North Salt Lake firm using TV to promote paintballing

Just as Nintendo announced its plans to seek a wider customer base by appealing to more women and older adults, a North Salt Lake company has decided to do the same thing for paintball.

Special Ops, an outdoor paintballing company, 155 N. Redwood Road in North Salt Lake, asked Centerville natives Brandon Smith and Greg Johnson to produce a television show about the sport called Armchair Commandos to attract broader interest.

Most paintballers are either kids ranging in age from 12 to 17 or working adults looking for a thrill ages 30 and up. Armchair Commandos promotes a version of the sport called scenario paintball in which competitors re-enact historic battles such as Troy and D-Day, Johnson said.

Some game promoters organize science-fiction scenarios like zombies vs. SWAT teams or Alien vs. Predator in the Rockies.

Even though paintballing is considered an extreme sport, the emphasis in scenario paintball tends to be on strategy instead of physical performance.

Special Ops is hoping these features demonstrated on television will interest people who wouldn't normally consider paintballing.

The pilot episode features five real estate agents who are taught basic safety, tactics and rules, then let loose in an abandoned mining town in the western desert. Uniforms and vehicles for the participants replicated those from World War II. The paintball guns, called markers, were even modified to look like the weapons from the era. The Realtors were told to find pilots shot down and held captive in a German prison camp.

"They had a blast," said Brandon Smith, who produced the episode. "The show will appeal to everyone because it looks fun."

John Post, one of the Realtors, said he and his co-workers enjoyed themselves.

"It was a real adrenaline rush," he said. "The stuff Johnson is putting together is really interesting."

Another purpose of the show is to increase awareness of and interest in the outdoor version of the sport.

When paintballing first became popular in the early 1980s, participants usually played outside in the woods, Johnson said. To organize tournaments and allow people to watch, the sport was taken into arenas filled with inflated obstacles for cover.