Corporate Tourneyball and the Woodsball Revolution
by Jordan F. Ricks on May 20, 2007

Here’s the paintball life cycle of your average Joe:

1. Joe plays paintball in the woods for the first time and loves it.
2. Joe spends dozens of hours burning up his internet connect and reading magazines about paintball.
3. The magazines, internet and local store owner all pump the message that “cool” paintballers play tourneyball .
4. Joe really wants to be “cool,” so he finds a commercial field nearby and saves up for a shiny tourney marker and a bright red and yellow jersey.
5. After six months of playing tournament paintball, Joe realizes that this game is outrageously expensive and not that fun anymore.
6. Joe quits paintball.

Flip open just about any paintball magazine and you’ll see page after page of glitzy tourney ads. Only about ten percent of the advertising in Action Pursuit Games, the undisputed leader of paintball magazines, is aimed at the woodsball^TM; player. But, according to a poll by SpecialOps Paintball, commercial paintball fields around the country play woodsball^TM; more than seventy-percent of the time - and this doesn’t count the informal pickup games that take place every Saturday in forests and vacant lots across America. Less than thirty-percent of commercial paintball is played on a tourney format. When you see ninety-percent of the marketing focused on less than thirty-percent of the sport, it raises some questions. Why would paintball companies ignore the largest part of the paintball market in favor of tourneyball? If you’re looking for a hint: it has everything to do with money.

The Sport Divides

Tournament paintball didn’t always exist.
In fact, between 1983 and 1995, all pro tournaments were woodsball^TM; games. Toward the end of the millennium, tournaments began to employ “speedball” and “hyperball” fields which were much smaller and simpler than the woodsball^TM; fields of the past. Soon, event promoters were throwing out inflatable bunkers on a flat piece of land and calling it paintball.

These new tourney fields had several huge advantages over the woods fields. Most importantly, by employing a small field, paintball could become a spectator sport. In the giant woodsball^TM; fields, cameras couldn’t really catch the action and live audiences could see only one corner of the field. Becoming a spectator sport meant television, it meant larger crowds, and it meant sponsorships from outside the paintball industry. In a word, it meant cold, hard cash.

Also, with the game contained, the refs could more easily spot cheating and they could balance the layout of the field better. Cheating was eating the heart out of tournament paintball when it was a woods game. Now, the game could be trimmed down to something more manageable.

When tournament paintball emerged, just about every icon of the sport eventually went with it. Every well-known paintballer, on a local or a national level, adopted the new shape of tourneyball and woodsball^TM; faded from the circles of professional paintball. The new shape of the game offered experienced players a new level of elitism. Woods play was definitely “out” with the “in” crowd.

Even though paintball shops were selling far more Tippmanns than tourney guns, camo clothing began vanishing from their racks. Paintball store owners were usually tourney team players and team sponsors. They couldn’t help but look down their noses at the “Rambo-types,” and they didn’t want to see woodsball^TM; gear hanging around their stores (even if it out-sold their tourney gear three-to-one.)

The elitism ran the gamut, from pro-players to store owners to gun manufacturers. Only Tippmann Pneumatics stuck to their market research and kept popping out woodsball^TM; paintguns. Cool or not, Tippmann is by far the largest manufacturer of paintball guns in the world today. Most other manufacturers fell all over themselves to “out-tourney” one another in a race to shape the sport into the cash-cow they desperately wanted. The sport did a sharp ninety-degree turn.

Or so they’d like you to believe.

In fact, while all these industry luminaries were running around re-inventing the sport, most of us were all still playing woodsball^TM;. But, woodsball^TM; virtually disappeared from the full-color glossy media image of paintball. It was like all the powers-that-be decided that if they turned their backs on woodsball^TM;, all the woodsball^TM; players would become tournament paintball players.

In a sense, sadly, they were right.
Many younger paintballers swallow the version of “cool” sold profusely in the paintball magazine ads and the shop showrooms. Many follow the trend right into a brand of paintball that they won’t find as rewarding as woodsball^TM;. To be fair, some simply prefer tourney-style paintball. But, many convert to tournament-style paintball without thinking about it first. If you want to be “elite,” if you want to be “cool,” then you’ll buy a blue-anodized paintgun and go hang out with the tourneyball homies.

In the end, though, it’s all just a function of the dogma cranked out by the advertising engines of the paintball manufacturers and tournament promoters. Just because corporate paintball has sold out to the financial incentives of tourneyball doesn’t make it cooler and it doesn’t make it more rewarding than woodsball^TM;. It just makes you a sucker if you mindlessly embrace tournament paintball.

There’s little doubt that tourneyball is a better sport for spectators. On the other hand, woodsball^TM; is probably a better sport for players. Since the tourneyball sport needs new blood to feed the corporate machines that drive it, woodsball^TM; has become the obvious target for tourneyball companies looking to fill their sales quotas.

One casualty of this “conspiracy of cool” is the new player. Obviously, the tournament paintball industry recruits heavily from woodsball^TM; players. Many, if not most paintballers, first experience paintball playing in the woods. From there, they are attracted into the tournament arena through a relentless advertising blitz. But, that doesn’t mean the new player will enjoy tourneyball more. Often, the higher cost of tourneyball, not to mention the mundane tourneyball format, don’t appeal to new players as much as playing in the woods. This leads many new players to burn out on paintball without ever realizing that woodsball^TM; could have been a lifetime passion. Tourneyball is not the only option for experienced paintball players.


