Making USPSA more exciting for observators

[Graham Smith]

No offense to NASCAR fans, but if they can make hours of cars driving in circles exciting, they can make IPSC matches exciting. It's all a matter of adding in additional footage and commentary. Just treat it like you would any other sport.

--You show the audience the COF and how it can be shot and what to expect from the shooter(s).

--You show the course being shot with commentary (which can be edited in afterwards).

--You analyze the performance(s).

Matt Burkett has a very good example on one of his training DVDs. He walks through the stage and discusses it; he has video of him shooting it; he has hat cam video; and he analyzes his performance afterward.

"Grand Master Flash steps up to the line. There's the buzzer and immediately he engages the three targets to his right, then swings around to take the two to his left. Oh, oh, looks like he might have pulled one of those shots a bit and will end up with a D on that target. Now he's off and running, quickly picking up two targets through the port on his right. Now he turns and takes a long shot on a popper that releases a swinger. A daring shot at this distance but he nailed it...."

Edited July 2, 2010 by Graham Smith

[Vlad]

I have to ask why? This is really not an observer game. 

[proff]

I have to ask why? This is really not an observer game. 

I have to agree with you there. I would dare say no observer gets the enjoyment the shooter does. I can see a couple of reasons to try to encourage spectators though. The sport would surely gain participants. Were not most of us hooked the first time we saw a match? Having more shooting sports in general in the media will help move them more towards the mainstream. Once people see what it is all about, the fun, the comradarie, and personal rewards involved folks that had no idea what shooting sports were perhaps would regard them in a more favorable light. It could just be very good PR and help the sport grow.

[DyNo!]

Like someone else said, if people can watch golf, poker, curling, and NASCAR, then people can watch USPSA.

I have to ask why? This is really not an observer game.

Observers of the sport are its future participants and supporters.

Edited July 2, 2010 by DyNo!

[rvb]

I would dare say no observer gets the enjoyment the shooter does.

Isn't this true for... everything?

Can't you replace "shooter" with "golfer," "baseball player," "football player", "poker player," "runner," "woodworker," whatever?

But then, I'm a "do-er," not a "watch-er." Guess that's why I never really got into pro sports. I sure wouldn't be watching top shooters on TV when I can be out shooting. If I were into golf, I wouldn't be watching people golfing on TV when I could be out golfing.

But as others have said, with proper editing and commentary, anything can attract viewers. Hell, people watch actually watch golf! If stuck out of prime-time on package-filler channels like "Outdoor channel" it will never gain any traction. Until the masses flipping through ESPN while waiting on sports center to come on catch a few minutes of this, it'll be stagnant. And that's chicken/egg. Major networks won't pick it up until it has caught on and is made entertaining, and no-one is going to invest in making it entertaining and doing all that production work (say 9 times/year to cover Areas and Nats) unless they can be sure they'll get a return on that investment...

-rvb

Edited July 2, 2010 by rvb

[Aglifter]

But, in some ways, doesn't it seem a little pathetic to watch golf, provided the weather's good, and you could be playing, or poker... I could understand watching poker for technique, I suppose - maybe... Don't know anything about it, but I would think there are more efficient ways to show technique than show people playing a card game...

By all means we should show shooting as being interesting, but we need to avoid the "false idol" bit. We want it to seem like an approachable sport* - which is an excellent reason for promoting production, etc.

*In early pre-history, I competed in strongman - which is the exact opposite of appearing approachable - its actually not that hard, provided you had a large enough frame, and were willing to work, but it was always promoted as showing how "special" the competitors were.

[Vlad]

Like someone else said, if people can watch golf, poker, curling, and NASCAR, then people can watch USPSA.  

I have to ask why? This is really not an observer game.

Observers of the sport are its future participants and supporters.

I strongly disagree. I think the future of the sport are people who meet the following 3 requirements:

1) Like guns

2) Like to compete

3) Think that ultimately guns are made for killing things and breaking stuff.

I think the first two are not controversial, but the third one will get people pissed off, but so be it. It is called Practical shooting. Call me a purist, but this game started by testing how good you are at defending yourself (maybe even being the aggressor under certain circumstances) with a handgun (and nowdays shotgun and rifle). We use humanoid targets, we have time pressures, we draw from holsters, etc. Giving that up will likely LOSE more shooters then it can attract. It would lose me for sure.

