Paintball Book

My book, A Parents Guide To Paintball, due out this April 16th, is swimming along.  Several new advertisers have been added to the mix.  More info about the book is available here.

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68Caliber Interviews Craig Miller of the PSTA

Back on December 12th of 2008, 68Caliber approached the Chairman of the Paintball Sports Trade Association – Howard Kosick – and requested that he answer a few questions concerning the trade organization, its relationship to the Paintball Extravaganze (R. Chard’s annual trade show – upcoming), the rest of the paintball industry and the future of the game in general. Mr. Kosick referred us to his Vice Chairman – Craig Miller saying “Typically we have Craig Miller, PSTA Vice Chairman, handle interviews and PR matters for the organization.” Having known Mr. Miller for at least two-decades, we were more than happy to pose our questions to him. So, without further ado:

68Caliber: Thanks for taking the time to respond to these questions. Let’s get right to it: Can you give me a little history on the formation of the PSTA – whose idea it was, why hook-up with SGMA (Sporting Goods manufacturers Association), how were the founding members selected?

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History in the Making? Or History Repeating

EDIT:  Thanks for the traffic, Dale

When Mr. Ford emailed me to ask what my opinion was of the league’s use of the name I previously hosted events under, my response was to point him to this article. 

Here is his initial question:

Given your history with this particular acronym, I thought it would be worth the time to ask what your opinion on it was…

Dale

His response upon receiving the link was far from characterizing it as an “indignant screech” as he did recently in his Ford Report..  In fact, he said –

“Sad but true.”

If you’re looking for the train wreck that Dale implied you’ll find over here, I’m sorry to disappoint you.

Allow me to introduce you to –

THE UNITED STATES PAINTBALL LEAGUE, also known as the USPL.

Here’s a mention of it in the Los Angeles Times: 

“Getting hit by a paintball isn’t terribly painful, but it hurts enough to motivate seriously evasive action. Conceived in 1981 by three guys using modified tree markers, the game has since evolved into a worldwide phenomenon. According to Action Pursuit Games Magazine, paintball is played in 50 countries. The United States Paintball League is the foremost professional arena; I think it’s possible we may someday be watching Monday Night Paintball.”

Funny.  The date on that article is 1999…

Here’s  another mention of it, claiming that the television show is going to start in 2002.  2002?  “The USPL television show is expected to start in 2002. For more information about the United States Paintball League, visit http://www.paintballleague.com”

Here’s a mention from Warpig.  And that one seems a little dated too…

Wait a second.  Here’s a VIDEO of the league’s first event that was actually televised… and, and, who’s THAT being introduced as President of the League…Steve Davidson?

I thought it was Chuck Hendsch?

Things sure have been confusing over on the tournament scene these days what with a whole new dictionary of acronyms sprouting up – RPL, WCPPL, the expanded GPL, something called the NPL – no wait, the USPA – no wait, the USPL…

Here’s where the confusion comes from. Back in 1999 I left the NPPL and founded the USPL – yes, the United States Paintball League – to introduce a new 7 Player format for the game.  I hosted, along with my business partner B.F. Thiele, and in conjunction with both the NAAPSA and the NCPA tournament organizations, the country’s third largest paintball touurnament –  no mean feat for a totally new event supposedly ‘competing’ with the NPPL, the GWS and other leagues extant at that time.  We had well over 100 teams (127 if I remember correctly – and we didn’t count a team that entered the 7 player, the 5 player, the 3 player and the college event four times – only once).

We had some things going on that had never been seen before: A fireworks display, complete with grand finale that featured a giant Automag shooting flaming paintballs, a Million Dollar Target Shooting Contest and we were televised on Thanksgiving Day weekend by Adrenaline TV, with an audience share that would be hard to match, even today.

There were a whole mess of other cool, behind the scenes things going on: The teams attending our special, made-for-tv format game (a format that still suspiciously resembles X-Ball – or is that the other way around?) all PLAYED FOR FREE.

Coca-Cola USA sponsored the event, along with Pro-Caps, AGD, and a whole mess of companies that aren’t around anymore.

