| A New Kind of Sport |
Paintball was first practiced as a ‘survival’ game
twenty years ago, but has quickly turned into a true sport,
with specific rules, marshaling and legal structures. Today,
modern paintball still retains these two faces: It is both an
entertainment and a sport. Huge paintball parks have grown all
over the US (and beyond) and welcome thousands of weekend players
looking for fun and new sensations.
But at the same time, more and more people experience paintball
as an extreme sport, participating in local or international
events, in US or in Europe. Inflatable concept fields came in
to permanently alter the sport in 1996. This was a revolution
for this young sport. The game took a more tactical aspect and
players started to develop real team strategies. Besides, the
game became more visual and attractive for the media. In 2001,
paintball as an industry weighed an estimated 700 million dollars,
with six billion paintballs sold each year. Manufacturers and
distributors spend millions in research and development to bring
the latest equipment to thousands of players in all corners
of the world practicing what had become a global sport.
In 2002, American Sports Data reported about 7 million people
practicing paintball in the United States, ranking paintball
as the fourth strongest extreme sport industry, before snowboarding.
This year, the new X Ball tournaments will be featured on national
US TV network ESPN and the final event of one of two US-based
leagues will take place at Disney World. Furthermore, tournaments
have attracted personalities like Maurice Gibb, William Shatner,
Howard Stern, Everlast or B Real.
In the paintball sphere, entertainment and sport remain closely
linked. Thousands of people spend entire weekends in big theme
parks springing up all over the US, but still keep an eye on
the sport aspect of paintball, notably thanks to the specialized
press and TV coverage. |
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