Jul

HM at Paintball Booth during Bridex Expo

Written by Administrator on 09 July 2011.

from The Brunei Times. Alternative sports holds promise as a viable industry in Brunei and local company ProSynergy Paintball is hoping to make their business venture grow, but must wait for the sport to be legalised, said a senior-level executive from the company yesterday.

"Firstly, it was for the love of the game, and then we thought we might as well turn it into a business venture," said Hj Noor Idi Amin Hj Noorkaseh, a Director of ProSynergy Paintball.

"It started out as a bunch of friends playing paintball for a long time basically, and so we eventually though to try and combine our expertise and get the game 'legalised' in Brunei," said Hj Amin, of the company's origins.

A modest five-man team helms the company with Hj Amin adding that they saw that there was a lot of potential in the sport.

"It's not just paintball; we are looking at other sports basically also. Paintball is our first love, and who knows in the future maybe we can promote other 'alternative' sports, like rock climbing or various adventure based sports."

Invited to participate at this year's BRIDEX exhibition, Hj Amin said the public's response to ProSynergy's booth has been "overwhelming", especially from young army personnel.

"It's somehow related to them also and they see that it's a good tool, (for) leadership training, improving communication and team-building. So they see the value of paintball in that," he added.

"We're also promoting the sport in that sense," he said, as it is a very good tool with its need for strategy and tactics. "It involves not one person, but it involves the whole team to get a win and we are selling that basically."

His Majesty touring the paintball booth at BRIDEX

His Majesty & Royal Family with ProSynergy Paintball

The guys behind ProSynergy Paintball. Good luck, guys!!

Hj Amin said that their booth also serves as a way to educate the public and "dispel" the many myths of paintball as a dangerous sport. Paintball is currently not an approved sport by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports (MCYS) in Brunei.

"At the moment, (paintball ) is not legalised here in Brunei, (and) there is no facility here for us; so unfortunately we have to go outside of the country to play but we have organised for groups of about 10-30 people to go to Labuan to play."

Asked if it had been difficult to start a business with such a specific niche, Hj Amin said, "It would be, I think it is a specific niche also but so far I would say we've had positive response from those who are keen on seeing the sport develop in Brunei."

The younger ones are very keen, he said, adding, "I would say the question of the day was 'When can we play and where is your field?'. That was the recurring question so we had to explain that we're just starting this and we want to get approval. We're waiting for (that) actually from the proper authorities."

Hopefully, their BRIDEX appearance will strengthen their proposal and showcase how safe the sport really is, he said. "We need to dispel a lot of the myths about paintball because people always associate it with guns, but we don't like the term 'guns'. We don't like to call it a gun, we call it a marker. We don't want to coin that term for paintball so it's not inciting violence. We want to be more passive (and) we want to get away from that notion."

Asked about the profitability of "alternative" sports like paintball and archery, which has become popular in Brunei, Hj Amin said, "We are currently studying the capex (capital expenditure) required and if the market response is good then we could see a couple of dollars. I would love to see that grow into other sports."

"As I said, paintball is a starting point for us because first and foremost paintball is our passion," he said, adding that promoting the other sports would also be in line with His Majesty's (directive) to encourage Brunei youth to be more active.

Hj Amin also said that the company will be stepping up lobbying for the sport to be approved and "we'll be talking to a few local companies also to become corporate sponsors".

"This is the future plan basically so when we go to the government we can say we've got some corporate sponsors who are interested to grow the sport," he explained, adding that this is a win-win situation.

He is hopeful that the relevant authorities would be more inclined to approve the cause. Asked whether a positive response would be the likely outcome, Hj Amin said, "Insyallah."

The company currently orders its supplies from overseas, he noted. "At the moment, we have a few friends who send us things from neighbouring countries, they have a paintball pro shop so we order all our stuff from there," he said.

"As it is, at the moment we are trying to become the distributor of one of the biggest paintball companies, which is Sly Equipment," he added. Text courtesy of Ying Chia of The Brunei Times.