The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 60 - Paintball Revolution: Reviving the Game
Ever wondered what happens when martial arts meets paintball? This episode dives deep into the unexpected crossover as we welcome Kaleb Plank and his business partner Chris Hulsey, the minds behind Wild World Paintball in Northwest Arkansas.
Prepare for a roller coaster ride through Kaleb's entrepreneurial adventures, including convincing an engineering graduate to abandon his career prospects for a martial arts school. Their story of transforming a neglected paintball facility into a thriving business reveals the unexpected challenges of entrepreneurship.
The conversation takes fascinating turns as Chris, an avid competitive paintball player, breaks down the different formats of the sport and explains how it has evolved from a recreational activity into a professional endeavor with top players earning up to $180,000 annually. We explore the technology behind the equipment, from basic rental guns to high-end markers costing thousands, and learn how the industry is experiencing a renaissance after nearly collapsing during the 2008 financial crisis.
What truly shines through is the passion and camaraderie that paintball fosters. Whether it's corporate team building, tactical training for law enforcement, or competitive tournaments, this sport creates unique bonds between participants. The connection to paintball legend Billy Ceranski (now CEO of Kore Outdoor) adds another layer to this fascinating glimpse into an industry many know little about.
Ready to experience the adrenaline rush of paintball? Check out Wild World Paintball in Tontitown, open weekends for regular play and weekdays by appointment for corporate events. Your next adventure might be just a trigger pull away!
Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I am your host, josh Saffron, with my co-host, matt Morris and our permanent guest Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bentonville, bourbon and business. The B-Team Podcast Be here. Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I'm your host, josh Saffron, with my co-host Matt Mars and our permanent guest Caleb Plank. Whoa, whoa, uh-oh, are we breaking?
Speaker 2:news on the show tonight. Yeah, I mean well, we thought no better way than just start up.
Speaker 3:Well, it's kind of Rob 2.0, you know. So I mean it's I mean younger stronger, better looking.
Speaker 2:I know I looked over there and I was like man Rob's been training, like he said he was going to.
Speaker 1:I mean, he was so good on the last episode that Bobby got voted off the island. He got voted off. Now we just need a new logo for it with Caleb.
Speaker 3:I know right. I mean, if we just had a way to. We ought to love this. Whoa, oh hey, man, perfect Boom. Look at that man, that's perfect. See, that is exactly Amazing.
Speaker 1:This is amazing, Caleb welcome to the B team, thank you very much, glad to be the B team.
Speaker 3:I mean, this has been my lifelong dream, the last year that you guys have been doing the podcast, and I'm glad that we finally got to make this happen.
Speaker 1:Well, we're here every Thursday for all things Bentonville, business and bourbon, and I don't know. Can you possibly have another job? I mean, you got first. First we spoke to you about the jujitsu place, right, yeah, yeah. And now today you're here for another gig. You're like the paintball king of Northwest Arkansas Wild and the podcast.
Speaker 2:And now the podcast. I mean, he's doing it all.
Speaker 3:Well, I know you guys are whiskey guys, so actually I brought something better. When you can't do whiskey, pure leaf, arnold Palmer. This is what classy people do. Is that a sponsorship?
Speaker 2:He's got sponsors already Eric Howerton for sponsorship.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I bring this sponsorship because it's lemon flavor with natural flavors. So after a tough podcast when you've got to crack one open, it's lemon flavor with natural flavors. So after a tough podcast when you've got to crack one open, it's the only way that you can kind of make things happen.
Speaker 1:He surpassed us in his second podcast, if we can't get a sponsorship deal out of this from Parker and Eric. I don't know what we're doing. I mean, you know, I just keep it classy. Well, cheers, bye, cheers, and Matt. What am I drinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, so we're drinking. It's not Pure Leaf, it's not the good stuff. It's been holiday. It's six years old, out of Missouri, bottled in Bond.
Speaker 1:So I have to put it into two categories with you, the crap that you bring as a joke, or the good stuff.
Speaker 2:Where's this going to fall? I've never had this. I just I saw it was out of Missouri and they're our neighbor, so I was like I'm going to be a good Samaritan and buy one from them.
Speaker 1:So you don't know if it's any good.
Speaker 2:No, I have no idea, never had it. What was retail price on this-ish? I think like $55. Okay, so it's probably a decent bottle, it's, you know. I mean, it's not pure leaf, I don't think.
Speaker 3:No, I mean it's not top shelf like what I'm bringing to the table, but it's pretty good.
Speaker 1:It's pretty good, yeah, yeah A little creme brulee, maybe a little stewed bananas. Yeah, he's all. You're just making stuff up less, maybe a little peppercorn, yeah yeah, shout out to russ.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just like pure leaf, maybe a cube of ice, and it's about as far as that's local I love it, unbelievable.
Speaker 2:So, uh, you got to tell us caleb, who do you have here with you, and we want to hear all about.
Speaker 3:So world paintball, yeah this is, uh, my, this is one of my partners, chris holsey. Um, so you first, we got to go back to risk. It's nothing. Yeah, no, he's, he's a. You get too much pure leaf in this guy and it gets wild.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you don't want me juiced up over here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got to pull back on it, but so I got to give you a little background. So me and chris actually do martial arts together, so we own a bunch of martial arts school here in northwest arkansas. So that's how this whole thing started, like 15 years ago, um, and the paintball deal is important because you got to understand how chris got involved with the martial art business. So he's actually the smart one. So so he was training with me and we had the gym in bentonville and he's going to school to be an engineer. Well, graduation time comes up and he's married and little family I thought you said he's a smart one.
Speaker 1:If he's married, he can't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, shout out to the divorce guy.
Speaker 3:So he's like hey, man, uh, you know, graduation's coming up and I was like you know what? You should give up on your hopes and dreams of a real job as an engineer making like a hundred grand or more, and we should open a martial arts school down in Springdale where you can make pretty much zero money.
Speaker 1:And this will be way more fun.
Speaker 3:You're a good salesman, so I had to talk him into that. Um so fast forward all these years later, when he brought me the opportunity for the paintball field, kind of had me yeah, yeah, I'm all in.
