Discussion on the pro class concept and payout method around 28:30- absolutely fantastic solution. NSCA actually pays the pro class winnings from the marketing budget. only for this year pending some other solution but I think they got it right. Well done.

 

NSCA actually pays the pro class winnings from the marketing budget.

And the marketing budget is funded by us with our target fees.

Steve

 

NSSA has been reluctant to add to the clubs profit by not forcing the club to fund all cash payments. Well see.

There’s been enough problems with clubs not doing everything they promised.

 

Not sure what you mean by that, could you elaborate?

 

Not sure I can trust the guy that brought us AFS. 🤣

 

So sell San Antonio to the cartels and put that money back into the clubs around the country that deserve it. In terms of classing a Pro class is the right direction (IMO) and the payout plan makes sense to me. The hobby needs the high profile guys to shoot to set the bar and bring attention to the shoots they attend and the high profile guys need to shoot to drive lesson $$ to their own pockets. You can't ask them to shoot for 'free' and paying any less than what they'd have earned under the old M system would be an insult. The new system shows that some thought and effort was put into it and until we see the industry putting money back into the hobby is, i suspect, the best solution we're gonna find.

 

I think from a marketability and exposure standpoint, the PSCA had the best visibility and did the most to get the word out about the sport. Scott Robertson’s Shotgun Sports USA podcast episode was very eye-opening. Will Pro Class coverage match up to what we had with PSCA? We’ll see.

 

I was happy to hear from an actual executive council member what the direction and intention going forward would be. Quells a lot of speculation. And I wholeheartedly agree with the mandatory year end reviews. And his comments about Tiger Woods put that into perspective. Even the G.O.A.T. In other sports has to earn their right to be at the top. It shouldn’t be a parking lot for everyone that ever made it. And also as he said if not a competitive shooter then why care what class you are in. Just shoot and have fun. I hope it doesn’t drive anyone from the sport. As we need all that we can get to keep our clubs in business. What I’ve seen out on the range is guys that are downclassed getting more involved and trying to get the punches to get back into M.

 

Where do you guys come up w this?

there’s no $$$. The clubs won’t charge enough from the rest of us to give big paydays to the top few guys. Cuz then the rest of us won’t attend. Most monthly shoots barely scrape by.

the game is made up of old-ish guys who can afford to pay and never win their money back. Pretending differently is a waste of time.

 

First off it's a game/hobby, not a sport. No serious sponsor money. The game plays to a very narrow audience. Anything to do with guns always has played to a narrow audience. It's a niche game/hobby. Always will be. The clubs do most of the work and get little in return.

 

My concern with this, "NSCA actually pays the pro class winnings from the marketing budget"
Is this will not be accomplished, forgotten and become the way it is.
"only for this year pending some other solution"

"Pending some other solution" tells me they have no idea where the money will come from next year.

Steve

 

"Pending some other solution" tells me they have no idea where the money will come from next year.

Steve

Meanwhile in archery….

 

It seems to me there are two trains of thought on this topic. Guys that are potentially older that like the way things are. Are mostly negative about the potential for our sport. And others who are potentially younger and/or newer to the sport that want to see it flourish and grow. The fact is that the changes made don’t harm the first group in any way. Their dues didn’t go up. They don’t have to shoot different targets. They don’t have to shoot at a different time. Nothing really changes for them. Other than potentially their class ranking based on current performance. Even the argument that pro class purses will be paid by the target fees we all pay via the marketing fund is not really an issue. We still pay it. Regardless of how it gets distributed. Correct me if I’m wrong. But the sport has grown in the face of incredible adversity. Stricter gun laws, ammo shortages and price increases, a pandemic. But still participation at regional level and championship events is at an all time high. The changes create an environment with potential for the advancement of our sport without any harm to any segment while trying to grow it. Yes the amount of outside sponsorship money is a joke currently. But if there is potential to make it better why not give it a shot. We are in a new world. No longer do you need to take it to the masses to be profitable. Online social media influencers are getting paid a living wage to talk about different products or services to rather small audiences. Radio and print advertising are going the way of the dinosaurs, why wouldn’t Can Am or Polaris etc. throw some sponsorship money toward a captured audience. It doesn’t have to be just guns and ammo anymore. I’ll bet by the end of this decade you see shooters sponsored by Carhartt or maybe Hey Dude shoes. The possibilities are endless. If we can create an environment that attracts it. It’s like the field of dreams. Build it and they will come.

 

Very well written and in smany ways very accurate.

 

Money in pretty much all the other sports comes from media rights, "gate", logo paraphernalia and licensing.

Can this happen to shotgun shooting sports? Never say never, example; America's Cup Sailing. Dramatically different sport from the J or 12 meter boats of the past, and far less interesting to me personally. However the video coverage/ production of the present catamaran races seems to present the pace and excitement media and the public requires.