We had PAVED roads at the tournament, indoor staging for the teams, indoor bathrooms for the teams, special bunkers designed and developed by Brimstone Paintball and regulation tournament fields on natural grass that were built in two and a half days by five and a half guys – fields and set-ups that looked so professional, everyone assumed that it was a regular paintball facility.

But it wasn’t.  It was a county fairgrounds and I only paid $2500 bucks for the entire facility for a five day weekend.  Did I mention the paved and gated parking facilities, or the fact that we charged $5.00 per head for the general public to come in and watch – or the trade show that was emptied out of its vendors everytime a USPL game started because the vendors just had to go and watch?

Did I mention that a consortium of industry types came to me and said, “this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, we’re going to put our heads together, come up with a sponsorship plan and get back to you. How many events do you want to host next year?” – and then they went off and did something else?

What else had gone before?  Oh, let’s see.  We had a reffing crew that wasn’t involved with playing.  We had a structure for local and regional leagues that would feed into the national events that was designed to REDUCE the cost to the teams all along the way: if you won a local – free entry to the regional championship; if you won a regional, free entry to the national championship.  If you placed – you got reduced costs. If you didn’t – you could still attend those higher level events and take another crack at winning or placing your way to the finals.

We were able to introduce those things because we didn’t spend a buttload on renting high-marquee style venues – we built them ourselves. What’s the difference between a stadium’s grass parking lot and a county fairgrounds with paved roads and indoor bathrooms?  A WHOLE *%$#*@!  LOT OF THE PLAYER’S MONEY – that’s what.

Yeah, we were going to do the franchise team thing too, but you know what – we built in a structure that helped the teams make back that money – not from industry sponsorship (which is like everyone trying to suck on the same teat at the same time, ya know) but from outside advertising dollars.

And we were thinking about the grass roots the whole bleeding time – giving local fields and stores direct and reduced entry to the trade shows, sponsoring playing clinics (run by those same teams – more ways to make their money back), hosting local games, etc., etc.

You can do a lot of development work in the decade that I spent putting that thing together;  sure, some of it was like hacking your way through a jungle with a machete (which some might think I’d have good use for now), but most of it was simply following the lead of the successful sports that had gone before – learning from their mistakes and taking advantage of the things they’d learned and gotten right.

It might have been the nice, maybe even the right thing, for the ‘new’ USPL to have called me up to ask if I had a problem with their using the name. The corporation that put that name out there in the public BACK IN 1999 still exists – but given the industry’s history, I doubt very much if anyone bothered to check on that.

Yeah, it might have been the nice, professional, friendly thing to do, to ask. But this is paintball, so what the hell do you expect, right?

 It might have been the proper thing to do. It would probably have been even smarter for the folks running the show over there to have gotten in touch to find out what we did wrong AND what we did right.  Looks like they copied an awful lot of it pretty accurately – but I guess they’d much rather substitue a few months of meetings for a decade of research.  They’ve got the teams kicking in franchise fees, the budget sounds like its pretty robust – so why not re-invent the wheel – right?  It’s so much easier than making a phone call.

Am I pissed?  No. What’s there to be pissed about?  Another league going down the same path that everyone, including myself, has gone down before. Lot’s of hype, some people and teams that are so desperate to keep on playing ‘their way’ that they’ll just keep on throwing money at the dream.

I think one definition of insanity is obsessively repeating the same actions, while expecting the results to somehow be different.

A couple of months ago I said, here, that I was sad to see the NPPL go, but that it was a chance to focus on a single league, to get the industry to work together, reduce some of the costs and concentrate on finally using the headlinder of tournament paintball as the draw and promotional vehicle that it ought to be, rather than the elephant in the room that it had become.  Or the bull in the china shop.  Or the 900 pound gorilla. Or that cold virus rhinocerous under the sheet analogy.

And then the acronyms starting popping up all over.  So I guess 2009’s chance to turn everything around is pretty much over and done with – even though there are a lot of folks who’ll disagree with me about that – which only brings us back to right where we’ve all been for the past 15 years: two or more leagues tearing themselves and the industry apart, trying to grab a piece of ever-shrinking pie and never thinking, for one little second, that maybe it’s time to start baking some more pies.

