How Big Is Paintball?

Our industry equates the size of paintball with sales numbers. The let's get along crowd wants paintball to be a big all-inclusive happy family with a shared passion and others acknowledge the diverse possibilities under the banner paintball but tend to focus on the form of paintball that interests us. The numbers of participants for assorted tournaments or scenario games are bandied about and compared with past participation. Some of our local fields are doing great business while others are veritable ghost towns. We wonder about players in other parts of the world. What does it mean--in actual numbers--if we read that paintball in Indonesia is exploding? I don't have any particular answers. Just another way of answering the question: How big is paintball?

Earlier this week on Facebook Freddie Brockdorff got the (paint)ball rolling with an open group called, How Big Is Paintball?

In Freddie's own words--"Lets see how big paintball really is, please add all your friends playing paintball. So that we can get outside sponsors to enter the sport of paintball ...
Just wanted to clarify why I started this group! I work on a global market meeting with a lot of big brands so I wanted to bring them all in to spend marketing money in the paintball world. To help in that effort I want to be able to show how big the following and how loyal paintballers are to the sport by starting this group!"

Since you and I know Facebook is an evil plot to pacify the proletariat (while Google invidiously invades our privacy) using it for good is a revolutionary act. That means go sign up and join the group. Yeah, I know you're a slacker but odds are you're also on Facebook twelve times a day already or your phone has an app for that. And really, wouldn't it be kinda cool to see how big is paintball as a giant Facebook group? It won't answer the core question of course but who knows, it might make a difference some day--and if it doesn't, at least you'll know who your real friends are.

PS--don't bother telling me I could have signed you up myself (if you're a friend) and why aren't you? (Because you can't even be bothered to click the damn "Like" button on the sidebar.) Besides, I didn't even do either of the VFTD-related Facebook pages myself. And you know how I do things like add numbers to my phone? I call my daughter.