Slow Growth, but Some Hope
NXL Dreux- Good Vibes
Perhaps now we can ask the question … is it time to reconsider?
Slow Growth, but Some Hope
After COVID, Europe took much longer to reopen its borders and allow large-scale public events. The US just never stopped, really. This slowed the European industry down to the point of stagnation- without events, players don’ t have anything to work towards, nor reasons to train and refresh their gear, resulting in low sales input for manufacturer brands.
In turn this affects the output- the less paintball brands make, the less they’ re able to give back and invest into the paintball ecosystem.
Post-pandemic, NXL Europe has held mostly invitational events with 3 categories- Pro, Semi Pro and WNXL Pro, with divisionals opened up for the final event of the year, the NXL European Championships in Dreux, France. This means local leagues have technically no larger leagues to feed to. No dreams, no teams. It’ s a chicken and egg situation. With the decline in the industry across Europe, it didn’ t make too much sense to invest too much … but without investment, there can be no growth.
This season, NXL finally flipped the switch and put out the Contenders’ Cup in Bor, Czech Republic as a test run, opening it up to divisions 2 & 3 as well. Participation ended up rather low, but the culprit is likely muddy marketing- many teams were simply not clear on the fact that they could play it. Still, it was a good start, and many teams understood it later, which lays the ground well enough.
NXL Dreux- Good Vibes
220 teams in total attended NXL Dreux, including 121 X-ball teams. Vendors came out to play with good-looking booths, a giant 10 foot LED display by Facefull, Beep target shooting( congratulations to the Swiss competitor who won 1500 € cash), and lots more. It was a great vibe, for the current state of things.
However, around the early to end 2000s( for the benefit of those not old enough to reminisce), Europe had had some real glory days- with superbooths, paintball“ towns”( ah … the nostalgic smell of hundreds of unwashed pieces of gear), and participation numbers not terribly far off from the Florida World Cup, in venues like the center of Eurodisney, Paris.
Whether we’ ll be able to achieve that again within the next 5-10 years, or whether it remains a Polaroid memory, likely depends on how the next season goes.
The 2026 season will see 3 locations- Czech Republic, UK, and France, with Czech Republic and France open to divisions 2-4. Will enough teams form or return to make this a possibility?
094 paintball. media magazine