Speaker 2:He's like I don't even really need to sell this to you because I've been living yeah, I've lived this life.
Speaker 4:You owe me this one.
Speaker 1:It feels like he owed you Like hey, I got dog shit in the bank for you.
Speaker 3:What were you making?
Speaker 1:back then.
Speaker 4:When we first opened, I made $116 a week Is that gross or not, that's gross.
Speaker 3:It was so gross it was terrible.
Speaker 4:We were so poor, we had zero students. We had no sign on the building. I would have set out a little A-frame every day and write Furnham Washington, you know what you look familiar.
Speaker 1:You were standing in front of the Pleasant Grove Walmart collecting dollars.
Speaker 4:You're like how homeless Caleb somehow I and he found you Wrote me into it Exactly $116 a week, which, speaking of being divorced, that almost got me there in my life Because I was graduating. She thought I was going to have this nice gig and life was going to change real fast. Yeah, no, no. I convinced her to be poor for a significant longer time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:So whenever he brought me the paintball deal because Chris is an avid paintball player what's the definition of an avid paintball player For?
Speaker 4:me. I play probably somewhere in the neighborhood 30, 40 times a year. I've drilled and practiced probably three or four times this week already.
Speaker 1:So if the B-Team podcast decided to go out there, it would be good if I was on your team. Yes, yeah, that'd be a good idea.
Speaker 2:Do you have one of those backpacks that holds the air? No, is that a thing?
Speaker 4:So that does exist. You won't see top-end players use that. You'll see people play when they go play what we call a big game. It's like a big scenario day, especially because they can put giant tanks in there, and all that for eight, nine hours. But when?
Speaker 3:you go to competitive play, you're playing 10 15 minute match, and so you're, so it's quick and then it's very fast. Yeah, yeah, the competition is like fast. My introduction to paintball was in the 90s where, like, I saved up 60 dollars and I gave it to my friend's mom for cod delivery of this big gun and it it was called. I forgot about COD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, that's how far back.
Speaker 3:it was Cause I couldn't even get shipments out at dad's place Cause he was, you know, off the grid and different story. But so I get this paint gun. It was held Diablo and it was a pump and and it took the CO2 cartridges. I got maybe like six shots and I'd be dropping a $5 cartridge, put another one in and you'd be back out there. So I definitely was not on the elite side of how paintball works, cause like these, the stuff these guys run, like it's, it's crazy. The technology, I mean it's just.
Speaker 2:I haven't played in probably 15 or so years and I remember like the biggest problem was when one broke in the barrel, because then all of them break yeah, absolutely, and you have people trying to kill you or shoot you up.
Speaker 1:But it's an active sport. You're like laying down unscrewed. You're not sitting behind a tree for an hour.
Speaker 2:Well, if you try to find one, yeah, it depends on the version Pinball's evolved over the last 20 years.
Speaker 4:And yes, there's a. So the most competitive version. What you would see if you went to go watch a pro league would be what's called an X-Ball. X-ball is a highly athletic ordeal. People are running and diving and crawling. It's insane.
Speaker 2:We won't be at that one. Well, and they say, like my wife used to work for BT and Pressing, and the guy was always like you know, it brings you back to the original natural state where you're going to either hunt and be hunted.
Speaker 4:You're out there, Someone's going to get you if you don't got to get up, but there's other fans of play where you know you can go play recreational and that's a lot more casual.
Speaker 2:Give me the different levels.
Speaker 4:So there's a bunch of different forms. So you have recreational paintball, which is what most people go and do. You go to a birthday party, bachelor party, whatever else. It's nice and relaxed, it's a good time, it's not too crazy. Then you step up and you have what would be considered milsim paintball, which is where people are trying to recreate, you know, military-style action and they dress up in all the outfits and they've got what's called mag-fed-style guns and that's a whole different thing, which is actually pretty useful for training purposes and things like that.
Speaker 4:Then you have, when you start getting into competitive paintball, you have what's called 10-man, which is the original format. You know, if you rewind competitive paintball, you have what's called 10-man, which is the original format. If you rewind competitive paintball back 25 years, it started with 10-man paintball 10 people on one side, 10 people on the other in the woods, all got in play and it's a little bit slower game because there's more people and it's bigger fields. That's where a lot of older people that are returning to the sport tend to find themselves. They don't want to go run and dive on the ground and crawl around all the stuff. So that's what I played.
Speaker 1:That was like a multi-hour in the field.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you post up and there's a fort on each side.
Speaker 1:You want to do that.
Speaker 4:That's what I did. And then, as you get into the more modern competitive paintball, you have X-Ball, which is a lot of cardio, a lot of cardio. It's a 15-minute match. It's a professional level. It's professional level, it's a 15 minute match and you play as many points as you can, five on five, in that 15 minutes, and so five on five, you shoot everybody. If you shoot everybody in a minute and a half, you go hit the buzzer. You get one point reset. How far away are you from one another? 150?
Speaker 1:feet. So that's 30, 50 yards, 50 yards football fields kind of a size.
Speaker 4:You know the average professional point last year was about two minutes intensive.
Speaker 1:So is everybody there, 50 yards away, like kind of parked somewhere and just shooting.
Speaker 4:So you start in a box. There's a start box on each gate and it's about as long as this table. All five guys on your team has to have their gun touching that box and when the whistle blows they'll go in 10 and then count it down and when the whistle blows, guns up and you're playing Out on an end gun.
Speaker 3:Right, it's awesome to watch, like it's actually a really good spectator sport.
Speaker 4:You know the guns are humming. They all shoot 10.5 balls per second and if you get hit, you're still in the game. As soon as you get hit, you're out.
Speaker 2:And then again, when all five are eliminated on the buzzer, you get a point reset. Five on five.
Speaker 1:Do it again and you do that inside a 15 minute window to score as many points as you can.
Speaker 4:Goggles masks goggles mask up all the whole thing. A full hoodie to boot on. Buy your hoodie real, what about? What about groin shots?
Speaker 1:like, uh, that exists, that exists, I'm coming after you, matthew, it happens.
Speaker 4:I've taken a few in my time and I'm just walking off and yeah incident, you gotta rub a little dirt on it.
