cool milsim appearance). There will also be classes on the RAP4 line of products...and that is a quantum leap for PTI. Until recently, both PTI training and the APL insurance programs avoided milsim products. This may reflect a progressive industry change toward military realism, and a personal move toward reality for this veteran.

I remember Forest Hatcher of Pro-Team Products as an early pioneer in the development of milsim markers, although his efforts were primarily directed toward paintball training markers for use by military and police organizations. He first showed me some sexy adaptations of the old VM-68 marker that was used in exotic training exercises in faraway places. Forest is one of the best marker theorists I know, and products of his talent continue to appear throughout the industry, most recently in the Maxis line marketed cooperatively by Pro-Team Products and Viewloader. I have really enjoyed playing with his milsim products in the past, and they still receive favor from serious scenario enthusiasts. Over the years, Tippmann products may have enjoyed the most success and enthusiastic following amongst scenario enthusiasts. Tippmann offers milsim accessories for their Model 98 and A-5 markers, and several other companies offer aftermarket milsim products for their popular line. But, although it may nudge our industry in the right direction, milsim is certainly not the cure for our industry slump.

It has been interesting for me to watch things unfold in our fledgling paintball industry. In a former life, I was very active in the early development of the bowhunting industry, and I lived through decades-long evolution cycles heralded by major industry configuration changes, similar to what is happening in paintball. Bowhunting started with a proliferation of small mom-and-pop pro shops. Many of the early pro shops were started by bowhunters who wanted to make a living doing what they loved. Most of those business owners soon fell out of love with bowhunting, or drove their businesses into the ground by under-attention and over-competition. Some of the larger retailers were actually military-surplus stores. Full-line sporting goods stores that sold guns started to pick up bowhunting products, but dyed-in-the-wool gun stores refused to carry archery products of any type. The larger archery/bowhunting retailers soon started small wholesale businesses that quickly grew in size, until most outsiders didn't even realize there was a retail operation involved in the business. The stigma of an associated retail operation was sometimes a poorly kept secret, so the big distributors usually had to finally shake it off and go pure wholesale. Then the large distributors became larger, as they swallowed up or shut down most of the small distributors. Finally, the large distributors had their own war, with resulting shrinking margins, until they imploded and small distributors re-emerged. At some time during this process, a bowhunting industry organization was formed.

There was also a parallel retail cycle. Those small pro shops watched as the manufacturers and distributors fought over the big retail accounts. Big retailers enjoyed the benefits of high-volume distributor price wars, and the small shops could not compete, as they never got the high-volume price breaks...until they formed a buying group, sort of like the IGA food store coalition (for those of you old enough to remember). As a large group with a common voice, the small stores then saw the manufacturers coming to them with attractive pricing and dating programs (extended payment terms usually based on how many SKUs the dealer picked up). It seemed that many of these surviving small pro shops had maintained margins and had sterling credit, at a time when many of the larger companies were strung out.

Back in the early days of bowhunting, all of the archery equipment manufacturers were competing for the two largest retail chains. Finally, Bear Archery landed the coveted accounts, and all of the other manufacturers suddenly developed amnesia. They turned back to their distributors and large retailers and started passing the word that Bear Archery had inferior products and the mass merchants were bad for the bowhunting industry. Many of the pro shops soon stopped selling Bear Archery products and started bad-mouthing the company and their product lines. A war broke out between the pro shops and the mass merchants.

In the early years, neither the gun nor the archery industries were strong enough to have their own trade shows, so they participated in the NSGA show for general sporting goods. Then the gun industry divorced itself from golf and tennis interests, and spun off the wholesale SHOT show, and bowhunting immediately started displaying with the gun products. Finally, after a few unsuccessful attempts, bowhunting finally managed to fire up their own trade show, and the big buyers eventually started to attend.

The bowhunting industry cycle may offer insight into where paintball is headed. I feel that the paintball industry has not yet completed its first generation of evolution. It may sound similar, but there are some major differences between the development history of the bowhunting industry and that of the paintball industry. The new powerful influences of the internet confuse competition in every direction. Still, it is refreshing to see some paintball industry giants adhere to old-guard professional business practices. Most are new to paintball, but some have endured from the beginning. I salute companies like PMI that maintain a clear division between wholesale and retail. They distinguish legitimate retailers and support them in the old-fashioned way-they earn it.

Paintball has no industry organization to represent them, and the Paintball Products Manufacturers' Association (PPMA) as well as many of the large manufacturers who formerly protected our national interests have been restructured. Paintball may have no stewards. Paintball also has no trade show, although paintball is no longer prohibited from displaying at the SHOT show. And, perhaps the most important difference between bowhunting and paintball, we do not have a national safety program. Paintball does not have a standard safety briefing or any industry program to promote safety. Amazingly, some large paintball interests appear to oppose the formation of a national safety program and the passage of an ASTM standard paintball safety briefing.

It took a long time for me to personally accept paintball as an industry, rather than just a fad. There may be hard times ahead, but other industries have suffered similarly and survived. I now believe that paintball will probably not disappear in my lifetime, or in the lifetime of my sons. Proper coalitions should form as our industry matures and continues in responsible self-regulation in conjunction with ASTM standards-making.


Bob McGuire is president of PTI, and teaches popular classes in paintball marketing. For more information about PTI classes, call 800.541.9169 or visit www.paintball-pti.com.