Media seems to have an insatiable appetite for sports and my guess is "Make or Break" is the closest thing we now have that provides content "mass" media would be interested in.

 

All these years of pipe dreams does not give me hope. Pretending that the money does not come from the shooters—solely—is more pipe dreams.

you should read the story of Sysiphus.

 

NSSA treats Nsca and clubs as their cash cow. to give up target fees to pay top shooters is a bad business move.
clubs have to give up their profits to pay cash prizes of any substance. Many clubs barely make a profit on even a big shoot.

for example , if a club turns a $2000 profit for a monthly shoot , and now has to pay that as a cash prize. Then they either won’t give a prize or won’t throw the shoot.

when the marketing guru says “well only use marketing $$$” , where does the marketing money come from— the other shooters.

 

You guys wishing and hoping could

1. go get sponsors
2. ?

 

There are few sponsors, other than those associated with the specific shooting sports, willing to take the risk of being associated with a sport that involves guns and shooting. That makes the sponsorship pool very small.

 

NSCA is just the same as government from federal down to the smallest village. They don't have a damn dime. Every penny they have is provided by the public in some form of tax. Whatever money they have, keep, and so called give away is furnished by whomever decides to play the game.

The only winners are the people that don't work or play. Really pretty simple and brilliant. Of course I could be wrong.

 

NSCA is just the same as government from federal down to the smallest village. They don't have a damn dime. Every penny they have is provided by the public in some form of tax. Whatever money they have, keep, and so called give away is furnished by whomever decides to play the game.

The only winners are the people that don't work or play. Really pretty simple and brilliant. Of course I could be wrong.

Actually the NSCA is a division of the NSSA. I non profit organization that is member owned and member managed. Other than reasonable administrative salaries all money collected by the organization must be used for the purposes of maintaining and growing the organization.

 

J W — you not.

 

Well, I suppose that money from marketing would be O.K. Because, as far as i can tell that haven't "marketed" a Dang thing for the us. I could be mistaken. If anyone can show me what they've done "marketing" wise. Steve

 

$2k each to several states each year for State Championship enhancement. For one. Marketing is much more than most can grasp. Anything that can promote the brand or business. That’s how the purse miney falls into marketing.

 

I don’t really care. Just hate wast time on dreaming.

me, I’d follow the money.

 

Sera what exactly is your beef with this change? What would be your fix? I feel like I'm missing something here.

 

His "beef" is very simple: without extending a list of sources of money all these talks are just... Moving money from one pocket to another. It's a zero-sum game.

Sport will gain some if external money would appear somehow.

And the problem is that sporting clays is very intricate as a game, to understand what's going on one has to be on a specific level. Without having extended experience shooting some targets - it's almost impossible to say if target is hard or not watching it on a TV. It's just a little dot flying through the sky...

That's why ZZ (and birds) is so much better in that regard than sporting clays. Anyone can see that propeller swiftly changed it's line and shooter missed. Very entertaining.

You would not be able to tell "why someone missed" if you're not a coach and not watching person shooting and not just one single shot, but multiple...

 

There is one fundamental problem with sporting clays- the “super squads” they put together are literally the only guys in the region/country/world that have a chance of coming out on top. The guy that can break mid 80’s or low 90’s at local shoots has no chance of beating the Brandon Powell’s, Zach Kienbaum, etc. at a regional or national level shoot. Whether it is the usual shooter doesn’t have the skill level or opportunity to shoot and train like the top level shooters doesn’t matter. To grow the sport, maybe huge money would be an incentive for people to try to get more competitive in the sport, but I think the only way to do it is the level the playing field.

For instance- there is handicap trapshooting. For a long time, the Grand American trapshoot was the largest shooting event in the world. The largest event was the Grand American Handicap. Look through the winners of that event- sprinkled in are some every year All-Americans, but there’s mostly guys on there that you’ve never heard of before or since they won that largest event in the sport of trapshooting. That’s what made attendance so high, and there was at one time a pretty nice payout for winning that event. Heck, if you went out to shoot the Grand week and broke a 50 straight in one of the handicaps, you paid for your entire week out there. That’s what enticed all the shooters to go to that shoot (among other things, admittedly- if any of you were ever at Vandalia when the shoot was there- they were hallowed grounds for a shotgun shooter). The Big Dogs in trapshooting fought It out in the doubles and singles events and a guy that couldn’t break a 200-straight and a bunch more in the shoot offs probably didn’t enter the singles event. Or if you couldn’t break a 100 in doubles, you didn’t have a chance to win an event, so the same thing. Sporting clays is similar to those 16-yard line and doubles events, because there is a very small chance of an average working guy being able to go out and win those events.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the game of sporting clays is doing very well as it is, with that 0% chance of the average shooter winning the events. Maybe they have a chance at winning their class, but not the overall. So maybe instead of trying to make the game more appealing for the top end shooters, maybe building a better mousetrap would be a better option. Change again would be necessary, but in a different way, and they would be big changes because it would take a different infrastructure for clubs. Maybe different shooting positions for the same stations at shoots, where M class shooters are 20 yards further back than say a D class shooter, similar to handicap trap, or different slopes on a ski/snowboard resort.

