Paintball Potential - MILSIM on Sportsnet

Hey guys!

No, it hasn't made it there yet, sorry if the title gave anyone false-hope that they'd be reading an article announcing a professional MILSIM segment on a national sports network but what I do have is an idea... I know, dangerous stuff but just hold onto your masks because this one's a doozy (although likely already thought of).

I first saw paintball on a sports channel probably... hmmm around 5-6 years ago. My dad gave me a heads-up about this wicked new timeslot dedicated to tournament paintball. Now this was, as I've already said, years ago and all I knew of the sport was that my mother wouldn't allow me anywhere near it... So you could imagine how mystified I was when I saw these teams in flashy jerseys, diving around a course full of inflatable obstacles and just blasted paint at one-another. It was something so new to me and I spent the rest of that afternoon glued to the television... Never to see speedball on tv again.

Now I'll admit, I didn't look that hard. I figured it'd just be on like any other sport (and it should be) but I never came across it and I had better things to do than to search for the channel online but now I've been thinking... Why hasn't scenario style paintball been made into a televised sport?

Roadblocks:

Unconventional Warfare:

The biggest reason that I could see for people not considering MILSIM paintball worthy of television is the lack of a conventional points system. Looking at from a layman's view it's easy to identify 'star' players and good teams purely by goals, wins, and there's a certain diversity that's readily apparent with different playing positions. Now how about we look at paintball from the uneducated point of view... It's a bunch of people firing non-lethal guns at one-another. Plain and simple, most people can't get past paintball being an 'unconventional' sport.

Now this goes out to everyone who says "MILSIM could never be TV-worthy" based on the lack of a 'conventional' points system... Folks, who says an assist has to be a pass leading to a goal? Who says you can only 'score' by putting a puck or a ball in a net? Let me throw these little details at you:

• There are COUNTLESS ways for teams to score points in a scenario game. If it helps, think about a videogame like Call of Duty where everything from capturing flags, to racking up kills to setting/defusing explosives can earn you points. Those points are all tracked and recorded and somewhere in the middle of all that data comes a player's ranking. 



Ex.1

• As a reference I've inserted my Call of Duty Black Ops II Elite multiplayer summary. Just in the summarized overview you can see my Kill:Death Ratio, my win percentage and score per minute along with my total experience. Now would you not agree that listing   similar statistics could be VERY relevant for following a competition MILSIM team's performance? Here's an extremely well put-together video from PRZ's Fight For Asylum 2, an event in which I competed.

Video Credit to TheAlabasterSlim

So as you can see, with the advent of compact, high-quality action cameras and the advances in wireless streaming technology, televising MILSIM paintball events can no longer be prevented simply by saying "it's hard to define a points system". Between the refs, static and mobile video cameras and player honour it's not exactly difficult to track.

Now of course this would be easier to track if it was only magfed paintball as then you can force shorter games, fewer shots fired (easier to track kills/eliminations) but regardless, it could be done.

Camera Concerns:

Here's the part I'm REALLY into... Capturing the action.

Now I figure there'll be someone who says "well even if you can track points and assign rankings, how would you prepare the action for television?" After all, television production is a very complicated process and requires serious coordination along with a bit of luck. What I say to this is the exact same thing said by the American commander in charge of the encircled forces during the battle of the Bulge when asked to surrender by the German CO...

"Nuts"

Are you trying to cover an open-field firefight? How about a shielded camera 'turret' akin to those used to televise hockey games. Oh but your field also has indoor CQB fighting? No worries, just install a couple static cameras in strategic positions and then finally, like in NASCAR, attach as many action cameras to the players as possible without impeding their play. Barrel cams, helmet and 'vanity' cameras? Absolutely! If you can't stream the images live then the world could settle for a cut and edited next-day airing. The point here is that it IS possible to put together a tv-segment-worthy piece from a MILSIM game provided it is properly organized and refereed.

Embedded is a list of popular action cameras with their specs and prices... If you think about how these could be mounted on players, and the shots you could capture, don't you think paintball might be worth watching?

Final Cut:

That's all I have to give as far as what my brain can cook up regarding MILSIM paintball and television... Seriously though, this needs to be given a pilot year, or at least a few "Paintball Night in Canada"s dont'cha think? So, what other complaints have YOU heard about why paintball can't work on TV? Leave them in the comments along with suggestions for getting around the issue if you have any.

And as always, keep calm and throw paint!

Joshua J. Taylor - The 'Noob' Baller