More paintball on ESPN

[WebFisher]

This link was started on another site, and needs to be foremost on ALL paintball related sites. I already filled in the form and sent it in. Pass this along with everyone you know!

ESPN.com - SITETOOLS - Contact ESPN

It seems extremely sad that ESPN considers Spelling Bee, Dominoes, Poker, and Dog shows as "sports". Though they may be entertaining "activities", I can hardly classify these on the same level of "sport" that holds such things as football, baseball, basketball, and of course, Paintball.

Here are some more paintball facts:

According to American Sports Data Inc., paintball has recently moved ahead of snowboarding as the fourth largest alternative sport in the United States. Their study concluded that more than 5,900,000 people played paintball at least one time in 1999, and that 793,000 play at least fifteen times per year. The results of a recent Paintball 2Xtremes poll of paintball field operators in the U.S. shows that the average player spends around $44 each time out to the paintball field. Simple math indicates that those 5,900,000 people spent approximately $259,600,000 in 1999, and that number does not account for people that played more than one time in 1999. We do know that almost 800,000 people played paintball fifteen times in 1999.

How big is paintball getting? We've been working on this for several months and have come up with data to support the following figures. Try these industry numbers on for size.

Major Magazines 16 — approximate circulation 420,000 copies
Paintball stores in the U.S. Approximately 1,160
Paintball fields in the U.S. Approximately 950
Number of players worldwide More than 11,600,000
Number of competing teams in the U.S. 5,500
Paintball products carried by K-Mart 176
Number of paintball web sites 1,827
Countries where paintball is played 104
Number of paintball items listed on Ebay 3,267
Number of series' or league events in U.S. 220
Paintguns sold in the U.S. per month Approximately 67,000 Universities with paintball clubs/programs 105


(Note: This is taken from PB2X January 2001 issue. It has grown an average of 63% since then, and has become the most played sports in North America, surpassing baseball in 2006.)