For years some paintball insiders have been insisting that the industry generates more than a BILLION dollars.  Outsiders and less informed insiders have countered that it is, at best, a half a billion dollar a year industry.

No one is very clear on whether we are talking about sales of product only or goods AND services, or whether those numbers include the entire world or just the United States.  Those questions are important if you are trying to get a handle on what paintball is worth, because it's a well-discussed fact that services exceed goods and that Western Europe is as big a market as the United States.

Well, now the SGMA has published its annual survey results for 2006 and it has been reported on several websites (Warpig notable among them) that the numbers are down even though the survey itself is bigger and more reliable.

It's bad that the numbers are down-but if anyone is surprised, they haven't been hanging around our camp-we called that one over a year ago.  (Almost two years ago in fact and, if you remember, we laid most of the blame to rest at the feet of an industry that fails to work together and fails to self-promote.  You reap what you sow and if you don't sow, you don't reap.  Or eat...)

Remember when paintball was touted as an up and coming industry that was growing at an unprecedented 30 plus percent per year, for several years running?  Well, now its going to be an unprecedented retraction to the tune of 20% per year, for years.

But don't be doomy and gloomy.  There's actually some good that's come out of this.  A better grasp of the numbers.  What you can get doomy and gloomy about is that the rest of this piece is going to deal with math.  I know.  BORING.  But, before you go, indulge me for just one piece of math.  I have a feeling that if you do, you’ll want to hang around for the rest.

Among the nifty pie graphs provided by the SGMA is one that breaks the total number of players up into three groups based on how frequently they play.  2.4 million people played one to seven times; 650,000 played 8 to 14 times and 1.9 million played 15 or more times.

I'll do the math:  A total of 4.9 million people played paintball at least once in 2006.

Now, let's take a look at how many games there actually were, because that has an effect on how much money was spent.  We're going to low-ball this for now and use the smallest number of games in each group.

2.4 million times one game each is 2,400,000 player/games for the lower group
650,000 times eight games is 5,200,000 player/games for the middle group
1.9 million times fifteen is 28,500,000 player/games for the top group
Add them all up and we get:  36,100,000 or just over 36 million player games.

In the United States alone.

Now, let's assume for the moment that paintball is a billion dollar a year business and that no one buys their own equipment. If we divide 1 billion dollars by 36.1 million player/games we get:

$27.71 per player.

In other words, if the paintball industry is ONLY a billion dollar a year industry (and we're only counting the US market), then every single player out there spent an average of $27.71 for everything each time they played.  They got their air, their paint, their greens fees and their rental equipment for less than thirty dollars a day.

Come on.  Even the backyarders spend at least $25 per day (bag of paint and a couple of fills).  And at some point they had to buy equipment.  Even the least expensive plastic gun is more than $25.00.

But, assuming that those numbers are correct-what about Europe, Asia and the rest of the world?  Conservative estimates put Europe on a par with North America.  Which means that paintball is worth at least TWO billion dollars a year.  Asia at somewhere a third of either of those and then there's the Middle East, Africa, South America, a whole mess of pacific island countries, Australia and a bunch of places who's names we probably can't spell.  We're talking another half a billion dollars at least.

Now remember we were only counting the on-going cost of playing.  The so-called 'services' money and we were doing a reverse analysis by dividing a billion dollars by a conservative estimate of the number of player/games.  Let's look at it another way.  We'll use the same numbers from above.

Let's assume that the backyard player represents 60 percent of the market (a rough guesstimate based on SGMA polling) and the commercial field/tournament/scenario gamer represents 40 percent of the market.

Its reasonable to assume that the backyarder spends a lesser amount.  Let's call it $25.00 per player/game-a bag of paint and a couple of fills.

Let's further assume that the commercial field player spends an estimated $70-$10 for entry, $10 for air and $50 for a case of field paint.  (Again, conservative numbers.  We're not covering the tournament entry fees of $75 per player and up, or scenario paint at $80 a case...).

First, the estimated number of players in each group:

   1-7 times 8-14 times 15+ times
Backyarders (60%) 1.44 million 390,000 1.14 million
Regulars (40%) 960,000 260,000 760,000

Now we figure the number of games:

1.44 million times 1 game each – 1,440,000
390,000 times 8 games each – 3,120,000
1.14 million times 15 games each – 17,100,000

Backyarders played a total of  21,660,000 player games

960,000 times 1 game each – 960,000
260,000 times 8 games each – 2,080,000
760,000 times 15 games each – 11,400,000

Commercial fielders played 14,400,000 players games

Now let's total them up and calculate the amount spent on playing based on $25.00 for each backyarder and $70 for each regular/commercial field player.

Backyarders:  21,660,000 @ $25 per player/games equals - $541,500,000
Commercial players: 14,400,000 @ $70 per player/game equals - $1,008,000,000

Or, a total of $1,549,500,000.00 dollars ON PLAYING ALONE.

Did I mention that those numbers were for the United States only and that they don't include any equipment purchases?  (Yeah, I did. A couple of times.)

Do you think that there were some players among the ones who played fifteen times or more that actually played both days every weekend for a 40 week schedule during the year?

Do you think that there were some players who spent over $100 to play during a single day?

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the forty percent of the regular players represented in those numbers purchased some of their own equipment?  Maybe some spent as much as oh, $900 on a gun?  $100 on a gear bag?  $150 on a uniform?  Maybe they have an airtank or two, some goggles, some shoes, some pods and packs also?

Yeah, me too.

What happens to those number if we look at the upper end of the scale and assume that every player who played between 8 and 14 times played 14 times during the year?  Or that every player who played between 1 and 7 times played 7 times during the year?

They get  a LOT bigger.

So, like the title says-where did the money go?

Do I think that there's some vast conspiracy among all of the manufacturers and distributors to hide billions of dollars in revenue?  No.  Such a thing would be impossible to hide.

Do I think that the big investment companies that have bought into paintball over the past few years were playing with numbers bigger than a billion bucks?  Darn right I do.  I think that those guys with smart, educated, powerful number-crunchers working for them had a much better idea of exactly how much the industry was generating on an annual basis.

And I think that the industry itself is worth BILLIONS in revenue.  Maybe as much as 30 Billion world-wide, if you count goods and services.

Those kinds of numbers make you wonder a whole bunch of things.  Like, why aren't we on TV?  Or why do teams have to struggle for sponsorship of a few hundred thousand a year?  Or why isn't there an independent, professional reffing crew for events? 

Or why paintball isn't backing its own presidential candidate.  Heck, why mess with small potatoes?  Why don't we own our own country?

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