Shooting as a job

[JD45]

If you had to guess, how many grandmasters make a living solely off the sport?  Meaning, can pay for a decent place to live and a car, and only shoot. And with no help from a spouse. 

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by JD45

[Cheshire_Cat]

If you mean only shoot matches and not have to teach classes or work in some other capacity for a gun company, my guess would be close to zero. And those are the top GMs. 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Cheshire_Cat

[eern]

At the bare minimum they will have commitments to their sponsors to be at certain events, i.e. SHOT, and are not getting any extra money for that.  My guess is still zero though.

[SCTaylor]

Stoeger's group said on a podcast there are only a few of these folks. The only one that comes to mind immediately is Rob Leatham.

[JD45]

I meant to include sponsor appearances and personal instruction. But not to include a full time training academy job, or factory rep.

[tanks]

I'd say most that can make a living do it via teaching. 

[hwansikcjswo]

Even Rob Leatham is not solely getting paid to shoot alone. He has to go to SHOT, NRA show, do some product development, marketing etc. 

Edited February 3, 2017 by hwansikcjswo

[RangerTrace]

4 hours ago, hwansikcjswo said:

Even Rob Leatham is not solely getting paid to shoot alone. He has to go to SHOT, NRA show, do some product development, marketing etc. 

And he does a lot of teaching to top tier military.  Big bucks for that kind of training.....

[rowdyb]

Less than 10. More people will be on the summit Mt Everest in May this year than there will be people who get a W2 from shooting with numbers on it that equals paying all the bills.

 

As was said, shooting doesn't pay the bills. The recognition you get from your shooting is what leads to books, videos, classes, product rep and such. All that other work is what pays the bills if you're good/famous enough.

 

There will never be money in shooting at the golf, bowling, tennis level until there is more positive media exposure.

Edited February 7, 2017 by rowdyb
spelling

[Toolguy]

Rob Leatham does a lot of teaching off the books too. For example, every year at the practice range at the Bianchi Cup (for a week) he helps a lot of people improve their game and gives gun tuning advice, etc. He could just ignore all these people and just work on his own game. He expects and gets nothing besides the thanks and appreciation of fellow shooters, but does it anyway. Class act. I know he does the same at other matches. Some of the other top shooters do this too.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Toolguy