This statistic shows the number of participants in paintball in the United States from 2006 to 2017. In 2017, the number of participants (aged six years and older) in paintball amounted to approximately 3.41 million.
Participation in paintball - additional information
The number of participants in paintball in the United States increased significantly from 4.55 million in 2006 up to 5.48 million in 2007. This figure fell slightly in 2008 and stood at 4.55 million again in 2009. In the nine years from 2008 to 2017, the number of paintball participants aged six years and older, decreased from 4.55 million to less than four million.
Paintball is a non-traditional extreme sport in which two teams use air guns with colored gelatin capsules filled with paint to shoot at each other. Games can be played indoor or outdoor on natural or artificial terrain. The legality of paintball games varies across countries and regions.
Since 2007, wholesale sales of paintball equipment have steadily fallen from 300 million U.S. dollars in 2007 to less than 140 million in 2014, according to Sports Marketing Surveys USA. In 2017, however, this increased to 157 million U.S. dollars. In comparison, the wholesale sales of the wider U.S. sports industry, including sporting goods equipment, fitness equipment, sports apparel, athletic footwear, and sports licensed merchandise, have increased slightly year-over-year. In 2008, wholesale sales amounted to around 75 billion U.S. dollars and had grown to 90.22 billion dollars by 2017.
Additionally, paintball ranked 15th in a sports equipment price comparison from the National Sporting Goods Association in 2014. The average price for paintball guns/packages stood at 135.73 U.S. dollars, while air/CO2 pistols and rifles cost approximately 73.85 U.S. dollars.
