Can paintbal survive 09?

I've been wondering that lately. The economy is bad. I mean bad as in scary. Like great depression scary. Paintball is a true luxury sport. It's not like Soccer, where all you need is some grass, a few people with working legs and a ball. It's expensive.

Think about how much you spend when you roll out to your local field to play. What's the entry? $25 or so? A case of paint runs you around $50. Then you need to eat food, and gas to get to the field, which I'm going to guess isn't close by. So what are we talking here? I'd say a gross cost from $80 to $100 for each day of play. Sure there are exceptions; sponsored players, home field teams, etc, but we're talking the average player that's the bread and butter of our sport.

Since January of 08 I've had to lay off 10 people from my 14 person staff where I work, and to tell the truth I'm happy to just have a job right now. I know more people now who are looking for work then in my entire life. And if the economy gets worse, what if I have to lay off the last 4 people (including me!)?

Yep, even I'm thinking twice before I hit up my local store (yes I shop at a local brick and mortar store) to grab my 2 cases of paint for the weekend. At one time during paintballs hay day I'd play 4 times a week and didn't think twice about it. I was down to twice a week, and as of last weekend, once a week now. And this is from someone who has a good 6-figure day job, and who is also working within the industry at FEP.

Now if people like me don't have a choice but to cut back, how are the majority of the players out there, around the 17-23 year old range, going to keep it up? And how about the younger players? Those 12-17 without jobs whose parents finance their paintball addictions. How long until their parents feel the squeeze and have to cut back?

Top this off with the already dwindling number of players over all, the collapse of the tournament scene in the US, fields and stores closing down left and right, and what do we have left?

Paintball, like the rest of this country is on course for a, what I think the economists call a "Correction". I call it a kick in the nuts, because it hurts - bad.

2009 is going to be one of the hardest years for our sport since we battled to make it legal back in the 80's. I think once it's all said and done and the dust settles, we're going to be back to the late 90's in terms of the number of fields, stores, teams and money flowing into the sport. Ya, I told you it's going to hurt.

I just hope that the sport doesn't totally collapse in upon itself during this time. I mean if a few more key players were to fall over, who knows what the sport will look like.

Ask yourself what paintball would be like without JT, WDP (Angel), Bob Long, or Dye?

From what I hear, those companies are all on the ropes financially or trying to sell out to a bigger fish (remember K2 and Brass Eagle?).

I wish I had a crystal ball to see where how it was going to look when it's all said and done and the economy is taking off like a rocket again, but I don't. I just hope we have a sport left to play when that time comes.