So, am I mad, or angry, are people going to be getting C&D letters or calls from my attorney?  (I’ve been making the parties that were interested in this answer read all the way through this crap just to get to it…) No, not at all, not in the least and not in the slightest, because I know a couple of things that maybe most folks haven’t even thought of, and one of them is this:

I had a spanking brand new game format that everyone who saw absolutely loved; I had a partnering league that ran regional games all across the country, and several other regionals that had signed on board to serve as the underpinnings of the national structure; I had widespread industry support and pledges of financial sponsorship; I had a television show; I had a plan that didn’t just work on paper – it worked in practice.  And I and my partner invested nearly a THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS making it all happen and then, because of paintball POLITICS, it all went away.

And I know that virtually nothing has changed in all the time that’s gone by since.

The rest of the stuff I know that no one else seems to, I’ll keep to myself.  Maybe I’ll still get that phone call…or maybe I’ll just continue to be very, very, very flattered.

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Little Birds Go tweet, tweet tweet over at PTP

Sorry for not posting for a bit – I’ve been breaking my cardinal rule over here of not posting once a day.  All I can do is plead workload.  I’ve got a big project coming down the pike (which will be announced here shortly).  I’m going to have to push this blog back to once-weekly entries until the ‘to do’ list gets reduced.

Meanwhile – SOMETHING is going on over at Pro-Team Products – the folks I used to work for and the inventors of more paintball tech still used today than anyone has any idea…

Activity is up on threads concerning PTP both on AO and on MCB and the subject is apparently the release of a limited edition 2009 MicroMag body.

(older Micromag body design above)

Looks like this will be pre-order ONLY – and it sounds as if PTP will be taking orders soon.

I’m also guessing that there will be some pretty neat features incorporated into that new body – but what the heck do I know, I only worked there for like, a decade…

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Kee Action Sports & Gino Postorivo Reach Settlement

We just posted a press release from Kee announcing that the company and Eugenio Postorivo Jr., (former owner and President of National Paintball Supply which was sold and essentially became half of K.A.S.) have reached a settlement in their long-standing dispute(s).

Those disputes followed on the acquisition and involved a whole host of issues – most of which the paintball public was not privy too.

The full PR is viewable on 68Caliber 

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Paintball News Suspends Publication

As we reported today with a press release from PBN, the perennial bi-weekly newspaper that has been serving paintball since 1990 has suspended publication.

Given what has been going on in the industry, most will tend to believe that this is yet ‘more of the same’ old guard companies shutting down due to consolidation, economics and etc.

Without going into details that it is not my privilege to divulge, this temporary suspension has more to do with personal matters than it does business ones.

I worked with and for, Paintball News on a number of occassions and happen to live in the house that used to be the offices for that company;  I see Rene and Juvy on a regular basis – multiple times a week, usually – and although they didn’t do so in their press release, I would request that everyone respect their privacy and allow them to get through these issues undisturbed by questions and unfounded speculation.

You can read the press release here.

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Paintball Christmas 1991 ( part 2)

Quick note up-front: Russ (comments) points out that the ProMaster was a true semi and that the gun I was referencing was the Line SI Advantage – and he’d be correct.  Thanks for catching that.

Moving on to pages 21 through 40 – here we go:

More from National and – the Sterling.  Anyone who knows pump guns knows that the Sterling (a UK import) was amongst the top 5 pump guns during the day.  The action was so smooth you could cock it simply by rocking it.  Way cool gun.

I don’t know if Ballbusters is still around or not (hope they are); they’re name reminds us that ‘questionable’ company and product names are something that have been with us almost since the beginning of the game.  And they’ve escalated in ‘inappropriatness’ since 1991.

That Tippmann 68Special was the descendant of the SMG 60; it was a boat anchor – but that didn’t stop me from taking two onto the field and chasing about 40 people around until it was time to reload…

Another (small) company trying to make a go of electronicizing sights and – Medallion Custom Emblems.  A warehouse fire essentially destroyed that company, but not until they’d managed to grab ahold of (my estimate) nearly 100% of the patch market.

