USPSA purchases Steel Challenge

[rgkeller]

The "umbrella" talk has been around for a bit, I believe. I recall it was around before the election. I think we saw it take shape when USPSA went with the current track of running USPSA and IPSC matches in the United States.

Instead of using the term "dilution", I might suggest it is an allocation of resources. In this case, an allocation made...stategically...by the leaders of the organization. Which is what we elect them to do.

Whether the allocation of resources leaves us worse off or better off...that remains to be seen.

True dat.

[ExtremeShot]

Here's the official announcement that just came via email a second ago:

Print

Date:

Monday, December 17, 2007 1:18 PM

From:

USPSA <info@uspsa.org>

To:

Subject: USPSA News

USPSA Acquires Steel Challenge

Sedro-Woolley, WA — The United States Practical Shooting Association announced that it has acquired the Steel Challenge and the Steel Challenge Shooting Association from founders Mike Dalton and Mike Fichman.

“The Steel Challenge is a natural fit for USPSA and we look forward to both growing the match as well as Steel Shooting in general,†said Dave Thomas, Executive Director of USPSA. “One of our primary goals is to greatly expand the role of the Steel Challenge Shooting Association here in the US and internationally. Working closely with our more than 16,000 members and 350 affiliated clubs, we see a very bright future for the Steel Challenge.â€

The Steel Challenge World Speed Shooting Championships were founded in 1981 with just 70 shooters competing for $20,000 in cash and prizes that first year. In the 26 years since, the match has grown to become one of the crown jewels of the shooting circuit and the premier professional pistol competition with more than 220 of the world’s fastest shooters competing for over $390,000 in cash and prizes in 2007.

“We founded the Steel Challenge out of our love for the shooting sports. We wanted a match that was challenging and fun but would also be easily understood by non-shooters who would see the competition and find within themselves a greater desire to join the shooting sports,†said Mike Fichman.

“The fact that today the Steel Challenge is the premier shooting competition with competitors travelling from around the world to compete gives us great pride. We have watched this match grow far beyond what we could have ever imagined 26 years ago. However, we realized that our once small match is now at a point that requires greater resources to move to the next level and USPSA has the expertise and organizational structure to do just that,†said Mike Dalton.

Mike Dalton and Mike Fichman, regarded as two of the most accomplished shooting event organizers and promoters, will stay on through the 2008 championships to insure a smooth transition with sponsors and competitors as well as train USPSA personnel on running the Steel Challenge. Dalton and Fichman will also serve as Match Directors for the 2008 Steel Challenge which will again be held in Piru, CA, August 14-17.

– 30 –

About USPSA: The United States Practical Shooting Association is a non-profit membership association affiliated with the International Practical Shooting Confederation (I.P.S.C.), which is comprised of approximately 67 nations. USPSA’s 16,000+ members and 350 affiliated clubs make it the largest and fastest growing Practical Shooting sport.

About the Steel Challenge: The Steel Challenge will be held Thursday through Sunday, August 14-17 in Piru, CA. To learn more about the Steel Challenge visit the Web site at www.steelchallenge.com where you will find diagrams of the stages of fire, complete listing of the 2007 results, past champions and more.

[Jaxshooter]

If there is ever an aquisition involving SASS/Cowboy Shooting, it will be them aquiring USPSA. Check out thier numbers, sponsors, industry involvment etc. Participation at the Trails End (thier Nationals) dwarfs our Nationals.

[EricBudd]

If there is ever an aquisition involving SASS/Cowboy Shooting, it will be them aquiring USPSA. Check out thier numbers, sponsors, industry involvment etc. Participation at the Trails End (thier Nationals) dwarfs our Nationals.

Now, the question is, "What are they doing better and what can we learn?" My club hosts USPSA matches and SASS matches. I'm luckyh to get 30+ shooters while the cowboys get 70+ for a match.

[AlamoShooter]

Let me get the accent just rite ....ITS Not...how you shoot ITS How You LOOK!

my club lost several shooters to Cowboy =they describe it a social event and the shooting is only a small part of it. 70%to30%

The Cowboy !Families even bring food to the shindig on a monthly basis like a pot luck dinner thing.

Makes us look like a bunch of school yard bullies hanging around the ant bed. = when we are waiting to shoot a stage that is.

This % of doing and waiting to do is Like when most people go dancing or swimming. The dance and the swim is a small part of the plan

When we head for a steel or IPSC event it is about the shooting at least 60/40 shoot to social. The social part of an event has every thing to do with participation.

If you don't like the people you shoot around =NO stage NO event No sport can make up for unhappiness.

