My name is Patrick and I\u2019m the Treasurer for Lincoln Park Archery Club. I first started shooting competitive target archery in the early 2000\u2019s through my local JOAD (Junior Olympic Archery Development) club. In those days, things were\u2026 different. USA Archery was NAA (National Archery Association), World Archery was FITA (F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Tir \u00e0 l\u2019Arc), and social media wasn\u2019t a thing. #relevant<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you can\u2019t already tell, I\u2019ve become one of those \u201cback in my day\u201d type old head archers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in my day, archers could only wear navy or white trousers and a white collared shirt when competing. No exceptions. It was not uncommon to see an archer turned away at the registration desk because they didn\u2019t know the rule and showed up in blue jeans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in my day, archers shot real distances. Outdoor FITA Rounds were used for qualifications. 144 arrows over 2 days. 36 arrows at each distance (90m, 70m, 50m, and 30m). It was grueling. Assuming you made it into the top 64, the third day consisted of single elimination head-to-head matches. Last archer standing wins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BUT, change is inevitable. And in most cases, it\u2019s for the better. As the Tik Tok generation grows their love for the sport it may be time for even more changes. Something us old heads need to embrace. #mid<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unprecedented growth we\u2019ve seen in 3D and Field archery coupled with new broadcasting opportunities creates an interesting dynamic shift. Do we as archers and event organizers format shoots the way we always have? Long, grueling shoots where the spectator is likely to fall asleep out of boredom. Or, do we adjust the formats to cater towards the viewer? The short-attention-span-having youths who are the future of our sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s take a quick look at the Archery Shooter\u2019s Association (ASA). The current format, as is, has the top 5 qualifiers after 2 days of shooting facing off in what\u2019s called a shootdown to decide the winner. Archers rotate through 5 3D targets at 5 different distances (known or unknown, depending on class). After the 5th target, any archer within 10 points of the leader gets to shoot one last target for a chance to win. The last chance arrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sounds exciting doesn\u2019t it? It does. Until you\u2019re trying to watch it on livestream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those first 5 arrows, every archer shoots at the same time. As they would in any other tournament. The problem? The ASA doesn\u2019t have enough equipment, time, or production budget to show every arrow being shot. As a result the livestream is a haphazard mess of commentators guessing who\u2019s shooting at what target and which arrow is being called. Not good TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an effort to make the livestream more audience friendly, the ASA experimented with having each archer shoot sequentially so that the viewer (and commentators for the matter) could watch every arrow being shot and actually follow the action in real time. This format showed promise. But ultimately, it was abandoned due to a variety of reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate to say it, but back in my day, archery wasn\u2019t fun to watch. And if we\u2019re going to grow the sport\u2026 we need to find and fund ways for it to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My name is Patrick and I\u2019m the Treasurer for Lincoln Park Archery Club. I first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":958,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions\/958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lincolnparkarcheryclub.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}