Speaker 3:You keep going. Yeah, incidental, hopefully. Yeah. So like I didn't even realize nameball was to this level, you know. So like he brought me the thing, I think, back to my childhood, I was like, oh man, this is cool, so funny crossover story was. So when he told me this I was like, you know, one of our old training buddies, black belts.
Speaker 3:His name is billy seransky. He was a paintball guy and I I knew he was kind of a big deal. I didn't quite know, because I remember when he came in my buddy mike, that we started the gyms together was like bro, bro, that's billy seransky, you know. I'm just like, okay, creeper, who's billy seransky? He's like, oh, he was one of the pro, uh, paintball players way back in the day and I was like what are you talking about? He's like you remember that documentary I think it's called pusher session that we used to watch when we were young kids, you know, and I was like, well, yeah, I thought this documentary was like vhs tape of somebody filming paintball. I didn't know these guys were a big deal, let alone know this guy's a big deal. So he trains jiu-jitsu. We become great friends all these years later. So holsey's telling me about this. I was like we should probably call Saransky, maybe he knows something about it. And then Chris educated me on who he is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, billy Saransky is the. Was he the Michael Jordan of paintball? Multiple-time world champion, played with Chicago Aftershock, world famous is now the CEO of Core Outdoor, which is the largest paintball company in the industry. He is literally the most In the world In the most. He runs the biggest company in the world. He in the industry. He is the literally in the world in the most.
Speaker 1:he runs the biggest company, the most powerful person in all of paintball, so he's like the elon musk.
Speaker 3:Forget this, oh yeah yes, and I'm all like maybe we should call billy and I'm like, yeah, if you have this phone number, that'd be a good idea and you did, oh.
Speaker 3:So I called billy and I was like, hey man, you're never gonna believe what I'm getting into. And uh, and he loved it. He was just like, oh man, you're gonna have so much fun, you know, because he used to live here so he knew the field, yeah, and so pro paintball actually was attached northwest arkansas for several years. You know that influenced the industry and I didn't. You know, I'm clueless, I'm just like well, there's more pro players.
Speaker 2:That live here than I could imagine. So have you guys brought it back like do you have we?
Speaker 4:are. We are growing. We are growing like crazy. We have uh competitive paintball here. We've got a uh a team that I actually play for, uh nwa united is based out of here, where we send people all over the country playing tournaments it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:I mean like their last practice had like 40 people out there.
Speaker 2:I mean like I mean, we even have a bunch of red bull guys here. It'd be cool. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we used to do to change the subject a little, because you know guys are all about we we would put those paintballs in the refrigerator before you go to play so they hurt a little bit more a little more sting trying to pick on your buddies.
Speaker 3:They've gotten smart move, they've changed all the paint stuff and that doesn't happen.
Speaker 4:So technology doesn't happen so, if you really want to, I'll tell you the secret. And people don't do this, but Don't do this, but not to do. That's what we're here for. Disclaimer when paint gets cold, it actually gets more brittle, and so it actually makes it harder to get out of your gun and it actually makes it break easier on somebody.
Speaker 2:That's probably why mine broke in the barrel.
Speaker 4:Exactly. But when it gets hot, there's a gelatin shell on the outside and that gelatin kind of melts together and it gets a lot harder, and so whenever you have paint that's been sitting in the sun for a long time, it feels like your sheet rocks out. I can remember back to one first tournaments I played. There was a small field that opened up in uh, I think it's dardanelle. It was down there just outside of russellville. It was their grand opening, and the grand opening they're going to host a tournament. They've never done this. Before we show up, we go in the door and they show us the paint and they've been storing this paint for two weeks in a metal building.
Speaker 4:In the middle of july uh, I immediately knew this problem. They, they break the paint out. We get there, I'm shooting a rock retaining wall from about five feet away and I'm watching all the paint just bounce off of it like crazy. It's like, oh, this is going to be a problem. That's a long day. Yeah, I can remember at one point in time I was standing over somebody that was crawling and I had snuck around behind him. I was five feet behind him and I emptied a 200 round hopper into his back. None of them break. The only reason he called himself out was because it hurt so much he was like I'm done, I'm done, I'm done.
Speaker 2:He's like I'm here if it didn't break Just leave me alone.
Speaker 3:Oh, you know, he had some whelps, you know, on there, Especially that close, because you know, yeah, so tell me, explain the business model to me.
Speaker 1:So if I wanted to show up on a Saturday, I just pay for one, or? Is there a membership base.
Speaker 4:So there's a lot of options you have. You know there's the majority of people that come out are playing what we call walk-on paintball. You know they just show up to the door, they rent equipment, they jump out there into a group and they play. What's that run that is? It depends on how much paint you shoot. Most people are going to go $50 or less on the day out. You know your $30 is your entry and your rental and then just how much paint. But that's the 15 minute. No, that's so.
Speaker 2:that's going to be, that's going to be all day of play, oh yeah, so like you just, it's kind of like tennis or whatever Everyone just waits, and you like group up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So like we have an open group, so walk-ons would be considered an open. I like to call it like I was going to circle back to that.
Speaker 2:We'll do it here.
Speaker 4:But yeah, so you're looking at, most people that come out for $50 are playing for anywhere between three to five hours, depending on how fast you want to stay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you want to stay.
Speaker 4:We also, though, of course, do smaller parties. So if you were to do, say, a birthday party, you don't want to be there for four hours, I don't know, I've got children, I go to kids' birthday parties. I don't want to be anywhere for four hours, and so we have, you know, an hour and a half to two hour block that you're looking at.
Speaker 3:$400 covers the whole party, and that's for, you know, I mean, and what's better than when you get to shoot that neighbor?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they take all their aggression and then the dads come too, and they're like I'm going to smoke that little kid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's all like. That's the sass of it.
Speaker 1:It's kicking over my flower pot. But if I did this all-day thing for $50 and after an hour I'm like I'm bored. Is there like a clubhouse where I can just go sit and drink and eat or watch TV?
Speaker 4:So there's not a clubhouse per se yet. That's on the mode. Of course, we have a ton of plans for this place. We have been in the business now for 20 months, and so, oh, this is a new venture, new venture.
