Paintball Journal

PBNation has recently taken it upon itself to sponsor everything under the sun. Not that I think this is a bad thing, it’s about time that PBNation starts giving back to the physical paintball community, seeing how much they have done for PBNation.

First off, we have the fact that PBNation is a Gold Sponsor of PSP for the 2008 season. I don’t find that particularly surprising, especially following the NPPL - PBNation spat that occurred last year. If you want evidence of that, look no further than the fact that they have yet to reinstate the NPPL sub-forum.

It’s a great move for PBNation, first of all to finally start supporting one of the major paintball leagues, as even if it places them in a partisan light, it’s way better than nothing. Second it seems an almost charitable act by PBNation, as anyone attending one of PSP’s events is likely to already know and visit PBNation with alarming regularity.

I am stoked about a PBNation booth to go along with the Skydeck. They’ll probably be one of the cooler stands for sure, even though I have no idea what they’ll be selling. I foresee many, many people making fools of themselves at that booth for random stuff.

So, following that big, expensive news for PBNation, is the news that they’re also sponsoring a huge scenario game at CPX Sports in Joliet, IL on April 5-6, 2008 called Living Legends of Paintball.

The theme is to get people excited about meeting the movers and shakers in the industry, namely the players who have brought it so far, so fast.

Pre-registration admission is $40 and includes 1 complimentary unlimited air-fill pass. Pre-registered players can pre-purchase cases of event paint for $75, day-of cost is $80. Pre-registration deadline ends March 24th. CPX will have free camping available beginning Friday, April 4th. CPX Sports is a 143-acre, $6.5M paintball park located in the Chicago suburb of Joliet, IL and is widely regarded as one of the nation’s premier facilities. The field is conveniently located less than 1-hour from both O’Hare and Midway airports. Smart Parts Inc., is a leading developer and manufacturer of equipment and accessories for the sport of paintball. For more information about the Living Legends event, please visit www.cpxsports.com or call (815) 726-2800.

So, PBNation is feeling rather philanthropic. But did you ever wonder how they could afford something like a Skydeck, a gold PSP sponsorship, and a scenario game?

Well wonder no more as I show you the inner works of PBN!

First source of income: Supporting Members. I estimate the average rate of supporting membership is something like 1.5% of all registered members on PBNation. If that is true, then they are all paying $30 a year for that privilege.

PBNation has 388,000 members. That’s nearly 6,000 supporting members if my rate is close. That is…

$175,000 per year from supporting memberships.

That’s chump change compared to what they pull in from ads, though. I did a quick tally of their ads this month, and emailed them about their rates for advertisements. At the current rates, they’re raking in over $30,000 a month from the number of ads that I saw when I counted.

Assuming that the number of ads stays relatively the same throughout the year, I feel safe in saying…

$360,000 per year from advertisements.

That’s $535,000 per year total. Now, THAT is why I feel it’s a damn good thing that they’ve finally found it in their hearts to give back to the paintball community that’s made them what they are. Even with server costs and paying people to run the business side of things, it’s still an incredibly lucrative business, much more than anyone would suspect.

Anywhere, so there you have it: how PBNation makes its money and where it’s going these days. Too bad Paintball Journal doesn’t quite pull in those figures…

In a spot of news that’s guaranteed to change the way that many paintball fields look at doing business, Drop Zone Paintball has announced that they will only be allowing gravity hoppers on their field during recreational play.

Their aim is to level the playing field again. As guns like the Ion and PMR were released, more and more people started substituting quantity of paint in the air for skill because it became so financially viable. For what people used to pay for Tippmann 98 Customs, they began to be able to afford guns that could actually compete with higher ends.

This meant that even beginning players were able to shoot very quickly without having played for enough time to gain the skill that many had had to gain previously. In days of old, people played until they were actually truly being held back by their gear, and then had to invest a lot of money into buying guns that were not the leap in technology that you see today.

So, at least in my head, ten years ago, you didn’t see the random inexperienced kids shooting their mad gats at the chrono. Or ramping on the noobs at their local field. Or thinking they were hard until they suddenly got lit up and ran off the field crying.

Like today.

Anyway!

Drop Zone has come up with a perfect solution. There’s no ROF limit, no board caps, no tech limit on guns. Instead, there is a blatantly obvious object that has to be on top of your gun: a gravity hopper. It’s easily recognizable, and very, very few people are going to try to cheat by modding a grav hopper. In fact, how stupid that would make you is hardly describable. Plus the switch might give you away.

So, what are the potential problems? None that I can see, as long as they’re reasonable about allowing teams to practice with electric hoppers, because those aren’t going to leave tournament paintball, at least in the foreseeable future.

Read on to see the full text release!

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