If we had a "Plan" to improve the social side of an event = That would be a Home Run.

Edited December 17, 2007 by AlamoShooter

[rgkeller]

USPSA is about competition.

If the competition becomes secondary, then USPSA is toast.

[shred]

I have to assume the USPSA BOD isn't a bunch of morons, despite how entertaining speculating about the alternative may be . Thus I can only assume they think the acquisition of the SC is a net benefit to USPSA, either in $ or publicity or shooters or all 3. I'm guessing at least one of them did the match on 'make' versus 'buy' as well.

FWIW, here's a promo clip shot at the last SC. Like it or not, I don't think they'd have filmed this at an IPSC match.

[Rob Boudrie]

If there is ever an aquisition involving SASS/Cowboy Shooting, it will be them aquiring USPSA. Check out thier numbers, sponsors, industry involvment etc. Participation at the Trails End (thier Nationals) dwarfs our Nationals.

Different organizational structures - "Membership based 501©(3) not profit" for USPSA and "Corporation with no membership authority over selection of corporate officers" would make such an acquisition rather difficult.

[Charles Bond]

As a member of the BOD who voted "No" here, perhaps I should comment and I would have done so earlier had I known this thread was running so deep so quickly. Miss a few days on this forum and you will never catch up.

First let me say that I like shooing steel. I beieve it is an option for our clubs to produce an extra monthly match without the level of effort required of a typical monthly USPSA match. It is friendly to old and young and able and disabled. With few exceptions you can shoot the stages from a wheel chair since it is about shooting and not about how fast you can run, jump or handle a prop. It is also more fun to watch than our main sport and allows for a broader range of equipment such that a shooter who can only afford a 22 has a place to play. I believe steel matches will benefit USPSA by broadening our reach and also serve to feed new shooters into our USPSA matches.

Having said all of this I voted "No" because while I saw the value to USPSA offering steel, I did not see the value in the purchase of what in essence was a single match. Steel Challenge as it was offered to USPSA had almost no membership and too few clubs to be of any real value. What USPSA purchased was a west coast match that is going to have to remain there since for at least the near future it is the center of steel shooting in the USA. In my opionion for less money than we paid for this single match and with approximately the same effort USPSA could have produced from the ground up an organization superior to Steel Challenge.

Steel Challenge has been successful in the past but it has also failed in the past just like any other match. As of the past couple of years, it has been very successful and for the sake of the return on investment of the funds the orgnaization paid for it, I hope that success continues. The ultimate success of our purchase will however be the result of how well this sells to our clubs and sections. Since one must crawl before they can walk and walk before they run, my opinion was that we were getting the cart before the horse and if we built it correctly it would succeed. The result of the purchase is that we purchased one of the premier events in action shooting and we still have to build an organization to support it if it is ever going to be anything other than a big match held in California each year.

Some of you have commented that this matter should have been put out to the membership for comment. I agree with that belief but on the other hand time does not always allow such an approach. At least in this case, the time period to respond to the offer to sell of the sellers did not allow for a member comment period. I do however believe that if having an elected BOD is to mean anything, the membership is entitiled to full disclosure of what we purhased, how much we paid for the match, and the terms of the entire purchase. Hopefully the BOD will disclose these items after the next BOD meeting in Atlanta.

At this point the matter is a done deal and whether we like it or not we need to support it so that it will succeed. To do otherwise will only harm USPSA and its members. Having said that, I would be foolish to assume that there would not still be members out there who are unhappy with the fact that the BOD voted to purchase Steel Challenge or who think we paid too much or believe the goal of adding steel to our offerings should have been handled differently.. To these members I would say that there are elections for director positions on the BOD each and every year and if you believe that this was the wrong thing for USPSA to do please cast your ballot accordingly.

Edited December 18, 2007 by Charles Bond

[Merlin Orr]

Thank you, Mr. Bond.

[zhunter]

Well stated Charles!!!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

[North]

Thank you again Mr. Bond. Well said.

[WDB]

"Having said all of this I voted "No" because while I saw the value to USPSA offering steel, I did not see the value in the purchase of what in essence was a single match."

I know it's almost impossible to go by just a person's name in today's world but, how many international shooters are there at the match in Piru? I was looking at the results list and it would appear to be a small percentage. My original question was going to be more of the "Difference between US Nationals and Piru, other than the US title?". All the top shooters are pretty much the same between the 2. Who owns the US Steel Nats.? Do I have a bid? Going once, going twice,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[zhunter]

"Having said all of this I voted "No" because while I saw the value to USPSA offering steel, I did not see the value in the purchase of what in essence was a single match."

