AC: Dallas have added Under Armour to their list of sponsors.
With so many teams becoming sponsored by Under Armour and Nike, what does this mean for future sponsorships? Hopefully something….what that something is I don’t know. For years players and industry folk have longed for, larger non-paintball companies to invest money into the sport.
Back in the early-mid 2000’s paintball was growing like wildfire, sales were up, participation was higher than ever and there was money to be made. Then in late 2007 numbers plummeted, just like all leisure activities around that time. Back in the good ol’ days we saw companies like Intel and Rockstar at tournaments and sponsoring teams. Now in 2016 I’ll bet the number of players and money in paintball are around 20% of what they were 10 years ago. Why would Under Armour and Nike sponsor paintball teams?
Well the answer is pretty simple; someone in Under Armour’s sponsorship department is a fan of paintball—so bam Dynasty got sponsored. Nike quickly followed along and now almost every professional paintball team in the NXL is sponsored by either Nike or Under Armour. Even if this was a tactic by Nike and Under Armour it would make sense. Sponsoring a paintball team with cleats, trainers, warm-up, etc. would cost these companies virtually nothing. Nike signed Lebron James to a rumored “life time contract” worth north of a billion dollars, the whole paintball industry isn’t even worth $1B! Giving a paintball team $5,000 worth of product is nothing…..so why not give the teams free stuff and try and grab a foothold in an industry where everyone wears products you already make.
