Match Awards

[ChadF]

First and for most I want to thank all the people that put the match awards together. There is a lot of thought and effort that goes into a prize table.

It is always a mystery when you go to a bigger match how the awards will be dispersed between the match winners, class winners, and the prize table. In the matches I have attended it seems common for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers of the match to get a good award for their performance. It is also common for the 1st, 2nd, and some times 3rd place class winners to get a good award sometimes equaling or coming close to the top match finishers. Then a prize table awarded to shooters as an order of finish, or a raffle. Im sure their is a lot of other ways matches do it.

What if a match took the sponsors money, and the entry fee money that was going to be allocated toward the prize table and invested it in the shooters that placed in the top 15 or so? If there was a very nice trophies or plaque awarded to the match winners 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, and the class winners of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The prize table would be in order of finish, but only to the top 15 shooters plus or minus.

The positive is, this would give shooters very little reason to sandbag their class and better awards could be awarded to the competitors who shot the best at the match. The negative is that 75% or more of the shooters would walk away with nothing but memories. This is a problem because those are the competitors that will end up funding most of the match.

[shred]

There's also a problem that sponsors don't give cash, they give product, and they typically want that product in the hands of people that really want to use it. The #12 finisher really doesn't want a huge box of disconnectors or front sights, and the sponsors don't want one shooter to get all their parts and then resell them on e-bay-- they want them spread around the shooters so thems that want them, can get them and tell all their friends how good sponsor X's product is.