Today I want to regather my focus and look at Nationals, the single largest expense on the USPSA tax returns.
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It is immediately obvious that USPSA loses money each year on the National Championship matches. The average money lost by USPSA over the six year period of Nationals we tracked is approximately $250,000 a year. That is an awful lot of money.
Today we have two questions: can USPSA run a profitable National Championship series
and more importantly, should they?I don't know if USPSA should run a "Profitable" National Championship series. Probably not .. they never have before.
But SHOULD they?
Well, that would be nice.
I dont think that anyone who has ever been to a Nationals Match expects that it .. or USPSA as a whole .. should be a "Profitable" venture.
This is an all-volunteer venture. The sole purpose is to allow us, the members, to compete at a variety of skill-levels. Most of us are really not very good at what we love the most ... shooting at difficult targets under challenging circumstances. It stands to reason that the National Matches present the greatest challenges.
Most of us who spend our time, money and energy competing in USPSA matches don't expect to win. It would be nice if we came in at a 'high level' in our own designated Class and Division. But there are always those people who are 'talented' who almost invariably win. We secretly loath and detest 'talented' shooters, but the statistics don't lie; they are better than us.
We can live with that.
Every year, hundreds of not-very-good shooters compete in the Major Matches: Sectional, Area or National matches, it doesn't matter except that the higher-rated the match, the chances grow increasingly slim that we will "do well".
We don't care.
We just want to shoot a "Major Match".
Your reasons for spending hundreds of dollars may vary. You may want to see how you stack up against the best of the best.
You may want to meet the best and brightest in the USPSA world.
You will spend more money than you can afford, you won't win a darned thing, and you'll come away thinking that it is "money well spent"
1 comment:
If USPSA can't at least break even than they need to find new leadership or close the nationals down. There is no excuse for loosing $250K every year.
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