Speaker 3:We just took it over, brought it back to life. Yeah, because I didn't even know it was still open. When they brought me the thing, I was like that place is still open.
Speaker 4:Matter of fact, when we bought it, everyone we talked to said that's still there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we own it now.
Speaker 4:So the person who ran it before to his credit, he had ran it since he was 18 years old. His family bought it when he was 18, and he ran it for something like 15 years. If you can imagine being out there every weekend for 15 years, every Saturday, every Sunday, fixing all the stuff, fixing all the stuff, operating the deal. He was over it, it was done, and so the operations maybe hadn't been kept up to the most degree and he wasn't necessarily looking to push the limits of what the business could be, and we recognized that and saw the potential in it. But he's keeping it alive. He's keeping it alive. There was a very small key.
Speaker 1:It feels like you guys got it for a good price. I'm kind of reading between the lines.
Speaker 3:You can say that but at the same time, though, good price and Good price.
Speaker 1:And then you got to bring it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, put a budget, bring in the bulldozer and then the skid steer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you should ask him about the phone call about turf. And should we turf?
Speaker 3:the competitive field. Oh man, okay. So I got to tell you all this story. So this is my specialty. I'm basically the FBMM Facebook Marketplace Manager, okay. So I find the deals and I'm like, hey, this is what we should do. So I'm on my way to brazil and I'm cruising facebook marketplace because I was going to go we had a training camp down there, something so I'm headed out of town, you know, and I see free turf. Free is good. I was like free turf and it was from the high school in siloam, just down the road. I was like this is perfect winner, winner. Because these guys are always talking about know, these fancy sport fields and some have turf and all this. This is going to end badly for people.
Speaker 3:So I texted him I was like, hey, man, you guys want turf on the field. Is this cool, you know, is this a good idea? And they're like, yeah, we'd love to get turf. I was like, no problem.
Speaker 4:I got you Gandalf. Before he calls the guy I'm like, hold on. Before you say yes, let me do just a little bit of research, because I know there's more work than just putting turf down, like you've got to have like dirt and rock.
Speaker 3:But it was free. The field's already flat. You lay down turf it's not rocket science, right, I know, Rebuild that carpet that you're renting. Yeah, I'm just like this is not that big of a deal. So yeah, he digs in. He's like hey man, these guys are saying you got to do this and do that. I'm like, come on, man, we got to do that.
Speaker 4:What's the counter argument is to get that much new turf would be about 30, 40 grand. So it's like, well if nothing else we'll store it and we'll resell it for 10 grand. Resell it for 10 grand.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm just, I'm like this can't be that down the turf you spray some grass killer, it's fine, right. So then we ran to the next thing. Well, so the first thing is we had to get the turf. Well, apparently there's this underground shady like organization that gets rid of turf and so if you're going to deal with the guy, you have to pay him off like legit. You want mafia style turf, you gotta him off. So I had to Venmo some stranger in Las Vegas Like $1,000.
Speaker 3:Right out of it, yeah, which I'm just like I'm about to get scammed. Then I had to take cash to a guy that was working where the field was and go in and like secret, handshake it up and pay him off. And then he's like, okay, all your turf will be over here, just come pick it up. I he's like, okay, all your turf will be over here, just come pick it up. I was like, oh, wait a minute, what? So now we got to move it. I was like, well, how heavy is this? It's like four thousand pounds of roll, which, for people that don't know, it's like it's basically one roll weighs as much as a car. Yeah, so I was like, you know what my buddy sam's got, but it was free, but it was for asking how many rolls it takes to feel to cover a field 52 oh yeah, four thousand a piece for four thousand pounds.
Speaker 3:So I call my buddy sam. And I was like, hey, sam, because he does dirt work, stuff like that. And he saved me in a pinch and I was like, man, I need you, I need you to hook me up, brother. And I was like he's like what do you need, man? I was like we got to move these turf rolls from siloing to the paywall field. It's not far, no big deal. And he's like, hey, I got you calls me. Hey man, this is four rolls at a time.
Speaker 4:And I was like, and there's 50 sound, there's 50 something rolls and we had a deadline because everything was going to get loaded on truck and shipped off at a certain date. So we had to get them all because my extorting yeah, it's all like it's.
Speaker 3:You have until this time to get it, and so my buddy, sam, hooks me up. So then we had to pay sam for all of that and I'm like, okay, no problem, free, free turfs at the field, every, no problem, now, here's the best part.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's better. Oh, we get all 60 there. It took all day, cost way more than we thought it would, and I get a call from caleb as he's ready to get about to get on a plane going. Hey, I think they got 60 more rolls. Could we use them? No?
Speaker 1:do not. I don't want the 60 you just gave me Do not tell them this.
Speaker 3:I mean, we're already in for a dime, like let's go right. I'm a little excited and overeager about things, so that's why I always surround myself with smart people, because I am the definite like I'll figure it out guy, you know.
Speaker 1:So the moral of the story? Kids at home when it says it's free, it ain't free.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, oh, it gets worse.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's just to get it on site, that's not to get it on the field.
Speaker 3:So apparently with turf you can't put it on dirt. So we had to literally once again call my buddy, sambo, and I was like, uh, so apparently you have to clear this entire field, level it, gravel it and grade it for the pitch so that water doesn't stick up, all the things. I have no clue and I was like, well, I mean, that's not. Are you ready to kill?
Speaker 4:him at this point I yeah, I was a little uh, because I'm in brazil and they're having to do this.
Speaker 3:So I was like so sam starts taking care of it, and it's truckload after truckload of gravel, because apparently half a football field is like quite a bit. And then we have to get it level and like we have to get a laser thing that tells you if it's level like this turns into a thing. These guys are tick. Well, we finally get it all set. I'm like okay, now just unroll turf 5 000 pounds per roll doesn't quite enroll and the boys pull it out yes, he sends me this video of these guys just rolling turf out and grabbing and just sliding into place.
Speaker 2:That's you too see how easy it is?