More Tippmann 68Special.  Interesting that it retailed in 1991 for just about what the A5/X7 is retailing for now…

There’s that maxi-loader again.  You can see the ‘patented ball feed channel’ more clearly in this image.

Action Sports Outfitters – Kevin Donaldson, Howdy, RT, Jim Anderson – and a major (if unsung) piece of paintball history.

Following some mis-steps and bad pr, Jerry Braun had pretty much given up on promoting his World Cup tournament (the descendant of the NY Air Pistol Open) when along came the ASO.  They proposed a series of events (four if I remember correctly), tapped the Master Blasters and the Werewolves to officiate (the ‘wolves were my team) and gathered a major amount of industry support; the series managed to revitalize major tournaments in the North East and ultimately (following a bunch of politics and other stuff we don’t need to go into) led to the re-introduction of the World Cup – which, in just a couple of years, would move to Florida, said move taking the combined argumentative powers of Donaldson, RT, Anderson and myself nearly three years of uninterrupted effort to take hold.

So now you know where the World Cup came from and why it’s held in Florida, in October:  ’cause it’s way too fracking cold to play a paintball tournament in Plattekill, New York in October – that’s why!

Palmers – a legend then and still a legend today.  I find it interesting and instructive that a small, one-man (and son) operation, that never embraced the ‘hype at all costs’ mantra of the mainstream paintball community, a company that simply went about doing their own thing and never worried about what the rest of paintball was doing or saying, would be one of the few surviving entities from those days.  Interesting AND instructive.

Adventure Games is still around – right down the road from where I’m sitting right now as a matter of fact.  Its been through divorces, changes in ownership, remodellings and just about anything you can throw at a field – and it did all of that without speedball fields – until this past year.  Paul Robito of Canobie Paintball owns it now and put those inflatable fields in so that his regular tournament-playing customers over at Canobie have a reason to visit AG. 

Paintball Dave’s – another ‘doing his own thing’ kinda guy.  I may be wrong, but I believe he closed up shop just a couple of years ago.  (Apologies if I’m wrong.)  Dave customized PMI-IIIs for quite some time and ran a field who’s customers were fiercely loyal.  That boat anchor up there weighted about 13 pounds loaded – I used to do one arm curls with it while watching tv just so I could one-hand shoot with it if the need ever arose.

Here’s an early attempt at comm systems for paintball;  these guys were shocked to discover that tournament ball did not allow for the use of radio systems.  A lot of scenario games forbade them as well at the time.  Kinda helps to do the market research FIRST…

For the ten millionth time – the rifling is not there to spin the ball, it’s there for a better seal on the ball…lol, sorry, couldn’t resist.

Pro-Team is still around, mostly developing simulation systems for the military and police training these days.

Worr games fans – there you go.  Bud’s pro shop.  Note the ICS gear for sale.

A Tippmann ad showing early support for dealers – sending customers to distributors as opposed to themselves.  Interesting.  Tippmann is still around also…

Oooo – an early Bad Company sponsor.  Nice field too – it hosted PCRI’s ESPN televised NPPL game in 1994.

NW Sales.  Nicky was a pistol – one of the original members of the game’s first ‘all-women’s team’ the Puffs.

There’s that ‘drop-in convert-your-pump-to-a-semi’ kit, from another legendary industry name – Cooper-T – the guy that made everything in red anno.  Cooper was an innovative man with an innovative company – people are still hoarding his parts.

Thunder Pig – another big name from back in the day that hardly anyone remembers.  And a big thank-you from Lively and Caldwell (who just passed away this past year) – one year before the bottom would fall out of the Lively Masters franchise.

 

Another ASO ad.  Note the logo for Bullseye paint – that is no more.

The back cover – from National, repeating a pattern they would engage in for years – always grabbing the back cover slot of print publications.  This ad features a nice selection – with the exception of the Automag – of all of the semi-autos available at the time. 

