It's all smoke and mirrors,
Not nearly as many people shooting the series as you think, far more sign up and never attend, or sign up and only attend only one or two matches, and not the minimum required 3 for a chance to compete. The numbers are public and you can see that about 350 actually compete as required. Many more dabble, but the turnover and retention are not there. A large cross-section of the Finale had nonqualifiers in it, they can invite whomever they like to inflate the numbers.
The Southeast has a captured audience so it is easy to appear larger when the same faces are within a few short hours' drive. Look how many names have come and gone, that is a clue too.
The Hunter Series, the Competition Dynamics Matches, the Guardian Events are all growing, and have no issue with attendance. Only the NRL has attendance issues because they were squeezed out. We have Border Wars, Best of the West, WyPRC, Etc all regional series out west that do very well with less contrived events and stages. Field matches are more fun, vs the 3 steps and deploy your bag crowd.
Being told by the PRS that if you host a PRS match you cannot host an NRL or any other Outlaw match will get you dropped has created an unnatural balance. If this was about capitalism and voting with our wallets, there would be far fewer PRS matches, but since they leverage their popularity and threaten people, they are the dominant series, but also the most Contrived of the bunch.
Matches in and by themselves are fine, very few people have any clue what they are looking out for and would not know when they are being scammed, to begin with so saying you attended and enjoyed it, is a total eye roll. Of course, you did, it would be stupid not to... People don't know what they don't know and most are not smart enough to see they are being scammed.
Growth is stalled right now, people are looking at a change, the Hunter Series is a great example of this, people don't want shit handed to them on a silver platter, it's the inmates running the asylum. The inmates said only do what we like, and not what needs to be done.
The NRL .22 league as well as the Club Matches, One Day matches are far more popular than the PRS 2 day events. People found out they don't have to travel, don't have to spend $300 entry fees, and don't have to follow the crowd to have a great time. the PRS is good at making enemies and disgruntled competitors, hence the growth around the country, It's fractured so it appears smaller, but consider most of those competitors grew out of the Series. They dislike it and made their pond to play in
Just got home from a Guardian event, they are growing, the concept of doing a 1 day match the first day, then flipping the field and pairing up shooters for a 1-day team match that lets you teach people is a much better concept. Gary is a much better match director than most of the other guys. Gary knows growth and how to create a fan.
Pointing out the personal flaws and drama is a waste of time at this point. Shannon doesn't care, and for that reason, he was banned from here. We had words, we had more than one conversation that lasted hours, it's his show and he refused to recognize others in this sport. He is a competitive animal, and he decided to use that drive to bully and push people around, many are walking and more will continue to walk. The exodus will be slow but meaningful, you don't need his ship to cross the pond, you can do it yourself and work outside the box. Once you experience what else is out there, you quickly release you are being lied to.
The Sniper's Hide Cup is the longest-running, continuous match, we are part of the RTC series in the PNW. We shoot teams or individuals, we give money back to competitors, we find it, range it, and engage it with no booklets. Use your lasers, use your tools on the clock and enjoy. Even when they stacked 4 matches around me we survived. They have marketing very little else, the entire series is stale.
There is plenty to enjoy with the PRS and a lot more to dislike if you have 1/2 a clue what you are looking at. There is a lot to dislike unfortunately they know how to balance it to hide it from the masses how only attend and are not paying as much attention as others.