Speaker 4:yes, they just slide in place. Well, it doesn't. There's a thing called infill. You know, when you see, like on the nfl, and they drag their toes and all the little pellets come out, that's a bunch of don't watch the film.
Speaker 4:So I had no idea that stacks up and weighs an incredible amount. So when you get 10 guys trying to pull a roll and it doesn't move an inch, you go, oh, this is a problem, and you don't just have to lay it out, you have to lay it out and line the seams up perfectly.
Speaker 3:Apparently, when they pull it up there's not really a system to cutting it square. They take a razor blade and just go, but I'm sure it looks gorgeous.
Speaker 1:now it looks amazing.
Speaker 4:There we go. It is amazing. We have the best turf field in, probably like the tri-state area, but it took a crazy amount of work to do.
Speaker 3:It was wild, and luckily I was in another country, so so do you guys team building things?
Speaker 2:We actually do a lot of corporate events. I would think it's a good outing to get Then if you have someone that you don't like so much there we actually do a lot of corporate events, like during the week or things.
Speaker 3:team building we have a thing called low impact. It hurts a little bit less. We've got to set up where you don't have to get shot. You can shoot some stuff at some people, because we got reps and employees where it's like when we build up the teams and everything you know, so you can have a good time if you don't want to if somebody doesn't know how to shoot a gun, it's pretty basic, yeah, yeah yeah, point click, yeah, you know, but with the team building you might not hit anything, but still you point click and with with the team building it it really it's unique because so here's what I learned about paintball Because of Saransky.
Speaker 3:So I know him as Jiu-Jitsu Saransky, the paintball thing. I'm just like I didn't realize. So we go to Las Vegas for this paintball show, like some kind of exhibition, like this is a big Industry conference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a big deal. So does Caleb get to go on all the trips? Yeah, yeah, going on all the trips Sounds like he's always on the trips.
Speaker 1:I'm on the trip, absolutely.
Speaker 4:We broke it for this summit, which is the Paintball Industry Conference, but we do have a rule that one of us has to be in Northwest Arkansas at all times. We're both not allowed to be gone, and we broke it and nothing burned down. Yeah, we made it.
Speaker 3:But you know this industry, so we go to this thing in Vegas, you know, and I'm just like I don't know a bunch of paintball nerds, you know, I'm like, I'm like I'm a martial arts bum, I'm like this shouldn't be a big deal. So Sir Ancy's there and we're meeting all these people and apparently I'm talking to somebody important. I mean, like I don't even know his name.
Speaker 4:It was something you know like twos, so arguably would make the mount rushmore players of all time. He's just going like who are you? I was just like what do you do? Why are you here?
Speaker 3:you know who he was when you walked out, absolutely, and he had an interesting story because he was telling about like all their custom stuff and all this and I was just so, I so intrigued, you know, and then I didn't know, but he was really cool. You know, we got along but, um, I just didn't know how big this industry was but what was unique about it. So we go to this dinner with Saransky and a lot of important people that I, once again, I'm just like we're going to dinner.
Speaker 4:The who's it? I mean, we're talking about it, so you need to prep him in advance. Yes, I was. It's your fault.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be confident. I'm trying to write down notes for all these people. Yeah, here's what you're gonna be, bobby if you know that they're incompetent, you need to make sure that you set them up for success.
Speaker 4:Here's the problem with with yosh is that I did tell him. I said, hey, that's yosh ra, he's this great player.
Speaker 3:And then I did this and turned back around and when I did he was already knee deep and I was like, oh okay, let me get it, and so I didn't even notice like people were lined up, like you know, to talk and get pictures or what you, you know, like people are all like, hey, man, you're in the way. I'm like, I'm just, what are y'all waiting on? I'm like I was talking to this dude, well, so we go to this dinner, um, and it's apparently all the big dogs in the industry which I'm clueless, you know, and I just know I'm taking notes.
Speaker 4:I'm writing down everything.
Speaker 3:I'm telling stories about. It was just a lot of hot air, very similar, very similar. I'm staggering around, you know, but as we get to talking, because you know, in the martial arts industry there's a lot of passion and like as an athlete, um of stuff that comes out like how serious it is to you. And I got to see a sign out of seransky where it's like man dude his passion for paintball, like he would die for this industry. If the doctor told him you're going to die in six months if you keep working in this industry, he would be like, all right, make the plans, cause I mean he is, like he is so into this. And that's where I learned how much camaraderie and and like cohesion there is like in this sport and these guys like it's a lifestyle and just to see like what he's doing for the industry to keep it alive. You know, like what he has to do, because you know, love or hate, saransky and the industry as far as being a big deal, like he's fighting every day to keep it alive, you know to whatever detriment that it costs him.
Speaker 3:And when I saw that, that's when I was like man, I get this, you know, because that's what I've spent my whole life doing Like I understand this. Yeah, what you guys do, yeah, like it's bigger than just playing. And that's where I go back to the team building is. There's just something about playing paintball, as silly as it sounds, it's just like doing martial arts. It brings something out of you, with the people you do it with and the success that we have seen out of groups that come out and work together in the cohesion. It really makes a legit impact. A lot better than going and like, hey, let's go sit around for lunch or whatever. What?
Speaker 1:about just a six-year-old fabulous rap party paintball game.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say that. Or maybe we get you and Bobby on a team. No, if they kissed each other and Caleb and I are on a team. That's my guy right there. You be on a team. No, if they kissed each other.
Speaker 1:Then caleb and I are on a team. Well, you can team. That's my guy right there.
Speaker 2:Guys can team build, yeah, and then, like rob probably won't show up, so it'll be caleb and I against you I mean that's fair, like I'm not, they do.
Speaker 3:They do call me the amish assassin it's true yeah, you know. So actually that's not my nickname.
Speaker 1:My nickname is your hit, get off the field that's all I ever hear and I'm like caleb, you're, but you're super entrepreneurial, like, think about, let's, let's whiteboard this for a second. Yeah, what if you were the first one in the world to combine jujitsu mma with paintball? Like there's no gun but you got like paint on your shoe, and if you kick somebody in the neck like I vote, this could get crazy. Right, I vote gun.
Speaker 3:I say gun and wrestler.