My team went through each and everyone of them and ultimately settled on the ‘mag – although we did have a few ‘cocker holdouts.  Thje F1 was just too lightweight – we couldn’t seem to get the velocity up over 240 on any of the early models.  The Poison suffered from too many breakdowns, the 68Special, while reliable, was just too darned long, the Promaster we avoided for political reasons.  We used PMI-IIIs for a season (they had the range, reliability and accuracy we demanded), but dropped them as soon as the ‘Mag hit level 6 and the cocker stopped shedding tiny hoses in mid game.

One other kinda correction.  I mentioned the lack of paintball ads and pricing, but if you look back at part 1, you’ll see an ad that lists brands and prices.  That ad caused a lot of controversy as it wasn’t supposed to have that content – it slipped by the editors in the rush to get the edition out the door.

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17 Years Ago

17 years ago, in 1991, when paintball was just 10 years old, Paintball News, one of the leading publications serving the industry and the only bi-weekly newspaper) ran a ‘Stocking Stuffer Christmas Catalog’ insert with their holiday issue.

The insert carried advertising from most of the leading companies in the industry and those folks naturally put their best foots forward and advertised the hot ticket items of the day.

Saying “boy how things have changed” would be a gross understatement.  Most people reading this were still in grade school back in those days.  It would be two years before the first national league would be created, electronic markers were just being developed and the ‘agitating loader’ was still on the drawing board.

I had hoped to have posted this right before Christmas, but I was unable to obtain the permissions needed to reproduce it until now. Having done so, I no present it to you all.

I found going through it to be an extremely instructive, nostalgic and sentimental journey.  Seeing the gear that I used back then, remembering the people associated with the companies, reminiscing about teammates, friends, events and games.  It was a fun trip.

And informative as well.  I’ve added some commentary below a few of the images, but before getting to them, I think it is interesting to note the following:

the prices of the guns.  remember – many of the guns shown in these ads were the top of the line, ‘must have’ shooters of their day.

the lack of advertising for paintballs – most fields and stores objected to pricing in magazine ads, period and drew the line at paint prices.  Back then, paint was readily obtained at between 4 and 6 cents per ball (in quantity) and usually went for $100 to $125 per case at an event.  (We didn’t shoot as much back then.)

The names of the leading companies – most of whom have been absorbed or are no longer in business.

The technology itself.  Pumps were still a viable option. One company was selling an auto-cocking upgrade for pumps.  The height of mask fashion were Vents – the original Vents goggles.  Hopper technology’s big advance was stepping up to a 200 round capacity.

And now – enjoy.

TN is  no longer with us.  I was an early convert to Vents and still think they are amongst the best goggles ever produced.

Paintball Mania morphed into Nitroduck.  Note the Leader mask and the pump guns side-by-side with the ‘new’ semi-autos.

Blackhawk markers for $159.  The Blackhawk was the remodelled Razorback, for those keeping score.

Smart Part’s legendary (externally) rifled barrel.  They were well-into in-house branded markers at this time.  But (other than the Boss), had yet to produce their own gun.

Ball caps, an early book and an ad featuring the Automag.

The GZ – the upgraded Splatmaster.

Another Automag ad, this one from one of my older sponsors.  These are the guys who distributed the Grey Ghost pump gun.

And advertising the Autococker as well.  Thus the rivalry begins (well, not exactly…)

In one year’s time, Dave Bell of ViewLoader would drill a hole in that thing up there, attach a gear train, battery holder and plastic propellor with pop rivets and launch the agitating/force-feed loader revolution.  In 1991, it was good enough to go from a 90 round capacity to a 200 round capacity.

Pro Star Labs is one of the few companies still around.  Note the 50 buck difference between US and Canadian pricing, and check out that way-cool barrel blocker.  No longer will you have to shove a plug up inside your precious, micro-honed barrel…and of particular note – Pro Stars patch service.  Embroidered team, company and event patches were all the rage back in those days.  I spent nearly $200 bucks (in 1990’s dollars) to have all mine sewn onto a jacket and pants.

