No shooting at Commonwealth Games - if Birmingham win

[angrybear]

There was a bit of shooting shown from the 16 Olympics but you had to look for it & view live online although a couple of clips of UK clay shooters were shown on TV.

There was quite a lot on the special extra satellite channels from 2012 both clay & small bore but didn't see any full bore.

[RobF]

There was quite a lot on the special extra satellite channels from 2012 both clay & small bore but didn't see any full bore.

That's because they don't shoot full bore at the Olympics.

They do at the Commonwealths, but it's a bit behind the times in coverage because they still shoot paper targets in full bore and put the scores up on a billboard hours after they've collected all the paper from downrange, at least that's the impression I got from Scotland's hosting.

Shooting has been working hard to improve it's TV profile, but it needs to go a long way further. But in opposition you have more dynamic sports being accepted by the IOC driving more TV revenue.

Target Sprint has been formulated to do that... i'm not wholly convinced. It's a short track running version of biathlon, which has more visual appeal... and they don't run with the guns. So really it's running and then shooting and then running, and then shooting, and then running. Which we already have. It smacks of a bright idea that's desperately trying to hold onto standing with an air rifle.

Pentathlon has dropped shooting and they've now gone to laser pointers. Anschutz were celebrating their rifle laser points on social media this week.

You can see where it's going to possibly end up, but 10m laser pointing is about as interesting as watching Formula E in comparison to F1, which is basically a good excuse for a snooze (and I'm a motorsport fan). 3p is something like 1 hour 45 and then a final that takes almost another hour. It's a great technical achievement for the top shooters, but it's just pandering to that. Prone is just batch test fest that anyone can win, although there are a handful that have fought their way to the top on a more consistent basis. But 60 shots is just too long. Same with 10m. That's why the actual matches aren't televised. They just show the finals.

Shooting, if it wants the coverage, needs to supply what TV wants. And that's speed, colour and noise because TV doesn't care about what it shows, just how many watch it.

[rancidtom]

That's because they don't shoot full bore at the Olympics.

They do at the Commonwealths, but it's a bit behind the times in coverage because they still shoot paper targets in full bore and put the scores up on a billboard hours after they've collected all the paper from downrange, at least that's the impression I got from Scotland's hosting.

Shooting has been working hard to improve it's TV profile, but it needs to go a long way further. But in opposition you have more dynamic sports being accepted by the IOC driving more TV revenue.

Target Sprint has been formulated to do that... i'm not wholly convinced. It's a short track running version of biathlon, which has more visual appeal... and they don't run with the guns. So really it's running and then shooting and then running, and then shooting, and then running. Which we already have. It smacks of a bright idea that's desperately trying to hold onto standing with an air rifle.

Pentathlon has dropped shooting and they've now gone to laser pointers. Anschutz were celebrating their rifle laser points on social media this week.

You can see where it's going to possibly end up, but 10m laser pointing is about as interesting as watching Formula E in comparison to F1, which is basically a good excuse for a snooze (and I'm a motorsport fan). 3p is something like 1 hour 45 and then a final that takes almost another hour. It's a great technical achievement for the top shooters, but it's just pandering to that. Prone is just batch test fest that anyone can win, although there are a handful that have fought their way to the top on a more consistent basis. But 60 shots is just too long. Same with 10m. That's why the actual matches aren't televised. They just show the finals.

Shooting, if it wants the coverage, needs to supply what TV wants. And that's speed, colour and noise because TV doesn't care about what it shows, just how many watch it.

I agree, to be honest, watching target sports on TV is for most people (not target shooting nerds like me) an experience akin to watching paint dry.
How do we improve the image? We can't really make 10m air rifle or pistol dramatic can we? Similarly most of the rimfire disciplines aren't exactly going to give viewers an adrenaline fix.
The clay shooting however has some movement that viewers who want action may appreciate, possibly with the right TV presentation moving target (running boar/deer targets) could give a non-shooting viewer a bit of excitement.
How does shooting become more acceptable to the general public? TV and press exposure will only come if we have a young pretty female star getting gold medals for one of the UK countries, then the mass media might be interested in putting a few pics on the front page. Without being sexist the general public would not be interested in seeing pics of blokes with guns, girls with guns would get a bit more attention but how long would the attention span of the nations paper buyers last? The general public seems to have a goldfish type attention span for anything but football.

[RobF]

I agree, to be honest, watching target sports on TV is for most people (not target shooting nerds like me) an experience akin to watching paint dry.
How do we improve the image? We can't really make 10m air rifle or pistol dramatic can we? Similarly most of the rimfire disciplines aren't exactly going to give viewers an adrenaline fix.
The clay shooting however has some movement that viewers who want action may appreciate, possibly with the right TV presentation moving target (running boar/deer targets) could give a non-shooting viewer a bit of excitement.
How does shooting become more acceptable to the general public? TV and press exposure will only come if we have a young pretty female star getting gold medals for one of the UK countries, then the mass media might be interested in putting a few pics on the front page. Without being sexist the general public would not be interested in seeing pics of blokes with guns, girls with guns would get a bit more attention but how long would the attention span of the nations paper buyers last? The general public seems to have a goldfish type attention span for anything but football.

That is one thing that modern target shooting disciplines do have over others, they're more broad across the sexes and are picked up by the youngsters.

I think severely dialling back the clothing would help. There's arguments about it's protection against long term injury, but i'm not sure how well that holds against other sports where athletes suffer potential long term injury risk. Dunno, that's a doc's job.

The guns are of interest, keep that aspect. And we could have live traces (with a bit of development) and heart rate monitors.

The timing needs to be shorter. And we need kit that can actually do the task... .22 LR not being able to shoot 10.9's consistently off a rig, devoid of shooter, indoors just means that it's overscored.

Perhaps the comps could be like tennis... eliminate 1/2 from say shot 5, then the next 1/2, then the next... decimal score around the ability of the rifle.

In some ways the attraction of HFT/FT is you're not 'practicing' to hit a target... you have 1 shot to get it right. Something that gets a bit wider marksmanship into the target may provide a different setting. Ie the IOC have dropped some indoor cycling, but added BMX. While I'm not overly keen on shifting to something which is questionably not as technically deep as the sport it replaces, the different setting may provide different exposure for the camera.

The real boost would be being able to see down the scope. This can be done at the moment, but i'm not sure how it handles high mag dark scope pictures.

The commercial exploitation needs to be done. That means some pretty draconian rules in place for the trade, but if they want it then it can be done. The trade is where I see the future investments of the sports coming from, and without it I think we'll definitely lose the opportunity that we perhaps have in keeping it at the profile we have now.

[Archer50]

Perhaps the comps could be like tennis... eliminate 1/2 from say shot 5, then the next 1/2, then the next... decimal score around the ability of the rifle.

That's more or less the way target archery has gone - a ranking round, then head-to-heads based on the ranking score until there's a winner. Whether this has actually made the sport more popular with spectators is unclear but archery clings on to it's Olympic status - just.

Alan