PaintballX3 Magazine December 2013 Issue

10 Something to Build On - p As I’ve mentioned in previous editorials here recently, the paintball industry and game is showing many signs of making a comeback. We’re seeing more innovative products being released, more new technologies being incorporated into those products, more teams and players at the game’s signature events (like the World Cup, Big Paintball Maneuvers Big Game, etc.), more small companies bringing quality products to the table, and we’re (PaintballX3) seeing more traffic at our website and magazine than we have since we started this company more than four years ago. This is all really good. In all of this there have been some interesting things going on. Recently the APL (American Paintball League) has announced that after running the NPPL events from the midway point in the season last year, that they are going to run their own, non-NPPL events in 2014. The NPPL has also stated that they will be running a series in 2014 as well. So add in the PSP and there will be three pro-am paintball leagues in the US next season. Can they all survive? When rumors surfaced early in December that GI Sportz was woking on a deal to acquire Tippmann Sportz, many (us included) thought those rumors would not materialize--we were all wrong. The official announcement was released just a few days ahead of this writing. dECEMBER 2013 What this actually means is unclear. Will Tippmann continue to operate out of Fort Wayne, Indiana or will they cross the border into Canada where their new parent company resides? Will they keep the same staff? The same President? Will they cut products from their line or continue to add to it? It will be interesting to watch. More and more scenario events have been added nationwide in the US the past 4-5 seasons and the results have been mixed. Some of the larger events have seen steady attendance drops year after year. So is it better to have more mid size events or fewer but much larger events? Similarly if you trace back six years or so you would see the CFOA (Carolina Field Owners Association) was drawing more than 100 teams per tournament. Now six years later there are CFOA type series’ all throughout the southeast US. Again, is it better to have five large events, or 25 smaller ones? I don’t think there’s a wrong an swer here but I’m interested to see how these things shape up in 2014 and beyond. Thanks for reading! John Amodea Editor/President PaintballX3, LLC

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