Quote Originally Posted by RobF View Post
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.