How Can We Make The Sport More Popular?

[Rob Boudrie]

It has been said "follow the money".

The economics of paintball are such that most of the fields are businesses run as the means of providing a full or part time income for the proprieters. You don't need much in the way of facilities; don't need to build stages; and you can get by with a relatively small staff. You need a few field officials, but you don't need RO's and scorers, and also don't need to ask competitors to tape targets, pick brass, and put away props at the end of the match.

Although a commercial range can make a profit on a USPSA/IPSC match, I doubt that it is possible for someone to find a plot of land to rent, buy a bunch of guns to rent out, and start offering USPSA matches as a "product" in the same what that paintball matches are "sold".

If it were possible to open a profitable USPSA club with an economic profit to the founder and investment similar to a paintball field, we'd see then cropping up all over the place.

[tightloop]

Agreed!!!

[Clay1]

Guys, we're working on the cards, honest. 

Give me time to get the artwork from Sedro and we'll get them done.  I just spoke to Dave Thomas today.  It will probably take him a day or two to get me USPSA's logo artwork.  If someone else has a high-res file of the USPSA logo and the DVC logo, that would be incredibly helpful.

Might take a week or two to do all the coordination, but we *will* get artwork submitted to Sedro so that they can run cards.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did this project ever come to completion?

Where can I download the card?

Thanks,

Rick

[Carlos]

Somewhere between the business models for a paint-ball field and a golf course, there should be a business model for a successful range that caters (in part) to USPSA. I say "in part" because I agree that a range cannot survive on USPSA alone.

Fortunatly, many LEO/contrator/Military training programs are coming around to realizing the value of USPSA exercises & the use of bays with side berms for training. If we can keep the EPA at bay, there may be hope for the future.

[scorch]

the real target demographic for IPSC shooting is the Male around 42 years of age (no Kids at home and more money to spend) AND most important is that he is COMPETITION ORIENTED. i can't tell you the amount of folks that have come out to "play" but never came back. we even had a beginners course at every match, kept all the folks together to learn the rules of the game, came a couple of times and Quit and they like guns but are not intrested in competiton. Need to get folks that like to bowl, car race, golf, paint ball, and such.... competiton oriented things.

[magchange]

I've tried for years to get other shooters I know or even gun owners just to try a uspsa match, I don't tell them the higher fees for the larger matches I just tell them about the local matches, other than my direct family members none have yet to even come to see one. I think the reasons are diverse, some are the macho type who would not like to be "shown up" at a shooting competition, for others ,like me, it's over an hour in any direction to the nearest uspsa club and face it even a local match shoots an entire day(week-end at that). Most of these people have no place to practice with their "real" guns, I know of several groups running week-end paint-ball games within my county, and it seems every county here has a shotgun range, so to be realistic it's a hard sell with the long drive . Someone mentioned earlier about the typical uspsa range that looks more like katrina aftermath than a sports arena (my range on my property is neat as a pin and I'm the only one who takes care of it and it costs me money, I don't make a dime shooting), point that I'm trying to make club members/owners (if they want to grow the sport) need to put more effort into their ranges. Of course that's only going to help if you can get people to show up in the first place, that's what we really want, we can run them off later with the old mantra "this is a volunteer sport and we're all burnt out so you need to help out now, of course we'll still handle all the finances while we turn the "work" over to you".... okay I digress, but retention of members is still like a penny saved. I need more specific ideas on how to get these gun owners to just try it out, what has been SUCCESSFUL in the ideas previously posted?

[MBaneACP]

Just a short note that I'm running a "demo" of my overall match concept for TOC execs the week after the SHOT Show, sort of a Big Dawg Invitational...6 top shooters; 6 stages; $5K*MINIMUM* to the winner. Sevigny, Koenig, Michel, Miculek & Jarrett are in; fingers crossed on TGO. If not Rob, the slot goes to K.C. Eusebio. The match is at GUNSITE, part of my windmill-tilting attempt to bring the various factions of our culture together again. Action Targets is designing custom reactive targets; Dave Arnold is Match Directing. It'll be three episodes of SG for Season 6, which will begin July 1. 2006.

I'm trying to get NSSF to sponsor a bus to GUNSITE from Phoenix for spectators, if you guy are interested.

God, I hope this works...I've bet pretty heavily here...

mb

[ima45dv8]

Very cool idea, Mr. Bane.

If you have any influence left over, try to get a better time slot than 02:30AM on Friday morning!

**Not all of us have TIVO.

[Clay1]

Thanks for all of your efforts and for helping promote our sport.

Rick

[MasterLefty]

It's not just finding someone with a competitive nature. Once we hook them, we have to get them to want to stay.

Millberger got two high-end investment banker types into the game years ago. They spent thousands on the equipment and only shot a few times. Their reason for not coming back. The bickering, whining, "it's a double", "this a club match, we use bubba's rules". They got that in the board room, and wanted to come out for fun.

From a spectator perspective, IPSC is boring. They cannot see the holes in the paper target. All they see is someone going like a 'bat out of hell', and think they cannot possibly be hitting anything. (Just ask a our local law enforcement, yes they're fast but they're just spraying bullets downrange and hoping to get lucky.)

Mr. Bane has hit on one of the biggest items. LOOKS. Set decoration is everything. It's the smoke and mirrors that attract a wide audience. I am lucky that I belong to a club that is very focused on making our large matches "pretty".

When I am actually shooting a stage, I never see the set decorations but the stages that I remember are the ones that someone has taken the extra time to decorate and make visually appealing. I have been to Area/National matches where the stage decoration looks like some little hoodlums have grafittied the walls. If I remember correctly, the nationals gives the RO's on each stage $25 to apply whatever decorations they want.

I will get off my soap box now, or else I could fill a gig of storage space. There are just a few simple concepts to getting more people.

1.)Make it attractive. (This doesn't mean spend hundreds on decorations, even a clean coat of paint will be a great start. Mow the grass, pick up the trash, the empty shotgun hulls. Make it clean.

2.) Stop the whining and bickering. (We have a set of rules, everyone follow them.)

[/rant over/]

Kenny

Edited October 31, 2005 by MasterLefty

[magchange]

It's not just finding someone with a competitive nature. Once we hook them, we have to get them to want to stay.

I agree, but how can we "hook em" if we can't even get them to the range? I totally agree with the ideas you put forth for retention of new people, it will work for ones that have been around awhile too. I don't think the business card idea will work, but I don't have a better one either. From the lack of responses to my question neither does anyone else.

I shoot uspsa because I want to be good , not just think I'm good, with my handgun. That is not why people play paintball, they play for sheer fun and the rush involoved in the game. I don't think that rush comes in uspsa matches until you've reached a certain level skillwise.

[Carl]

Getting new shooters I think is the key, and one of the things we do locally to get new shooters was fimed by Jim Scoutten and crew for the Sighting In, Shooting USA show on OLN, "USPSA New Shooters"

It'll be on tomorrow, 11/1/2005 8:30 am - 9:00 am EST

repeated on 11/3/2005 9:30 - 10:00 am EST

Who knows who you will attract!!! We have gotten a number of people in Law enforcement, and a number of women shooters.

Like it or not, TV coverage WILL also help attract people to the sport, IMHO

Sorry for the shameless plug

Carl