Gary Harris of Team Navarone – shows off the cheap plastic disposable loaders, pre-packaged with paint.  Based on a product I introduced in 1989 (AmmoCans);  don’t see this anymore do ya?  Nope.  Cause this version tried to charge a premium price, while the AmmoCan was low-balling things and, ultimately, the ‘flip-top 100 round loader’ came way down in price (they used to retail for between $12 and $20 bucks EACH!)

Line SI, Ross Alexander’s company that revolutionized the pump gun with their Bushmaster gun (and before you say ‘wait a second, the Bushmaster is an ICD semi-auto’, remember that this Bushmaster was introduced in ’86 or thereabouts) advertizes the gun that was going to save the industry and the Line SI company, all in one nifty little double-action marker.  NOT.  Double-action (pulling the trigger both fires and cocks the mechanism, all with your poor little trigger finger doing the work) was a brief stop-gap technology between pumps and true semi-autos.  Poor sales on this marker proved to be the end for Line SI.

The above ‘improved’ Daisy site would eventually become a Brass Eagle product.  Note the mixed offer of retail and wholesale sales (this ad is not the only one featuring such);  everyone was doing both back in the day, a practice that led to price reduction – and to a lot of bad feelings.

National Paintball Supply.  Cal Mag paint ONLT $105 per case – wow, what a steal.  (Actually, Cal Mag paint was the first ‘reball’, as more often than not it would bounce right back at you and could be used over and over and over again.)  And check out that sale price on 20 ounce tanks.  Current retail for 20 ouncers is somewhere between $14 and $24 bucks.  Rat tail squeegees are over-the-counter throwaways at around $5 these days.  And Bagmaster (which made some really nice gear bags) is no more.

And neither is National, having been acquired by Kee.  The Maxi-Loader from Indian Springs (another long gone company) was the Viewloader’s primary competitor.  That bulge on the bottom left was a ‘ball feed channel’, over which there was a much ballyhoed intellectual property lawsuit.

That’s half the book.  Tomorrow I’ll present twenty more pages of past paintball goodness.  For now, just consider how lucky you all are.

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Sunday Paintball Jersey, Sunday Paintball Blog

Mickey over at Sunday Paintball forwarded us his press release about the new (first, unique and original) Sunday Paintball Jersey – the Sunday One – several days ago and we didn’t get it up on the site – holiday rush and other appropriate excuses and apologies for that.

However, the benefit is, we’re taking the time out to punch it up just a little bit more than usual because of our oversite.

So first – why ‘the Sunday One’?  Because when you make it to the rounds on Sunday, you and your team are something special, and you ought to be wearing something special for the occassion! 

You all know it’s not enough just to stand up on the podium – you gots to look GOOD when you’re up there!  Wearing a Sunday One makes posing in glory easy!

Just check ’em out!  (and don’t forget to hit the bottom of this piece for some more Sunday news!

Mickey has also started a blog – The Sunday Life – and we’re adding it to our blog roll.  You can check it out here.

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Paintball Agenda compares Walker and Nixon

Brandon has some interesting things to say over on his blog – here.

We (I) got in touch with Shawn – who I worked with several years ago in trying to put together a Floria- based NPPL regional (some nifty marketing ideas in that one – like sending stores and fields in the region a discount coupon letting them send one team to rep for them at a lower entry cost) – in order to air his side of the story.

There are ALWAYS at least two sides to every story – more likley a million sides – because in reality – perception IS reality.

Ultimately:  Pacific has made some serious allegations against Walker in a formal court filing and under penalty of perjury. (Of course, if you ‘believe’ what you are saying is true turns out to be not true, you’re still not committing perjury…) and Shawn has responded with counter-claims that – while not under penalty of perjury, nevertheless have at least a kernal of plausability behind them.

This will not be decided until it hits the courts – if it ever does.

Bottom line:  it is time for teams and players to stop simply being talked into events or going to events because “its the cool place to be” or “everyone else is going there”.  Teams support these kinds of things – wittingly or unwittingly – with their money and their presence, and in the long run the constituency does decide who makes it and who doesn’t.

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