Paintball 2000 | Paintball-News Das Paintball Magazin

Neben unzähligen lokalen TV Sendern haben Zeitungen und Radiosender im Laufe dieses Wochendes den Commander´s Cup zu einem enormen Medienrummel verholfen. Sogar die rennomierte New York Times schickte einen Reporter aus News York nach San Diego um über das Abschlussenvent der NPPL Season2004 zu berichten. Im Anschluss könnt ihr den Artikel lesen der auf der Titelseite des National Reports erschienen ist:Splat! Splat! It's Paintball, on the RiseNovember 16, 2004By BRUCE WEBERSAN DIEGO, Nov. 14 – Five artificial-turf paintball fieldswere laid out like giant green dominoes in the QualcommStadium parking lot here: a setting befitting a sport thataspires to grandeur but that is as yet a funky outsider.But long before you could see the players, goggled andmasked and carrying sophisticated militaristic toys, youcould hear the chaotic splatting, a joyous flatulence madeby hundreds of men, and a handful of women, plastering oneanother with pink and yellow gobs of goo.An estimated seven million paintballs were being shot byplayers from the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe.Splat Nation had converged here, with a message of a newrecreational gospel.“We want to get paintball into the living rooms ofAmerica,“ said Chuck Hendsch, president of the NationalProfessional Paintball League, which put on the eventSaturday and Sunday, a tournament that attracted 175seven-member teams, dozens of gear makers, a handful ofcamera crews, a brace of young celebrities and 10,000 to20,000 spectators.You may have heard of paintball as it is played in itsprimitive form, recreationally in the woods or on borderedfields by friends and neighbors: capture the flag with fauxarms. That game still exists; there are about 2,500paintball sites around the country. But that image does notbegin to suggest the intensity of the game that hasevolved, or its furious growth and rising popularity.Nearly 10 million people played paintball in the UnitedStates last year; some 2 million participate in more than50 other countries, including Greece, Russia and Iran.According to SGMA International, a sporting-goods tradegroup, wholesale sales of paintball equipment in 2003 wereclose to $400 million, more than double what they were fiveyears earlier.Evidently, the crucial element in paintball's growth isthat it creates true believers and evangelists. It is hardto underestimate the seriousness with which it is played,the fierce passion of devotees or their desire to furtherpopularize and legitimize – Mr. Hendsch's goal is theOlympics – what many freely admit is their grippingobsession.“I tried to give it up, to leave the game,“ said TonyThomas, 31, a restaurant manager from Austin, Tex., whosaid he had been paintballing for 15 years. He said he hadfelt he needed to concentrate on his career, „but life justwasn't the same without it.“In the league's format, teams face off against each otherfor a maximum of seven minutes, when the firing ofpaintballs is furious. Players try to advance from barrierto barrier, thus creating more favorable angles from whichto shoot down their opponents. Strategy, discussed andpracticed beforehand, is carried out on the run; above thedin of splatter you can hear the players screamingdirections and warnings at one another. Invariably,everyone ends up out of breath, blood pumping furiously.Yes, it is militaristic in nature. Yes, winning isparamount, and yes, everyone admits that the testosteronelevel on the field is off the charts. The paintball worldis skewed male and young; more than one person compared itto a video game come to life. But it was also true thatolder players were plentiful, and that the atmosphere wasoddly clean-cut and family friendly. The equipment ispricey; the latest generation of paintball gun tops out atabout $1,500. Competing is expensive, too. The teams in SanDiego paid entry fees of $1,350 to $2,000.What many older players say they discover is a satisfyingsense of camaraderie and teamwork. „It's the best teamsport I've ever played,“ said Matt Schmidt, 31, who owns avending machine business in London and traveled to SanDiego with his team, Shockwave U.K.Asked how the women in his life have reacted to hisinvolvement, he said, „Women and paintball very often don'tmix, to tell the truth.“The Femmes Fatales, a women's team from Fort Myers, Fla.,would disagree. It was started by a former dancer withbusiness savvy, Tami Adamson, who was introduced to thegame by her husband. She was not interested in playingherself, she said, until it occurred to her that a team ofattractive women would be a magnet for industrysponsorships and television cameras. She was right.Interestingly, players rarely talk about „killing.“ For themost part, the lexicon is specific to the game: guns arenot guns, they are markers. And postgame discussions amongplayers tend to be as focused on the circumscribed world athand as they are, say, in basketball.Ask almost any paintballer about the appeal of the game,and the response comes back: „the adrenaline rush.““It's just the high you get off it; that's it,“ explainedKevin Mitchell, a former major league baseball player who,along with several other players, discovered paintballduring the baseball strike of 1994. He gave up paintballafter he retired because he said he had gotten too big andtoo slow to compete.“I can't play with those guys,“ said Mr. Mitchell, who wasa spectator this weekend.Paintball was first played as a survival game in a NewHampshire field in 1981 with a dozen men, including one whowas a reporter for Sports Illustrated and wrote about it.Their guns were made to be used by farmers to mark cows andby foresters to mark trees.Since then the game has gone through innumerablepermutations, and several, including 10-man paintball andX-Ball, a cross between paintball and hockey, havetournament circuits of their own.The San Diego event was officially known as the 2004N.P.P.L. Super 7 Commander's Cup. It was the last of fivesimilar tournaments held around the country this year bythe 12-year-old league, whose efforts to expand the game'syoung core audience was much in evidence.Walking the grounds on Saturday afternoon, satisfied withthe controlled chaos around him, and the evident highspirits of Splat Nation, Mr. Hendsch was approached by ayoung man who said that he was a paintballer and that hehad financing for a feature film about paintball. Would Mr.Hendsch be interested in discussing it?“Absolutely,“ Mr. Hendsch said, handing the man his card.“We're all about promotion.“