Speaker 2:Or it starts out you're shooting at each other and then you finish off with a cage match.
Speaker 1:Yes, there you go.
Speaker 3:I mean, stranger things have happened. Be the first guy you know I like that. Well, they've got different types of guns. You got some of those guns. Yeah, we want to see some city guys, so there's a unique thing. Um, so I don't know if you guys ever heard of airsoft, where these guys shoot each other. So there's a big culture that's getting into like this tactical play where it's like I want realistic. So there's a there's a thing called mag fed where I have limited ammunition but it's air paintballs, because the issue with this airsoft thing is you have, like all this gear plates on and I hit, hit you with a BB across the field and you're supposed to tell me that you're out.
Speaker 4:So this is a basic rental gun. So if you come in and you play, I say basic rental, this is one of our, I guess, upgraded rentals. But this is still something that, if you tell me you've never played before, this is what they're going to stick in your hand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look at this here.
Speaker 1:So how much can you do seared? How much is the clearest thing? This is heavy.
Speaker 4:That hopper on top holds about 200.
Speaker 1:This is heavy. Am I holding it right? Yeah, it's both triggers, Matt why are you nervous?
Speaker 3:There's no air, go paint it's uploaded right.
Speaker 4:Look at this one. This is a Magstead gun, which looks a lot more like that's a higher gun, though well look at that actually.
Speaker 2:No, it is a little magazine.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's literally magfish yeah, very realistic magazines that you put paintballs in, and so this is, uh, for a little bit more realistic simulated training. You know, uh, they're taking to go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to go on there but do you have like police, do police so we actually have a lot of agencies that come out and, uh, you know, and they'll play regular paintball or they'll do sometimes they'll do mag fed, you know, and that's what's saying. Like, with this airsoft thing is like there's this popularity, but the problem with the airsoft is like you don't know when you're marked. Yeah, so with these mag feds, people go out and they play the paintball. So you have limited rounds, you have to reload, you got to sneak up on people, so it's actually a very realistic type scenario. So a lot of the guys that are into, you know, firearms training, gun course, this is a nice way to go do something because it well and it simulates the same kind of it's, it's in the ballpark.
Speaker 1:No one of these guns run for you asked to buy these. Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 2:So thank you, he comes up with them every.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this right here would be roughly about a $300 gun, not counting the tank and everything else, just the gun itself. This right here would probably actually be a little cheaper. This is probably about $250. This looks cool. This right here is probably so. These are both what you call mechanical guns because there's no electronic pieces to them. This right here that we use for our kind of our upgraded rental is the probably the premier mechanical gun on the market. It is super consistent, super reliable. You can bang that thing through any conditions and it's going to be ready to go, and it has some really tried and true ergonomics to it that a lot of like tournament style players would still like.
Speaker 3:I mean like, how does this work?
Speaker 4:Got to fix for a while it should click, but there's no air in it, so you're not going to get the click. Oh, it's dead.
Speaker 3:Come on, I didn't know I wanted it to blow out so Hosey knows me pretty well, obviously and he brought a tank with no air in it. Yeah, yeah, I did that intentionally, Probably on purpose.
Speaker 4:No, no, I shot all the air of it. I shot all the air of it at the field earlier because I didn't want you to do something.
Speaker 2:They even have the urban fire that one's called the Ninja.
Speaker 4:So this was in a case because this is actually my personal gun that I didn't want to get scratched up because this is really not.
Speaker 3:He's not going to pass that over to the side of the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't get to touch that one.
Speaker 4:Just to kind of give you a look at the range of kind of guns on here. So I'd take a second to put this together.
Speaker 2:And are they still on these that are like the little auto feed, yeah.
Speaker 4:So this is my gun, this is what I use, cool, while I hold it.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, just don't bang it on the casket. I can't touch it. That stinks. It's just me, don't worry, you're fine.
Speaker 1:That's sweet, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So this goes for. So that is, that's a. That's a. It's called a private label gun. There's only 220 of those made.
Speaker 1:I think I'm the only one that has the red to black face, and I think that may be a one of one, and that's about a 16, 1700 gun, but if you play all the time, I mean yeah, like it's, it's a, it's a, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Now do you guys allow the automatic ones out there?
Speaker 4:yeah, so that's a good question, so with this right here. So when you play tournament play, there is a cap limit on how fast you could shoot. So this gun probably if I put it in a true semi-automatic could probably shoot somewhere around 20 balls per second that's a lot.
Speaker 2:Uh, that ain't much fun well and that's when I was, I was, I was gonna say when you're out there and you're running and you know that you're visible, and you hear like yeah, like within three seconds you get hit eight times yeah, well, what he said before.
Speaker 1:He was over the guy and he hit him with two other rounds. I'm trying to figure out how you can do it.
Speaker 4:That's how you do it. Because of that, though, back in the early 2000s, people were like I want to shoot as fast as possible. They put electronic boards in here that we'd call cheater boards. That would have all these secret modes on there that, when you pull the trigger once, it shoots five times or whatever else. So competitive play have moved away from what's called true semi-automatic and moved to what we do is called ramping. Now, ramping is not an automatic uh firing mode, so if you pull the trigger one time, it's going to fire one time, but what it does do is, if you pull the trigger enough times within a five second interval, it will go, will go to the capped rate of fire, which competitive play. Capped rate of fire is 10.5 balls per second, so I don't have to steal it 10 and a half times, but if I pull it about this speed right here, it'll shoot a 10. Yeah, so it's almost like a fully automatic, but it gives you a little bit more control to where people aren't getting shot.
Speaker 2:But you're right, you also can. It's a double-edged sword, cause you can run out. Yeah, you can carry, like other cases of paint.
Speaker 4:I brought a pod here of paint. If you want to say this is a pod, these hold about 180 paint balls in them. When you play competitively, you'll take some of these on your back. I personally, the kind of position I play usually have about five or six of these on my back. I personally, the kind of position I play, usually have about five or six of these on my back, which means that I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of about 1,400 paintballs on me on any given one point that I play. Do you ever lose? Be honest, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, very infrequently. Well, it depends If I'm playing you guys or if I'm playing other competitive players.