Given those 3 requirements,  people who meet them will want to be involved shooting the game, not sit back and watch it, and don't need fancy TV shows, or stands with beer and corn dogs to be convinced they want to get involved. In NASCAR maybe every one of those in the stands dreams of driving a race car, but they can't because they can't afford it, where practical shooting has no such barrier of entry, even if you don't own a gun already you can get into the game for $500 with a bit of shopping at the local used guns emporium. 

Instead on focusing on making accessible to casual observers we should focus on making the game accessible to shooters.

[mpeltier]

Interestingly i think your first two point are more controversial than your third. As far as getting people to try Action shooting competition. I know several shooters who had little or no experiance or desire to shoot a gun who saw a local tournament and thought it looked fun, tried it and are now hooked.

Point 3 is something anybody who has seen tv would think, and from a very early age in their lives.

If action shooting became more mainstreem on tv it would be a very beneficial thing for attendance, where it produced correctly. When I started competing about 10 years ago, it was after watching a local club holding a match on the range next door to the local firing line. I had been going there for years and shooting most of my life, and never new something like this ever existed. I never saw it on tv, if I had i would have tried it much sooner.

By contrast, In my late 20's I saw a program on tv about scuba diving, figured I would give it a try and eventually became a certified scuba instructor. Funny thing is there were more shooting ranges than scuba shops where I grew up (Arizona) and i found scuba diving before competitive action shooting.

Its all about marketing and exposure. If people who would like it don't know about it, how can they try it?

I am sure competitive shooting is not for everyone, but i am also sure there is a huge number of people who would be interested who simply have no idea.

Accessibility to shooters and casual observers may be one and the same, as any casual observer is a potential shooter. At some point we were all casual observers...

[foghorn]

We've been trying to figure out the best way to video events for a couple months now. Because our team sucks so badly (we really put the "Awful" in Awful Shooting Squad right now) we wanted to be able to give our sponsors exposure to their target audience through YouTube views rather than necessarily winning competitions for them, but we're slowly getting better at that too.

At Topton, we tried out a new gun mounted camera setup. I got the idea for the Magpul Tactical carbine videos and thought it was a neat trick, so I did some testing and devised a jerry-rigged method of getting the shot. Here's some of the videos so you can see how they turned out. The switching between cameras seems to hold people's attention better, and moving between 3rd person (for situational awareness of the shooter on the course) and 1st person (to watch stuff get blown up or steel fall down) gives them a better idea of what 3-gun shooting is like. We would have liked to set up a 3rd (remote) camera somewhere downrange but didn't have time to ask before the stage started. Another idea we had, and something we'll be trying out at York's 3-gun at the end of the month (if they ever email me) is a hat mounted camera for pistol shooting. The tempo changes noticeably during the pistol sections, and I think adding another camera at the shooter's perspective will fix that.

I like the idea of interviewing the shooters, I'm going to have to try that for the next competition. I talked to Travis Haley about getting the Magpul music as background, I have to contact some people but I think we can swing it, and that would be perfect behind the interviews.

[old506]

We've been trying to figure out the best way to video events for a couple months now. Because our team sucks so badly (we really put the "Awful" in Awful Shooting Squad right now) we wanted to be able to give our sponsors exposure to their target audience through YouTube views rather than necessarily winning competitions for them, but we're slowly getting better at that too.

At Topton, we tried out a new gun mounted camera setup. I got the idea for the Magpul Tactical carbine videos and thought it was a neat trick, so I did some testing and devised a jerry-rigged method of getting the shot. Here's some of the videos so you can see how they turned out. The switching between cameras seems to hold people's attention better, and moving between 3rd person (for situational awareness of the shooter on the course) and 1st person (to watch stuff get blown up or steel fall down) gives them a better idea of what 3-gun shooting is like. We would have liked to set up a 3rd (remote) camera somewhere downrange but didn't have time to ask before the stage started. Another idea we had, and something we'll be trying out at York's 3-gun at the end of the month (if they ever email me) is a hat mounted camera for pistol shooting. The tempo changes noticeably during the pistol sections, and I think adding another camera at the shooter's perspective will fix that.

I like the idea of interviewing the shooters, I'm going to have to try that for the next competition. I talked to Travis Haley about getting the Magpul music as background, I have to contact some people but I think we can swing it, and that would be perfect behind the interviews.

I liked the video, great team name. What was with the dude running into and knocking over the table with the gun on it in the second video. I am still laughing!

