Exclusive use of classic target

[Bryan 45]

I thought I would never see a show about shooting on main stream TV. The History channel was a great surprise and I am glad they are doing the Top Shot show. Maybe we can slowly get our shooting on more channels. You can almost feel the anti gunners stomachs grumbling.

I watch the show every week, and at every challenge I can't help but think "why are they wasting bullets shooting at jars of candy, dinner plates, and those little tubes?" Bring on some real targets!

[KGentry]

LOL I agree with you but the money is from the sponsors and they will want those type targets. Yes I know but the show and the spread of the shooting sports on mainstream TV cannot happen without them.

[JThompson]

LOL I agree with you but the money is from the sponsors and they will want those type targets. Yes I know but the show and the spread of the shooting sports on mainstream TV cannot happen without them.

They do that and I'll go outlaw and not renew. When politics start driving what we do, we have already lost. Do you really think if we let non shooters dictate what we do it will stop there? Ask someone in countries that can only shoot Airsoft. Nope, I'm not budging, what's more... anyone who feels that we need to do this will NOT get my vote.

JT

Edited August 16, 2010 by JThompson

[SA Friday]

Between Top Shot and 3-Gun Nation, the producers opinions are pretty clear. They want targets that react to the shot, period. They want to be able to relate the shooting visually and through the sound as the shooting is happening, not after it's over by looking for holes in the paper.

Ultimately, I think this discussion is moot if we are talking about TV in any way. Neither target will appease the program's producers. Bane has talked about this here before in other threads. It's the same in watching poker on TV. How fricken boring would it be if we didn't know what everyone's cards were the whole time. Snooze fest...

You want bigger sponsers, then get the TV coverage for the advertisement benefit. To get the TV coverage, expand the types of reactive targets used in USPSA, go super heavy with the steel in stage design, and sprinkle some paper target in there a little; go heavy on the shooter's movements for the stage, and cut down on vision barriers for filming.

I'm not saying I have all the answers. I'm just thinking out loud a bit. What about a paper targets covered in that stuff that changes colors around the bullet hole? Could they make them in brown with stickies the same color to cover the previous shots? I think it would be doable.

I know the above doesn't address the question if it SHOULD be tried. The impact to the sport if it went mainstream may or may not be the ultimate question in all of this. It's a debate I don't know where I stand on myself.

[KGentry]

Between Top Shot and 3-Gun Nation, the producers opinions are pretty clear. They want targets that react to the shot, period. They want to be able to relate the shooting visually and through the sound as the shooting is happening, not after it's over by looking for holes in the paper.

Ultimately, I think this discussion is moot if we are talking about TV in any way. Neither target will appease the program's producers. Bane has talked about this here before in other threads. It's the same in watching poker on TV. How fricken boring would it be if we didn't know what everyone's cards were the whole time. Snooze fest...

You want bigger sponsers, then get the TV coverage for the advertisement benefit. To get the TV coverage, expand the types of reactive targets used in USPSA, go super heavy with the steel in stage design, and sprinkle some paper target in there a little; go heavy on the shooter's movements for the stage, and cut down on vision barriers for filming.

I'm not saying I have all the answers. I'm just thinking out loud a bit. What about a paper targets covered in that stuff that changes colors around the bullet hole? Could they make them in brown with stickies the same color to cover the previous shots? I think it would be doable.

I know the above doesn't address the question if it SHOULD be tried. The impact to the sport if it went mainstream may or may not be the ultimate question in all of this. It's a debate I don't know where I stand on myself.

Thats a fantastic post and thank you for that info. My posts are not with thinking of the politics but just the business side of bringing more money and shooters into the sport by getting the word out there through TV. Anyone who knows me personally knows I am not very PC LOL..

[rgkeller]

When I played amateur tournament golf, I found the TV tournaments involving the professionals interesting, but I remaining much more focused on the golf courses and the tournaments in which I participated. I certainly was not willing to change the rules or the courses I played under and on in order to make more money for professional golfers.

I find myself with the exact same opinions regarding professional shooting events.

There is absolutely nothing stopping an organization representing professional shooters from establishing tournaments, TV deals, spectator friendly events and their own organization to run things on their behalf.

There is, IMO, no reason for the USPSA to take on that role.

[MBaneACP]

Sigh...

I wish I had the budget of the TOP SHOT guys...the good thing about the show for me is that my Galactic Overlords green-lighted a Phantom camera for Series #5, which we'll start filming after the first of the year. And no, it's not a competition show.

You guys have done an excellent job of dissecting sport shooting on TV. We are sponsor-driven media...that means less to me than it does to productions on History or Versus or Spike because of the nature of my sponsors and audience. I realize that at times I'm not very popular around here, but the fact remains that my shows are relentlessly non-PC and will remain so as long as I'm executive producer. At this point, most of my show concepts have been "knocked off" by other networks (one producer even thanked me...LOL!), and in every case the concepts have had to be "watered down" for the other networks.

I would also like to point out that my shows and media outlets are NOT "pay to play." I am very good to my advertisers, and they are very good to me. But just because you don't advertise — or, for the smaller companies, can't afford television's staggering rates — that doesn't mean you don't exist in Michael's world. Ask Glock.

I had hoped that one of the organizations would step forward to work on a made-for-TV format that would both showcase the sport and still allow me to film it in the manner it needs toe filmed to work on TV. That hasn't happened in the 7 years or so I've been doing this, and I don't believe it will happen. I tried for years to get a TOP SHOT type project green-lighted and couldn't do it. Lots of reasons for that...some (most) money, some logistical, some political.

TOP SHOT won an audience because they made a television show...the drama was contrived, but hey, what television drama isn't? More importantly, they looked at the whole spectrum of our sports through "producers' eyes" and took what was visual and exciting and dropped all the rest. It's important to remember that we see the sports we participate in different than a viewer sees them. For example, man-on-man shoot-offs are only interesting to the viewers if they KNOW the people involved and have an emotional investment in the competitors. That's nearly impossible to do in a match context...I can think of once where we pulled it off, but the long-term consequences for us were overwhelmingly negative. Last season, at the request of a good friend, I offered a top shooter the chance to shoot a championship level match "wired"...we would put in the time to let the audience get to know the shooter and the sport, blah blah (which we know works)...after initially accepting, the shooter backed out of the deal, because we would be "intrusive."

You betcha it would be intrusive! That's why a show like TOP SHOT works (to whatever level it works). It runs under what we loosely term the ESPN Rule — "Our way or the highway." The participants sign draconian contracts that essentially give the producers the power to do anything they want...and hey, we producers ALWAYS want that!

I'm always interested in competition, but only if I can use that competition to put the butts in the seats.

Michael B

[larry cazes]

Does anyone really believe that switching to targets without heads will make our sport any more palatable to the left and mainstream media? I believe that they focus 100% on the guns and nothing beyond that makes a real difference. Until the guns are eliminated, we will not be accepted by the mainstream media and the leftmost population. Be careful what you vote for...The slippery slope is alive and well in america.