Speaker 1:No, if you're playing competitive, do you win 80%?
Speaker 4:of the time we have a winning rise. We win probably 60, 65, 70. But we're playing other people of our skill level.
Speaker 3:Well it's kind of like other sports where there's different leagues and stuff. So they've been making their way up Because there's professional teams out there.
Speaker 1:What he said, if he's- playing us, though he'd beat us 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:Well, so the first time that we went. This was before I had anything, I just had this pump one show, yeah, yeah. And so we showed up and we thought we were the big guys. And so these guys were like hey, you want to play with us? And we're like sure. So we got out there and it's like, and they're like and it's over within seconds.
Speaker 1:I think you were done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you might have. Uh, I think you might have had my old ld.
Speaker 4:I think I did pump and that was it, but the game perspective of how much pain some people carry. So a tank ball is a sport for everybody. If you're a small guy, you can go play. If you're a bigger guy, worrying might put you in the back line. And I know guys that on on my team that take eight to 12 pods. 12 pods, so where do they carry them? Backpacks All around your waist. Yeah, like those belts. A belt is fine, you just take them and you just go. And those guys, when the match starts, they start shooting. They don't stop and they just are just dumping them one after the other.
Speaker 3:There's a strategy to it. It's actually fun to watch high-level paintball. They've actually got some momentum because there's a new documentary coming out.
Speaker 2:There's all kinds. You're on our podcast If this doesn't take off.
Speaker 1:Saransky owes me money because of this podcast Shout out to.
Speaker 3:Saransky, I saved the whole industry.
Speaker 4:You're welcome. I guess a little history of the industry In the early 2000s, between 2000 and 2004, there was a lot of people that were pouring money into the sport because they thought it was going to be the next X Games. If you go to one of these big tournaments, it's bright and colorful, it's tons of action, and so people like Intel and Rockstar and all these different companies were pouring money into the sport. And then the financial crash of 2008 happened and all that money disappeared and the industry really shrank. I mean, it probably halved overnight. And so then, since 2008, the industry has had to rebuild, but had to rebuild in a healthier way, where they weren't reliant on outside sponsors to be able to prop it up, and that's been a slow, painful process, but now, especially because of COVID.
Speaker 4:Covid was a huge boost to the industry because there's one few things you can go do. You were wearing a mask, you were outside and really helped blow the sport, take it off, yeah, yeah, and put a lot of organic dollars in that weren't again outside money into the sport. And so we are really at a precipice where a lot of people are on the new golden age of paintball, where the major leagues are. They've gotten back on ESPN this past year. What was the new sponsor they picked up? Was it Hertz Hertz, hertz, red Bull, sorry, yeah, that's a big sponsor for the league.
Speaker 2:I mean.
Speaker 4:Greenleaf.
Speaker 3:I mean Pure Leaf is my private, Greenleaf is a little different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's something else Left-handed cigarettes.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of money being spent on media. There's a couple of major documentaries going in. As a matter of fact, the player that he was talking about, yosh Rao that he talked his ear off for about 45 minutes is one of the founding members of one of the greatest teams in paintball history.
Speaker 4:His name is called San Diego Dynasty. They have a huge documentary that's supposed to come out this year about how they were formed, because they they were the most dominant team ever as a bunch of 17 18 year old kids in the early 2000s and guess what? They're still playing and they're still the best team in the world.
Speaker 1:That was their money to be made, like I assume, their sponsorships. Yeah, it's a profession.
Speaker 4:It's a professional sport. Uh again, that's cool, you know, there's not too late for us no, you can still be, you can make it, make it pro, you can earn a living. I mean, I think the top contract in the league, in the professional league this past year was $180,000 to play paintball. That's not bad?
Speaker 1:No, I'd take it. Well, they're making now to be a barbershop owner, but here's the problem.
Speaker 3:Shout out to the barbershop.
Speaker 2:Y'all are going to have. There's a little bit. There's a little bit of a lot of cardio. Well, even at there's muscles you didn't even know you had the next day after you play it's, it's, it's, so it's not this one that's sore I mean the backseat it's all the other ones, all my martial arts guys well, look at you guys.
Speaker 1:Nobody can hit you guys. They're both like so skinny and lean and I turn sideways.
Speaker 3:I'm like, yeah, you're like where'd he go? Yeah, this, this beer, it's right behind you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all my martial arts guys know that the weekend after a tournament when I because I teach a jiu-jitsu class for our martial arts business on 9 am on Monday mornings, and they know that Monday morning after I get back from tournament on, that's your chance they run me ragged those mornings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome. You go get them. But man, it's really been fun because you know I'm obviously the ignorant galoof that just staggered.
Speaker 2:Well, that was made clear from the podcast tonight, yeah, but it's well and you've got a new job and now I just got hired.
Speaker 3:I lost him I want. I mean they're happy, they're like finally can't get out of this, but buying that's all it took bobby, not to be here yeah know, but it's really been awesome just because the environment and just the people you meet and like I mean it's just, it's this whole thing I just never even knew existed to that level. Well, and the low.
Speaker 3:Your location you're like centrally located in Northwest Arkansas Makes it right outside of Tocantin you know, and because you know we have little kids and it's a family thing Kind little kids and it's a family thing like we'll get the martial arts school like I like the family thing, like I got a kid right now that I'd love to take out.
Speaker 1:You're on the other team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah, for sure you're playing against dad. But like on a saturday you go out there and you got like a bunch of little kids like doing a birthday party thing or whatever you got some adults are out there. Then you got sometimes the competitive players are doing you can't play no, yeah, you can't just be out there with the four-year-old.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm sniping all the kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, I won again.
Speaker 3:I want to win.
Speaker 1:I can't win, I can't win. I can beat the four-year-olds.
Speaker 3:But we are doing a thing where once a month we do the MAGFED for the guys that want to do a little bit more of a tactical thing.
Speaker 2:Because you can imagine if I get to have.
