Collegiate division?

[Aglifter]

I gave some money to my alma mater's (Texas A&M) 3-gun team - and, its cool that they have one. Perhaps 3-gun broadcasts well enough, that it will take off, but my feelings are that it is so gear dependent, that it will hamper the development of it as a student sport.

I think the ideal format of a college shooting sport would be limited to... say Production rules, but 9MM only.

Something where a sponsor/alumni could get together and say, "We need X of these pistols, with 6 magazines for each - maybe more like 10 - parts kits, and X rounds per shooter, per month."

Something where the major lump expenses, guns and ammo, could be born by a team, and arranged in bulk purchases.

Schools can already deal w. the incidental expenses like travel, and match fees pretty well - but I think it would be a bit harder to arrange a set up where Billy gets to shoot 40 minor, Bobby shoots 9MM, Susan shoots 38 super, etc, etc. It would also help, I think, ensure that the collegiate division would have enough shooters in it to be a meaningful one.

[BBoyle]

We sort of have it already with steel challenge.

[shooting for M]

+1 on the SSC. If a school already has that team the equipment would fit into production division nicely. Politics aside, you have to look at the return on investment, football players way more than pay for their school in ticket sales usually. Baketball does as well as a lot of the other sports. How would a school make any money off of USPSA?

I really like the idea, and if USPSA would support a similar program there as they do in SCSA I would support it however I could.

[EkuJustice]

+1 on the ROA. Most schools with any kind of a shooting team have them set up as basically club sports which offer very little financial backing from the college. I started a shotgun team back in college and we were lucky to pull in 3k or so from the school a year. I just don't see many schools giving alot of financial backing the the shooting teams that really generate no revenue for the school especially with budget cuts left and right. The only school I saw that really shelled out the big bucks for the shooting sports at all was lindenwood maninly because that was the only thing that school really had and the recruited and treated it like a "varsity" sport.

For companies, typically donations are marginal at best.

[Aglifter]

Most sports, survive off donations - and, frankly, most stick and ball programs are subsidized as well - MAJOR schools are about the only ones where Football, etc turns a profit. (Texas A&M only makes a small profit, relative to the percentage spent.)

That doesn't worry me too much - A&M has both a vibrant Polo and sailing program, and they required very large donations - esp. Polo - provided a fairly level field could be set up.

To sponsor, say... 6 shooters for a year would cost... Maybe $25K/year for ammo (15K per shooter), $5K or so in match fees/travel, and then the holsters, belts and guns.

I think that could be doable, especially since, w.o. the NCAA to be concerned, sponsorship gets much simpler.

[Skydiver]

My alma mater used to keep the rifle around to keep it's NCAA Division I status. It was the cheapest way for the school because they only had to hire one coach for both the men's and women's teams. Equipment was relatively cheap and compact compared to other sports. Additionally the equipment worked for both men and women, and could be handed down from year to year. There didn't need to be a dedicated building or space for team except for our equipment safes/lockers. Additionally, the men's team could be "under manned" and still be able to compete because women were allowed to be on the men's team. I think the next cheapest NCAA team the school had was the golf team.

The rifle team finally got retired a few years ago and got bumped down to varsity status at the school when enough money (as well as the politics in Kalifornia) forced the school to fund two new sport teams.

[Charles Bond]

I have long thought that the best way to promote the second amendment would be for the NRA to give grants to colleges to establish shooting teams and then set up scholarships. The objective advantage for the schools would be no issues with women/men's sports since they could compete head to head and the entire program is relatively cheap to fun as compared to most other sports. The advantage for students is obvious. And with the scholarship grants for the programs, that would create a demand in the high schools for shooting teams there as a path to a college scholarship.

[Walküre]

+1 on the ROA. Most schools with any kind of a shooting team have them set up as basically club sports which offer very little financial backing from the college. I started a shotgun team back in college and we were lucky to pull in 3k or so from the school a year. I just don't see many schools giving alot of financial backing the the shooting teams that really generate no revenue for the school especially with budget cuts left and right. The only school I saw that really shelled out the big bucks for the shooting sports at all was lindenwood maninly because that was the only thing that school really had and the recruited and treated it like a "varsity" sport.

I was on the "team" back in college. It was really just a club - with the "team" being whoever wanted to go to a particular match. We would very rarely get anything more than the ~$1000 allowed to normal clubs from the university for the entire year. We paid our own way entirely for everything but Nationals. Even then, we relied heavily upon donations from alumni and membership at our host range to keep out-of-pocket costs down. We normally only had entry fees, rental car, and lodging covered. Transportation to and from San Antonio was up to us, as were meals and other "on-site" expenses for the better part of a week (as I recall, Nationals ran Wednesday-through-Sunday).

Facilities are another possible concern; that depends largely upon your locality, though. Where I went to school, the closest range that could host any kind of practical shooting was several hours away. In contrast, there were several sportsman's clubs offering clays facilities within half-an-hour or less.

There's also the very real problem of handguns being problematic legally for those under 21 in certain states. Hard to keep your team/club alive if underclassmen can't handle the firearms unless under specific conditions with super-strict supervision.

I'd love to see it, but it's something that will be very, very hard to get off the ground.

(Also consider that you would really need several schools to get in on the action for it to stick; and even then, if your only competition is on the opposite side of the country, you probably aren't going to be competing much, which can hurt the ability to attract fresh members.)

[Will_M]

I'm the Pistol Team Chairman for Mississippi State University. We received a VERY generous grant from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, but the money has to be spread evenly throughout our pistol and shotgun teams, as well as saving some for the future. We are able to buy targets and shirts, but that's about it for right now. The club/team is fairly new and I'm hoping to get access to some more funds in the future.

If anyone has any ideas to raise a significant amount of money, please pitch your ideas.

[Aglifter]

Do you have an alumnai organization? I would suggest reaching out to pistol shooting alums

The other thing to watch is how to protect your funds. A&M's lesser teams have had to move their funds Out of the contro of the university, after a POS president swiped most of the funds for his programs.

[Skydiver]

Yup, have your alums write on their checks/donation forms: "For use of the pistol club only." It's happened to my old rifle team many years ago where a generous donation by a rifle shooting alum was "swiped" because it was not tagged for a specific purpose.