Chapter 12

PAINTBALL AS A BUSINESS

GETTING INTO THE BUSINESS

There has been, of late, an alarming trend on the part of paintball parents. They look at how much money they and their kids spend on the game, they look at how popular the game is, and two weeks later they’ve opened up a field or store, shaving expenses by getting their kid’s gear at dealer pricing and trying to make a living in the paintball industry.

I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but your child’s hobby is probably not a good excuse for opening a business.

Paintball remains a ‘niche’ or specialty market, and there is still a very strong good-old-boy network (guys like myself who have been in it from the beginning). That translates into a lot of specialty knowledge, which takes years to acquire; there are political and relationship issues that those new to the sport are unfamiliar with and which can have a tremendous impact on a business.

The specialty knowledge (what product to purchase, how to analyze the local market, how to sell, identifying trends) is true for any business, but there is a difference in paintball. When you pull up to a McDonalds and order a quarter-pounder with cheese, what you get is a quarter-pounder with cheese, regardless of whether the franchise owner was Hamburger U’s very first summa cum laude graduate or the ink is still wet on the franchise check . When you go into a paintball store or step onto a playing field, the experience is vastly different depending on whether the owner/operator has been in business for years or just finished inflating the last bunker.

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In this final chapter I provide some background on the paintball industry and the requirements for opening up a paintball business.  I’ve included this chapter for the simple reason that many parent’s first reaction to seeing the number of children playing and the cash generated by paintball is to want to open up a field or store.