[foghorn]

I liked the video, great team name. What was with the dude running into and knocking over the table with the gun on it in the second video. I am still laughing!

He's literally half blind. We had this "system", leave on the right side of the table, come back on the left, thought it would make things go faster. He got confused, tried to go around the other side, but due to the whole half blind thing ended up knocking the table over and DQing himself.

Yeah, we're all still laughing about that one. You can hear him yelling "WATCH THE TABLE!" in the stage 3 video, which makes us all crack up.

[toddrod]

I believe that for spectators to stay interested you need to have as much interactive targets as possible. Falling steel, swingers, movers. When I go to a match, with the intent to just watch, I normally get bored after the 1st 2 or 3 stages because even though you see the shooter engaging the target, you can not tell what or where he is hitting it. Just my 2 cents on the subject.

[sslav]

The switching between cameras seems to hold people's attention better, and moving between 3rd person (for situational awareness of the shooter on the course) and 1st person (to watch stuff get blown up or steel fall down) gives them a better idea of what 3-gun shooting is like. We would have liked to set up a 3rd (remote) camera somewhere downrange but didn't have time to ask before the stage started. Another idea we had, and something we'll be trying out at York's 3-gun at the end of the month (if they ever email me) is a hat mounted camera for pistol shooting. The tempo changes noticeably during the pistol sections, and I think adding another camera at the shooter's perspective will fix that.

I have tried all of the above in various combinations. While the result is noticeably better than watching someone's back as they point the gun here and there and spray brass out to the side, it is still not all that interesting.

[Bear23]

One word:

Bikinis

[Steven Cline]

One word:

Bikinis

ahhhhhh yeah... leather ones, with metal suds?

[rvb]

One word:

Bikinis

really? you think people wanna see me shoot in a bikini. ok... whatever it takes to promote the sport....

-rvb

[mjoy64]

How about identical long course all steel setups with competitors racing against each other. They could switch courses for a combined best of two like giant slalom skiing. It would be more like drag racing. Overhead camera views so both competitors could be viewed simultaneously.

[DyNo!]

I'd love to see more team events.

It wouldn't be hard to make multi-gun a relay race or even throw in a static shoot that involves two shooters, two different guns, and two RO's.

I've always found relay events to be quite a bit more exciting and unpredictable since you've got more human factors involved.

Edited July 14, 2010 by DyNo!

[JorDanO]

One thing that might help bring in spectators is to have a scoreboard at every stage showing the time and hits for the previous shooter. It could also have leaderboard of the best HF's on the stage for each division . With palm scoring, something like that probably wouldn't be too difficult.

[old506]

I like that idea. I would like to know where I am at during a match too.

One thing that might help bring in spectators is to have a scoreboard at every stage showing the time and hits for the previous shooter. It could also have leaderboard of the best HF's on the stage for each division . With palm scoring, something like that probably wouldn't be too difficult.

[Matt Griffin]

A few ideas:

Match play. Set up side-by-side stages with a berm in between, and have competitors go at the same time. Gives you a visual race, a new friendlier scoring format (use hit factor to determine winner, but winner of most stages is what matters, not total match points) and a ladder bracket for multi-day shoot.

SuperPuck(bullet). Color code targets visually during a COF on TV, maybe a two panel color bar above with Green/yellow/red/black for a,bc,d, mike. Edit the COF so that the bars come up immediately during the run. Immersive and gives a sense of urgency rather than being unable to determine if a run was good or not until the scoring is finished.

Lots of steel. 'Nuff said.

New target ideas:

1. Steel plate on sloped track, hit knocks plate out of track. Scoring areas defined on the ground, quicker hits mean more points.

2. Movers that stop. Targets that have reactive areas that trigger stop mechanisms so you get visual feedback of the shooter engaging.

3. Shoot 'n' See targets. Not ideal because it directly changes the game, but a cheaper version of SuperPuckBullet.

4. Dueling trees

5. Longball targets. Falling steel out past 75 yards.

The exciting bits of the sport are shooting fast, reloading fast, and what bullets do when they hit. Long targets give you fun visual representations of all of this while the misses splash around. Other methods show speed like falling steel (especially big popper arrays that don't start falling until after the competitor has left the position) and dueling trees.

H.

Edited July 15, 2010 by Houngan

[sslav]

Or we could just leave well enough alone and enjoy our great game. Not everything that is good is on TV and not everything that is on TV is good.