I know it's almost impossible to go by just a person's name in today's world but, how many international shooters are there at the match in Piru? I was looking at the results list and it would appear to be a small percentage. My original question was going to be more of the "Difference between US Nationals and Piru, other than the US title?". All the top shooters are pretty much the same between the 2. Who owns the US Steel Nats.? Do I have a bid? Going once, going twice,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Too late, Derek Janowicz does!!!

[Carmoney]

Those Mikes are pretty shrewd operators.

Edited December 18, 2007 by Carmoney

[Jaxshooter]

As Mike Carmoney pointed out early in this post, we purchased "blue sky". It is basically just the name that was purchased. Charles brings out some very good points. This is a single match held on the West Coast, limiting the field to the people that can afford to travel to CA.

The same end result could have been achieved without the outlay of funds by developing a steel match division of the USPSA if that is the direction the membership wanted to take. It could have been a decision of the members. I was heavily involced with the NSSA for years. They have an excellent program to expand club participation and membership with grants for building new fields. We could have taken the money spent for a single match and made grants available to clubs to partially/fully offset the cost of purchasing steel targets or building new bays for steel matches. While this woud benefit the membership and clubs on the whole. It dosen't do anything for the professional shooters looking to sweeten the pot or control the big money matches. The time may come in the future when the USPSA will have to be split into a professional and amatuer division, or create two seperate organizations.

[n2ipsc]

...while I saw the value to USPSA offering steel, I did not see the value in the purchase of what in essence was a single match. Steel Challenge as it was offered to USPSA had almost no membership and too few clubs to be of any real value. What USPSA purchased was a west coast match...

What USPSA purchased is a springboard to more venues - and membership growth. I won't believe for a minute that our BOD would purchase a "single match/single venue/never going to expand outside of CA" - without recognizing the future potential of this discipline.

How many Midwest/East Coast/Southeast/[fill in the blanks] steel shooters didn't or couldn't travel to Kalifornia? How many shooters might attend another venue who otherwise have sound philosophical and moral objections to visiting a victim disarmament state? How many new members might we draw with a second venue, oh, say, east of the Mississippi? With a new offering for clubs and sections to draw in new members and revenue? With a consistent set of rules and reasonable expectations of what they'll find when they go to a local (currently "outlaw") "steel match?"

IMHO, handled correctly, there's nothing but opportunity here...

Edited December 18, 2007 by n2ipsc

[bgary]

The same end result could have been achieved without the outlay of funds by developing a steel match division of the USPSA

That option was discussed at length, and ultimately rejected. The consensus was that doing it that way would have been bad for USPSA, bad for the clubs, and bad for the shooting sports. Why?

-- starting something from nothing always costs more than starting from a stable foundation and building on top of it. To say there could be a USPSA steel division "without the outlay of funds" is just not reality.

-- we would have faced an uphill battle from day one, because we would have already had a fully in-place competitor with brand recognition, media visibility and momentum

-- additionally, since the SC would have been sold to someone else, *they* would be in a position to do what we're trying to do (build the SC Shooting Association into a national - or international? network of affiliated clubs and matches)

-- we would have further fractured the community of competitive shooters, by *adding* to the number of things that clubs/members can choose to spend their time on ("let's see, do we want to do SC steel, or Florida steel, or USPSA steel? We can't do all of them, let's pick one...) In essence, we would have been "the IDPA" of steel shooting (I mean no disrespect to IDPA in that... only noting that they started up from nothing as a direct competitor to USPSA, and it has had a fracturing effect on all of us).

-- in the same vein, if we had started a "USPSA steel division", we would have needed to develop different stages, different formats, etc, in order to avoid conflict with (and potential legal issues over) "the Steel Challenge". We would have had to spend *more* money to differentiate ourselves and build our own brand - against an established and respected brand, and it would have been very hard to show that USPSA's "different" was "better". By buying the Steel Challenge (the match, the name, the org, the physical assets and the rest) we now *own* that intellectual property and can use it (and license it for clubs and matches to use) without creating a conflict with anyone. We end up making the sport stronger, without having to fight to make anyone else weaker. That seems... more "respectable... at least to me.

At the end of the day, we felt it was better to start with a known quantity and grow it, than to start from nothing and try to *compete* against that known quantity.

$.02

Bruce

Edited December 18, 2007 by bgary

[XRe]

At the end of the day, we felt it was better to start with a known quantity and grow it, than to start from nothing and try to *compete* against that known quantity.

Versus starting fresh, I'd say this was the better decision. I'll be interested to see the implementation details as it pertains to local level clubs, etc....