Maybe it’s something different than that, I’m just spitballing at this moment but I can say that it worked for trapshooting because yes, there was some sponsorship money from companies (and some from as big as Budweiser), but if you look at the payouts for some of those big old trap shoots, most of the money came from the shooters playing options, because why not? They probably wouldn’t win, but the chance they could have of paying for their entire years worth of shooting (or more) was enough to entice them to do so. I don’t think the NSCA (or any shooting organization) has enough money to fund enough payouts big enough to make that work, it has to be enough for the average guy to go out and bet his own money on himself, and the game we play with the super squads, does not promote that.

 

It's like that in any sport... Olympic level is simply "not human", "aliens"...

 

Call me negative or call me a realistic? Changing the classification system may be needed but it will not spring Sporting Clays into the spot light. When Baltazar talks about why they are legitimizing the classification it is more about marketing SC to the advertisers and taking “Snoring Clay” to the masses via TV & Internet.

Why it won’t happen!

Sporting Clays is a hobby, entertainment, a past-time. It will never draw spectators. It will never draw big money sponsors from outside the sport. All the podcasters talking about making it a TV sport are admirable but not realistic. My wife is a TV and Digital Advertising executive. When I mentioned putting Sporting Clays on TV and bringing in big advertising money, she laughed! She explained that you need fans aka viewers. A big indicators of fans and viewership is gate receipts. Sporting Clays has no paying observers, no faithful galleries following the best shooters around. She then asked where would the coverage would go? Can the sport compete with existing sports for coverage? Is there a great chance that many hundred of thousand of viewers watch? Or Is the sport willing (NSCA?) willing to invest heavily in our own marketing to grow the sport and establish a viewership? Can we get generate gate receipts like NASCAR, NCAA, PGA? She had a good point. You don’t get on TV without viewership.

There are too many other true spectator sports that are floundering as it is. There is no place for sporting clays on TV. I would actually rather watch the neighborhood kids play paint ball than watch a sporting clays tournament of any level. I have watched a few pro sporting clays shooter shoot and I have been squadded with a several National Champions and not one was even remotely close to being exciting to watch. Hell, woman’s NCAA gymnastics better entertainment than watching something like the PSCA! I am not going dive into the ”GUN” issue in our society.

This Baltazar guy is going to drive a lot of shooters away. The new classification system will take NSCA nowhere and will certainly not legitimize the sport onto ESPN .

Summary: will the new clamp down on classification bring Big Pay Outs to Sporting Clays? Will top shooting pros start making big NIL deals? Will there be NSCA millionaire? NO! NO! and NO!

Disclosure, I am not a “old guy” hiding in Master Class. I am an old guy” sporadic tournament shooter. NSCA Life Member since 1993 or there about. I have lost enough punches to time to have moved up from “B” to “A” while in the NSCA. Bu, I have other commitments and pursuits. Will probably never get to AA or Master because I am not that dedicated. So far this year, I have spent almost $2,000 on tournament shoots and have 2 punches and $40.00 In winnings. Call me a sucker.

 

To counter your wife's argument, I would like to point out that there are fishing tournaments on cable TV. No gate fees or ticket sales, they usually just show two guys standing in a boat somewhere. Of course it gets edited so that you only see when they actually catch something. But they draw some amazingly large sponsors, and run on for hours. Nationwide. Usually followed by a cooking show featuring seafood. And/or a travel documentary. Said sponsors include everybody who is anybody in angling, state travel and tourism bureaus, travel agencies, boat companies, etc etc. The contestants are decked out in the sponsors logos like NASCAR drivers. The whole show and the way they do the game, reminds me very much of watching pro golf.

Point being, that it can be done. But probably not as it is currently structured.

 

The person in the video is the creator of AFS. When AFS became part of NSCA shoots as per a licensing agreement what were the terms? NSCA Adds American Field Sporting to Portfolio

 

AFS was a neat concept. I never had the opportunity to shoot it. Seemed a little complex and difficult to manage for smaller clubs. But with all of the other similar clay games I understand why it never took off. At a glance it looked like Supersporting and new style FITASC had a baby.

 

Bird— no beef with the change. My consternation is with the grown ups who don’t seem to have a clue.
I won’t be doing anything differently. And I won’t be dreaming that suddenly all will spring up roses. I do not like a line of BS either.
I was on the board for 6 years, and all of these things were being thrown around and nothing nada was done.

 

Roses don’t just spring up. They have to be planted and cultivated and fertilized. The wheels are turning now and the train is pointed in the right direction. If it stays on track there is a fair chance we might get to a better place.

 

These same wheels have turned often before. Be wary when the hand seekin $$ is stuck in your face.