Survival of Large Trap Shooting Facilities

In another thread there was talk of Trap Shooting being a dying sport and that got me to thinking about the larger places that support this. How do or will large Trap shooting facilities survive a down turn (boomers dying off) of the sport?

When I look at places like;

Sparta, 120 Trap Fields --> State Owned
MTA, 60 Trap Fields --> Privately Owned???
Cardinal, 52 Trap Fields --> Partnered with State
Las Vegas, 24 Trap Fields --> County Owned

You can't help but think that all these larger Trap Shooting locations can never survive without tax payer funding.

Just in my little dot location there is only two places within an hour drive to shoot, one is a private/county venture and the other is owned by the federal government.

Anyway just some random thoughts for Friday.

Dennis

 

Dennis, for what it’s worth, the MTA (Michigan Trapshooting Association)
has only 43 traps and is a 501-(c) 3 nonprofit owned by its members.
Despite no real shooting in 2020 thanks to Michigan’s really stupid Governor,
I expect the MTA will be Okay without taxpayer dollars.
JB

 

MTA... Missouri Trapshooters Association 60 Traps

Second home of The Grand...

Trap3

 

I am not sure I call Cardinal partnered with the state. They got grant money that was available to other clubs in Ohio. The CC was designed by OSTA members. Pushing that further, OSTA members worked tirelessly on the project.

The biggest issue in Ohio is leadership. In that regard PA is very similar. Ohio shot trap when it was not politically acceptable this year. How much leadership did Michigan show?

Michigan caved to the politicians. Good job Mr. Hayes.

Illinois did what Illinois does.

 

It might not be well known, but the County Sheriff served a “Cease and Desist” Order
and threatened to ticket everyone in attendance if more than 100 people attended a shoot at
Mason Michigan. The tickets are for misdemeanors and carry a $ 500.00 fine. Oh, by the way, the
County Sheriff’s office is about 1.5 miles from the trap fields and he can hear when there’s
shooting at the facility. If you were running the facility, would you want to subject yourself, your
friends, and your fellow shooters to such fines and penalties? The MTA Board didn’t.
I believe the right calls were made and for the record, Mr. Hayes had nothing to do with the decisions.
JB

 

Ohio shot despite the orders from the governor. There are enough tickets in the sheriff’s office to cover the Michigan shoot. No so at Ohio. Too many tickets to write. They can’t arrest 2,000 at a time. Trapshooting means more to us in Ohio.

BLM has more spine than the guys up north. Imagine the optics. Arresting trapshooters while BLM rioted. I thought Mr Hayes was a leader up there. Thanks for the correction.

 

I hope the grand stays there. Don’t bring those guys East. .

 

I was just going off their website that the Cardinal Shooting Center is proud to partner with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Division of Wildlife to promote a bright future of hunting and shooting sports.

 

The DOW is great in Ohio. They help promote each other but the CC is far from being a partner with them. The word “helpful” would be better.

 

Without diversification more than a few large Trapshooting operations will likely cease to exist. A business model based on volume with insufficient revenue, an aging customer base and tremendous resistance to price increases has little chance of success. In many areas, the end is closer than we think!

 

"Without diversification more than a few large Trapshooting operations will likely cease to exist."

Kind of like the Cardinal Center vs "Sparta" ......

One is, we build what you like ..... The other is, you like what we build ..... Guess what "business model" works .....

 

Down here in the south I can only wish for the easy access to the Trap fields you guys have up north.