Different Game, Different Gear

While both tourneyball and woodsball^TM; players shoot spherical balls filled with paint, the similarities end there.
Tourneyball and woodsball^TM; share the same evolutionary roots, but it doesn’t make them the same sport. Even though many of the industry magazines are making attempts at accommodating both sides of the sport, it probably won’t last forever. Football and rugby share a lot of history too, but eventually someone had to admit that they weren’t the same thing.

If one were to compare tournament paintball to a game of checkers, woodsball^TM; might be compared to chess. Tournament paintball is strategically simpler than woodsball^TM;—with a simplified field, same-same paint markers, and fewer player specialties.

The gulf between tournament paintball and woodsball^TM; isn’t getting any narrower. When you see a tourneyballer running around a woods field with gear that is absurdly out-of-place you realize: this equipment mishmash isn’t working well at all. And, if you’re still not convinced, just put a die-hard tourneyballer on a woodsball^TM; field and you will come away convinced – good tourney skills don’t mean much in woodsball^TM;. And, the reverse is true of woodsball^TM; players who try tourneyball. The strategies, tactics and equipment are miles apart.

For starters, you can’t expect to perform on a woodsball^TM; field without camouflage. It doesn’t matter how hip you look, you’ll stand out like a neon sign in the woods if you wear your tourney duds.

And the anodized markers. . . a bright blue hopper on a silver gun can be seen through ten yards of heavy brush. So, while the tourney player is still looking for a place to shoot his eighteen balls per second, he’s getting spanked by a newbie wearing camos and carrying a out-of-the-box, black Tippmann rental gun. The outrageous colors of a tourney gun would be disadvantage enough, but they are also configured for standing against cushy sup’airball bunkers, not for creeping along the ground. If you’ve ever tried crawling with an eighteen-inch high tourney marker you know firsthand – tourney guns are not well-suited to the forest.

To top it all off, tournament masks, with their bright colors, reflective lenses and blazing product logos couldn’t be more unfit for woodsball^TM; play. The only thing worse than a neon sign around your torso is a neon sign around your head.

If the tourneyball player were only at a disadvantage in equipment, he still might be able to “swing both ways” and pull it off. But the basic skills called for in woodsball _TM are completely different than tourneyball. Stealth, tactics and terrain awareness make a great woodsballer. Speed, snap shooting and angles make a great tourneyballer. Both require gun skills, but all the rest is night-and-day different. For many years, we’ve watched pro-level tourney players walk onto our woodsball^TM; fields only to leave later shaking their heads. Some come back with cammies and others never return. One way or another, seeing is believing: these are two different games entirely.

Making the Right Choice for You

All the members of Team SpecialOps play tourneyball as well as woodsball^TM;.
(And, that, more than anything has convinced us tourney skills and woods skills are a universe apart.) We even have current and former pro tourneyballers on our team and staff. We enjoy working our gun skills in the tourney format though the prolonged “shootouts” are probably bad woodsball_TM form. There’s nothing wrong with tourneyball. But, having played both, we choose woodsball^TM;and we don’t give a damn about what the tourney corporations portray as “cool.” To us, nothing could be cooler than our passion for paintball in the woods.

There is definitely less money to be made in woodsball^TM; than there is to be made in tourneyball. Less paint is expended. The guns are cheaper. You can play woodsball _TM in the woods without paying field fees. Big corporate sponsors can’t get exposure in the woods. But, why should a paintball player care about what’s making the corporations more money? (Answer: they shouldn’t.)

Tournament paintball did a lot for the paintball industry, to be sure. Paintball was struggling with its image when tourneyball came around and the sport needed an exposure boost. The game looked too much like war and some communities in the U.S. and the world would not embrace a “war game.” With the rise of tourneyball came greater acceptance among the non-paintball public. Who knows? Without tourneyball, paintball might have found itself banned in some states like airsoft has been banned.

But, if the image of woodsball^TM; is too much like an army, then the image of tourneyball may be too much like a street gang. You need only look through a paintball magazine to see the “gansta” influence on paintball marketing. Which would we prefer as role models to young paintballers: the men and women of our armed forces or inner-city street thugs?

When Charles Gaines and Hayes Noel invented paintball in 1981, they conceived of a game that would test the woods skills and survival instincts of the players. The last thing on their minds was inflatable-dorito-speckeled gridirons where tens of thousands of paintballs would be mindlessly blasted until someone poked their toe out a quarter-inch too far. But the game they DID invent was an instant phenomenon and it swept the country. (and that game was woodsball^TM;!)

Perhaps the original game of paintball took off because the concept was so obvious. People had bee playing tag, cowboys and Indians and capture the flag for eons. It was a very small leap to imagine that folks would love running around the woods with toy guns trying to outwit each other. Gaines and Hayes didn’t invent tourneyball probably because it’s attraction isn’t nearly so clear. Woodsball^TM; speaks to a fundamental desire that we have to test one other in nature. Tourneyball can’t claim to tap into that same desire. It’s something far more artificial—something more urban than woodsball^TM;.

So, to recruit woodsball^TM; players, the tourney industry has to reach deeper into its bag of tricks. It plays up our need to be elite and cool rather than the natural gamesmanship that inspired the pioneers of paintball. Nobody in the industry strains themselves to recruit new woodsball _TM players. New players just show up at the fields because the idea of woodsball^TM;is such an easy proposition.

Ultimately, the future of the two sports might hinge on young players’ ability to choose what seems “coolest” to them—before they are hit with the advertising barrage. Is it a spectator sport they’re after or a player’s sport?

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