17/06/2025
An interesting post with lots of points for discussion...
I remember writing similar posts over the years but with a VERY CLEAR decline in all areas of the hobby over the past few years should we be discussing things more plainly?
Is it time to light some fires with a live show?
An open letter to the wider paintball community 🌍
It's no secret that running paintball events, and everything that they entail is an unenviable task at best. Liaising with teams, refs, host sites, suppliers, spectators, media and other entities fast approaches a full time job.
UK paintball is struggling, and has been for years. The only reason that we still have any form of competitive scene outside of the CPPS is due to the likes of the UK Woodland Masters, the ECPL and more recently the National Woodsball Championships but we do not have the depth of teams to support all of the events that are on offer as proven by the reduction of teams across all events and the end of the UKWM earlier this year.
It doesn't matter whether you're a player, ref, team owner, site owner or vendor. By standing by and waiting for someone else to step up we run the risk of losing more and more of the existing events we play. Best case it might not affect you personally as it might not be an event or venue that you play at, but worst case you might lose your local venue and the cost to attend events further afield will add even more on-top of what you can currently afford.
Something has to change, and it has to change now. If it does not, running the European Classic Paintball League will no longer be a viable option as the considerable amount of time invested in each and every event to at best break even cannot be sustained.
Three areas that we need to act now to improve are:
1. Referees. We need to encourage more people to try reffing and integrate them into events, practices, walk-ons etc. So many people are struggling financially, yet there is so much work available - it makes no sense why we continue to struggle in this area.
There are a multitude of suppliers out there who could easily facilitate subsidised goggles working alongside sites/stores and make this a reality... if they wanted to.
2. Players. When was the last time you brought someone along to try out paintball? The single best thing that has happened to UK paintball (IMHO) is the introduction of the kids teams (Faction and Next Gen) and the excitement that they have created. We should be building off that to reach more new players involved and engaged with the sport.
3. Teams. See the bigger picture before there's nothing to look at. It doesn't matter what series or format you want to play, just set yourselves up for success and commit to what you say you're going to do so that organisers can plan and make the right investments to make their events the best that they can be.
Bottom line is if you want to continue playing competitive paintball, we all need to do something about this now instead of waiting for someone else like the United Kingdom Paintball Sport Federation to try to resolve our collective dilemma.
I sincerely hope that 2025 is not the final season of the ECPL as we know it. However, I cannot continue to run events if they are not financially viable and the struggle to recruit referees continues each and every event.
Please share this post to raise awareness, discuss with your team mates and I urge you all to become part of the solution.
Nicky T.