[rgkeller]

The same end result could have been achieved without the outlay of funds by developing a steel match division of the USPSA

That option was discussed at length, and ultimately rejected. The consensus was that doing it that way would have been bad for USPSA, bad for the clubs, and bad for the shooting sports. Why?

-- starting something from nothing always costs more than starting from a stable foundation and building on top of it. To say there could be a USPSA steel division "without the outlay of funds" is just not reality.

-- we would have faced an uphill battle from day one, because we would have already had a fully in-place competitor with brand recognition, media visibility and momentum

-- additionally, since the SC would have been sold to someone else, *they* would be in a position to do what we're trying to do (build the SC Shooting Association into a national - or international? network of affiliated clubs and matches)

-- we would have further fractured the community of competitive shooters, by *adding* to the number of things that clubs/members can choose to spend their time on ("let's see, do we want to do SC steel, or Florida steel, or USPSA steel? We can't do all of them, let's pick one...) In essence, we would have been "the IDPA" of steel shooting (I mean no disrespect to IDPA in that... only noting that they started up from nothing as a direct competitor to USPSA, and it has had a fracturing effect on all of us).

-- in the same vein, if we had started a "USPSA steel division", we would have needed to develop different stages, different formats, etc, in order to avoid conflict with (and potential legal issues over) "the Steel Challenge". We would have had to spend *more* money to differentiate ourselves and build our own brand - against an established and respected brand, and it would have been very hard to show that USPSA's "different" was "better". By buying the Steel Challenge (the match, the name, the org, the physical assets and the rest) we now *own* that intellectual property and can use it (and license it for clubs and matches to use) without creating a conflict with anyone. We end up making the sport stronger, without having to fight to make anyone else weaker. That seems... more "respectable... at least to me.

At the end of the day, we felt it was better to start with a known quantity and grow it, than to start from nothing and try to *compete* against that known quantity.

$.02

Bruce

So, how much did we/you spend to buy the Steel Challenge?

How much does USPSA intend to charge people and clubs to shoot Steel Challenge?

Edited December 18, 2007 by rgkeller

[Jaxshooter]

While starting from scratch would cost more if the start was from the top (major match) down. If it were started at the local club level and building up to major match status would cost very little. It has been stated that these matches are eaisy to setup and run scoring is time plus penalty for misses, very simple. All that would be needed is a standardized set of rules for the clubs to follow and stage descriptions. The majority of succesful business expansions start on a small scale and grow from there. This is especially true when it is your money you are dealing with and not somebody elses.

It is would be exposed to more people with potential to participate on numerous local levels than the exposure it will receive from a major match in CA. The figures for the purchase need to be disclosed to the members as I am sure that will put things in perspective for someone to make a reasonable assessment of the value to the USPSA.

[Jack Suber]

Charles pointed out something that I am curious about. He mentioned that time was a factor in the decision to buy. I am curious - why was time a factor? Why was it imperative to buy the Steel Challenge now? Was there another buyer? Was there another factor that made the purchase of the Steel Challenge at this time a must? Financial issues with the Steel Challenge? How much was paid? Was the price negotiated? Just makes me wonder.

I enjoy shooting steel and I run a Steel Challenge type match at our club. So, I am not anti-steel. I am just curious about the purchase. From the outside, it does not look like good business judgement.

[Jack Suber]

One other question - the answer may have been stated and I missed it, but I will ask anyway: When was USPSA approached about the purchase or when did USPSA approach Steel Challenge about it? Before the elections?

Edited December 18, 2007 by Jack Suber

[Alan Meek]

deleted

Edited December 18, 2007 by Alan Meek

[Chuck D]

Regardless of the circumstances.....can someone answer the following:

1. Will USPSA put on "Area" type SC matches where "slots" can be earned to attend the SC match ?

2. Will USPSA "tinker" with current SC rules in the same fashion they do USPSA divisional rules ?

3. Will USPSA create a classification system for SC matches in the similar fashion one would earn a USPSA divisional classification ?

4. Will USPSA mandate USPSA membership for Steel Match competitors ?

It would seem if USPSA was truly interested in advancing steel shooting matches nationwide, these steps would need be taken sometime in the future. If USPSA decides NOT to apply the above criteria...then it seems reasonable to accept that USPSA purchased the SC explicitly for the benefit of attaching the USPSA brand on a successful championship match format...in the same way USPSA joined forces with the Single Stack Classic match that led to the match serving as the USPSA Single Stack Nationals.

To simply state that "we bought the match...now lets live with it and make it work" doesn't create "confidence" especially when the process was "shielded" from the membership during an election cycle.