Now that the Angelo Gordon & Co. purchase and re-organization of PMI and NPS is well underway, I believe that it is time, once again, to make an appeal to the industry to get its act together.

This letter is for everyone, but is primarily directed at Angelo, Gordon & Company, Imperial Capital Corporation, K2 and Summit Partners, the new 'top tier' of our industry – companies owned and operated by individuals who believe that paintball is worth the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.

In and of itself, that is quite a statement.  This little corner of the extreme sports market, a game that each of us spends a few hundred to a few thousand dollars on every year is believed to be worth HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS by people who know money.  Perhaps even more significant is the fact that not only do those people think its worth investing in, but they believe it is going to grow by a large enough margin to not only cover their investments but pay them handsome profits along the way.

Twenty-three years ago, as I built my first home-made stickfeeder, and others like me all across the country brought their own fledgling ideas into existence, we dreamed of something like this happening, but none of us could have possibly dreamed this big.

The question now of course is, where are we going to go?  Is the collective dream of paintball greatness going to finally have a chance to be realized, or are the new leaders going to continue in the same old direction we have been going for the past 12 years?

I define the 'same old direction' as the failed policies of political divisiveness, the quest for market domination at all costs, the blurring of the traditional lines of business, the undercutting of the specialty retail base, the promotion of a negatively oriented youth culture, the partisan perversion of neutral service organizations, the lack of a unified governing body and the complete and utter absence of a robust and effective industry organization.

I do not accuse any of the aforementioned companies of being responsible for this situation.  Instead I suggest that there now exists the industry’s best chance to achieve its common goals of success, stability and growth, simply because all of these companies understand - probably better than anyone else in paintball - that their collective best chance for success lies in a healthy and unified industry.

Never before in our past twenty-five years has so much knowledge of industry and so much potential wealth been brought together in one place at the same time.  It seems to me that these four companies actually have more in common than they do differences.  None of them come from within a paintball tradition; all have proven in the real world that they understand money, and investments, markets and industry.

The broad history of successful industry illustrates that open markets, fair and level competitive fields and long-range vision lead to growth and success, while monopolies, restricted markets, political favoritism and short-term thinking ultimately lead to failure. 

Surely the new captains of this industry understand this basic equation.  Surely they know that money spent on growth is better spent than money used for dismemberment and destruction.  They must understand this or they would not be where they are today.

Do not think that I am advocating some kind of paintball socialism.  I don't believe for one second that the owners and shareholders of these companies are going to become best friends and share milk and cookies.  I fully expect that they will put the well-being of their own interests ahead of their competitors and ahead of the industry if it should come to that. 

What I am suggesting is that by virtue of their origin - all of them from outside of the paintball community, obviously sharing many of the same values, methods and visions - they are better placed to discover and develop the common goals and needs of a truly mature and potentially wildly successful industry.

We are in a new era of paintball and these four companies have the best chance of anyone of indelibly marking it as their own for the rest of time.

What needs to be done?  Only a few seemingly simple things, things that many other industries have done before, things that these four companies have no doubt already done many times over in their other endeavors.  Things that have eluded our industry for a quarter of a century.

1. Re-establish the traditional lines of business that have served human economy well for the past ten thousand years:  Let manufacturers manufacture and give them a place to sell at a sustainable margin.  Let distributors buy in volume and sell smaller quantities at a reasonable market.  Let retailers service the customers and make a decent dollar so they can survive and keep the pipeline open. 
2. Figure out a way to help the big box stores work in harmony with the traditional retailers - you need them both, the one for volume and growth, the other for longevity and maintenance.
3. Stop competing on price/loss-leaders alone.  This has only served to decrease the available dollars for everyone.  Compete on service.  Compete on support.  Compete on innovation. Start taking a profit so that everyone else can also.  Retailers with more money will purchase more product from everyone.
4. Ignore the temptation to take political advantage of organizations that by any measure should be non-partisan.  ASTM and PEC are both tremendously valuable commodities for the industry - indirectly reducing liability exposure, manufacturing costs through shared standards and allowing paintball to take advantage of the developments of other industries without sharing in the expense.  Sadly, over the years many other service and standards organizations within the industry have fallen to political mishandling.  Identify those organizations that can only do their work effectively by remaining industry-neutral, support them, establish a believable, shared hands-off policy and work towards creating other, similar organizations where they are needed.
5. Help bring sensibility to the 'sponsorship-as-marketing-tool' idiocy.  Today, practically every second-day player expects a handout due to the rampant profligacy of ill-considered "sponsorship".  Bring sponsorship policies into line with their purpose - the ability to directly increase sales and exposure.  Recognize that in most cases support of events is potentially more effective than support of individual teams.  Sponsorship in many, if not most cases, only serves to reduce the market value of product by injecting a zero cost element into the market.  Most competitors cannot share a team.  Most competitors can share an event.
6. Address the culture.  Once again, promote fair play, honesty and responsibility.  Place a premium on sportsmanship.  Demand that those you support strive to maintain the highest of ideals.  Publicly reward good behavior and punish bad behavior.  Take a stand against unsafe backyard play and paintball vandalism.  Publicly demonstrate the ways in which you would like to see your investment portrayed in the media.
7. Get a handle on intellectual property.  It's senseless and wasteful for an industry to be beating up its own over intangible property that they could be licensing outside the industry for everyone's benefit.  Several other industries have amply demonstrated the effectiveness of patent consortiums - and those industries generally have a lot more at stake with their IP than paintball does. 
8. Establish a temporary organization whose goal is to bring into being a governing body for competitive events.  Do so in a manner that embraces all of the existing formats, leagues, and classifications.  Do so in a manner that envisions future growth, future investment and the participation of external elements.  Do so inclusively rather than exclusively.  Help build a sport that will help you sell more product to an ever-growing base of consumers.
9. Collectively fund an outside firm that specializes in industry organizations.  Make a place at the table for all of the market segments - manufacturers, distributors, big retailers, specialty retailers, field owners, event producers, the recreational, scenario and tournament people, the media, the service organizations, the charities the non-profits and yourselves.  Identify the areas of common concern and focus on them - industry image, industry promotion and growth, safety and external competitors to name the obvious ones - and work towards creating shared policies for dealing effectively with them.  Remember to embrace inclusivity and reject exclusivity.

While the need for the previously mentioned changes and improvements to our industry have been recognized for at least 23 of the past 25 years, and despite the fact that many notable attempts at achieving one or more of them have failed during that period of time, and even despite the fact that it is easier to state what is needed than it is to formulate the achievement of those goals, they remain not only possible but necessary.

I have no doubt that the vast majority of consumers who support this industry with their dollars also support the above-mentioned goals.  Many even recognize that they might have to pay a price - be it personal or economic - in order to see them come to fruition and I remain convinced that they would be more than willing to accept that price if it meant they would then be able to enjoy the benefits of a mature and sensible industry in which everyone knows the rules and most everyone follows them on a daily basis.

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