Speaker 4:So to get the guy that just want to play the man, or it's even playing field, even playing field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we always divide up the groups and so we do one day a month where it's all the tactical stuff. So people that are out like maybe that have an interest in like real firearms training and things of that nature it crosses over a lot and, like I was saying, with a lot of enforcement agencies, like some of the SWAT teams and the groups will come out and they'll play real drills of this is how we work around buildings or things of that nature.
Speaker 2:But do you guys just have a website that everyone gets to, to see the times and days that you do?
Speaker 4:things. Yeah, you just go to Wild World, you can book your spot all the things.
Speaker 3:What's the website? It's wildworldpbcom. But if you just Google, wild World.
Speaker 2:And you're on Facebook and everything.
Speaker 4:Facebook.
Speaker 3:Instagram, instagram you name it Instagram, facebook and everything. Facebook, instagram, instagram you name it Instagram actually kind of does pretty good because one of the kids out there, like they do way better jobs. Yeah, they have cool pictures.
Speaker 1:So a question that Matt asked me before the podcast today. He was embarrassed to ask you, but I'm going to ask for Matt anyway.
Speaker 2:He's making no, no, no no, that's the real thing I heard.
Speaker 1:He's like six pack of bush light and hide in a tree during like. Could he like just hang out and like shoot like a sniper and drink, or does he have to actually be running like a sniper? Yeah, I mean you know I wouldn't recommend that severely.
Speaker 4:If you've ever tried drinking a mask, you'd have issues.
Speaker 3:But apparently we're all set up in a tree, hey you just wait until they figure out where you're at in a tree, then you're gonna have a bad day yeah, yeah, of course you don't want to go.
Speaker 2:So this is what I got a funny story the first time we played. They're like now, if you get hit and you're not sure, you can call check. So we're out there and I'm like I think I got hit. I was like hey, check. Because I got yelled at the last time before because they're like, so I was like check. So I'm standing there and it's like I could just see the woods moving in on me and they come out and they're like nope, you're good okay I was like, okay, I'm never gonna do that again so, uh, I used to.
Speaker 4:About an hour and a half away in Wyandotte, oklahoma, they used to host the largest paintball game in the world. It used to be called D-Day Oklahoma.
Speaker 4:It doesn't exist anymore, but it did, and it was a D-Day recreation and it was literally 4,000 people 2,000 people per side, yeah, 2,000 people per son, yeah, and I went in 2004, which is the height of it, so I think they had 5,000 people there. And at the middle of the day the Allied forces were supposed to take over this airfield and they're all supposed to converge at this one spot. So you know, all these different battles happen. You can't have 2,000 people in the same place, right? So all these different battles happen, but they all converge in this one spot and then you have like an hour rest and then you're going to go finish the day. Well, they all converge and they take this spot.
Speaker 4:Well, there's a tower in this airfield and two people from the other team, two kids I think they're like 16-year-old kids were up in that tower and when it got taken over they were too scared to to climb down, so they hid in there and in that hour break, about 30 minutes into it I guess, they just got the courage and they stood up over the top and they started shooting down and I saw 2,000 people go. Hmm, it was the most insane thing.
Speaker 2:I can't finish that, what a bad.
Speaker 3:Now we go back to the. This doesn't happen anymore. I think we're figuring it out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was the wildest thing I've ever seen. I've never heard Just colored, covered in paint, 2,000, 2,000 people Just hammered them and it was. It was one. Half of them were guns like this that are just humming. And you're like, no, that's amazing. Yeah, and those poor kids climbed down and they're just covered.
Speaker 3:And it was you know, one of the cool things they have now is they have paintball grenades, paint grenades, smoke grenades. It's like a thing. They do it all the time and I'm like it's so crazy, like the technology it's wild, because now is this the new small tank.
Speaker 4:No, so this is a steel tank. Yeah, because I think.
Speaker 3:Horansky said, they just built a small one.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so carbon fiber, so this is a steel tank, and carbon fiber, so this is a steel tank, and you know. So you picked it up. You said, oh man, it's a little heavy comparatively to this as a carbon fiber tank.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was able to move it around, but the guns?
Speaker 3:but the real guns.
Speaker 2:Josh is currently transitioning from tennis to battle ball, so I mean it's pretty serious.
Speaker 4:It's just a good place to go. Sounds like it's getting pretty serious, but yeah. So a carbon fiber tank is considerably lighter, but still there's a weight to it that makes, again, firearm trimming a little bit tough because it backweights the gun. It's not the same balance. So I believe Billy's company, core Outdoor, has taken this carbon fiber idea and found a way to make it even lighter and smaller to where you can take it have uh, if you'll notice, on this one you would attach the tank back here. But now they have a lot of technology where, on different models where they'll take the tank yeah, it was in there rate it into the stock and so, and these lighter tanks can hold enough air to operate the guns you know long enough to have fun with it but still not alter the kind of the weight. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So now you got a smooth tank on your regular guns and and your stuff that's a bit more realistic operates more realistically. Yeah, because I saw one and I think it was smaller than that but it was.
Speaker 2:So do they all hold the same pressure?
Speaker 4:So steel tanks are rated to 3,000 PSI, which 3,000 PSI is a lot. When I was in engineering school we had a. I can remember we had a contest to civil engineering. We had to in concrete class, had to get a concrete blend that could withstand 2,000 PSI. And 2,000 PSI is this insane concrete thing that no one would ever spec for because it's whatever. 3,000 PSI is a lot. These hold 4,500 PSI. That's the pressure. Oh, and they have a gauge. Yeah, yeah, there's a gauge so you can say I'm a killer, you know when you're out, you know if you're feeling it too much, and low burst disc and all the fun stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, boys love to have you one more time to give us the website.
Speaker 3:So it's a wild world paintball. Yep, we're in Ta Open seven days a week, no, mostly just weekends. Well, during the week is when we do the corporate team training by appointment during the week.
Speaker 4:Okay, open play on the weekend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you can do it. Don't talk to Caleb about it. Yeah, sorry, that's probably a good call. It's not talking to me Sorry.
Speaker 1:Saturday Sunday open for appointment during the week Exactly.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, definitely, oh, and don't forget their Pure Leaf, arnold Palmer Lemon Tea, brought to you today.
Speaker 1:Cheers, Cheers. Thanks fellas.