I won't address larger matches since they vary so greatly but, at our club's monthly matches we return approximately 1/3 of the competitors' entry fees -- $5 each -- as awards. (IOW, 'winners' get only their already-paid $5 returned -- there are no awards above that.)
These go to the match winner and to each class winner in each rifle -- assuming that we have at least the minimum 3 entries needed to form a class. For every 3 entries in a class above the minimum, we return another entry fee. If we don't have 3 or more shooters in a class, those that we do have are placed into the next higher class. (IOW, if we have 6 AA hunter entries, we return the $5 entry fee to the AA hunter 'winner' and AA hunter 2nd place finisher. If we have only 2 AA hunter shooters, those 2 shooters move up and compete for AAA hunter honors, etc, etc...)
The remaining 2/3 of the money goes to the club for range useage and ancillary costs. (This has allowed us to have some fairly expensive resettable target systems built and it pays for regular range landscaping by a professional service, etc.)
Our position is that we shoot for the fun and for the 'recognition' :eek: and anyone who feels that that isn't enough doesn't have to stop by. Shooters are welcome to be as seriously competitive as they wish -- within the limits of rules, sportsmanship and courtesy -- but we don't want anyone coming to the line with the idea of profitting financially from the game.
Strangely
we don't seem to see any sandbagging or serious arguments with this system!
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