The Future

[Dylan Hovey]

I’ve been thinking on this for quite some time. Back when I first started hunting around ‘03 or ‘04, $25 meant a lot more than it does now. The hunts had twice the faces and even more hunting ground. Back then a ton people ran state races and it wasn’t all that easy to get in top 10 or top 16 of a state race. Back then we ran all the weeknight hunts and would drive 6+ hours to a weekend hunt if we had even a mild shot at getting a truck ticket. These days I couldn’t care less about going to one.

Times have changed and pro classics are seeming to be all anyone is pushing anymore. I’m not knocking them I like them too. To me it seems that there is just a handful of us left as compared to 10- heck even 5 years ago. Back then a state race meant something. Back then it just meant more. Back then if you made a dog a Gold or Platinum Champion it meant something. Now a days it means a little of nothing. You can win 18,000 with double cast wins for crying out loud! When you can go to a hunt that’s not named “World Hunt” and win more money than said “World Hunt” something just ain’t right about it. I’m rambling now so I’ll just get to my point plus solution.

PKC will die if it loses it foundation. The foundation of what made this kennel club great is the small hunt. Whether the hunts are on the weekend or they are on Tuesday night it doesn’t matter. We need more participation at our hunts or our sport will slowly die. If we don’t start giving more back to the youth we have no future; and I realize several people are doing tremendous work trying to help our youth and it’s awesome, but we aren’t giving enough as a whole. It’s really not up for debate these are facts. If any folks in here have been in business for any good amount of time or have studied business know that if you aren’t growing you’re dying. The only way PKC is growing is the number of hunts they are having and not the number of hunters attending. I’m not real smart but it looks like a bad business model to me.

My solution to this would be adding more money to our escrow accounts.

I’m proposing we increase our entry fees by $5. The money that would be up for grabs could skyrocket at our end of the year races. Say for instance you have $5 extra per entry to spread across our state, breed, and youth accounts for our end of the year races. Say $1.00 per entry could go to the overall youth fund. $1.00 per entry could go towards whichever breed the dog which is entered represents. And $3.00 go to the state champion and state race winner.


We have ~24 hunts per year at my local club and I’d say the average number of dogs we draw per any given night would be 8 dogs. If $3.00 per entry went to the state race, that would add $576.00, just from one club to the state escrow account. Multiply that by 15 clubs (just a guess), and you get somewhere close to 9000. If it paid 25% of that to win the state race then yeah, that would give me more incentive to go to a hunt. If the rest went to the state hunt, imagine how many more people would be trying to get in that top 16. Imagine how many people would be at the Showcase trying to get an edge. And the fact that every stinking thing in this world has gone up in price and the Added Purse at the Showcaee keeps going down- that is a complete joke.

Also, there should be a World Hunt escrow fund. In my opinion, there should be absolutely no reason that hunt pays less than 50k to the winner. It is without a doubt the hardest World Hunt to win and I think the winner should be compensated at a rate well over any other hunt.


There will be people under this post that will claim an increase in fees is just crazy talk and that PKC should turn loose of some of their cut off these hunts but I don’t think that way. And that’s fine. Some people won’t understand that PKC is a business and think they should just work for free. Im all for whatever we have to do to incentivize people to go to hunts and someone may have a better idea but that’s mine.

I love this sport and believe PKC is the place to be and I’ll debate that with anyone, but I think we are doing a piss poor job at our local level and something needs to be done about it.

[Drake Roberson]

Best idea yet.

[Bruce Conkey]

agree

[Wes Coffman]

You make a lot of good points Dylan.

At what point though do we stop placing the cost burden on the hunter? Every new idea down the pike is let’s raise the entry fee X, so we can pay out Y.

How about some sponsorships?

[Tony Walker]

U GOT HAVE THE MONEY THAT I WISH I DID
.

[Michael Ward]

Great post

[Coy Sullivan]

Good ideas!! I like it!!

[Michael Brown]

This is good! The way to get it done is to force PKC’s hand. Put this on paper, get enough support via signatures, and show PKC this is what hunters want. I will say these classics are paying pkc a pretty penny, and not costing them much at all so maybe a good portion of their (classics) profits should go towards “added money” for the World Hunt.

[Nick Priamos]

Let’s just have $50.00 dollar hunts Monday through Thursday and $100.00 Friday and Saturday!!!
Raising the entry fee will Sure encourage more participants Dylan!!!!! That is the For sure what PKC needs to do to succeed. I am all in !!!!

[Steve Yant]

Entry fees have been increased ....participation keeps decreasing

[Michael Brown]

When was the last time entry fees in open events like is being discussed here was increased?

[Steve Yant]

Wnt to 30 dollar hunts couple yrs ago ....numbers still dropping

[Dylan Hovey]

Wnt to 30 dollar hunts couple yrs ago ....numbers still dropping

That is nothing like this being described here.

[Steve Yant]

This idea is a good one but recquires more people to go to hunts for it to help ......jmo but i feel main problem is everything we hunt for always comes out of our pockets ....we have raised entries before with promised stuff at end of rainbow but ive never seen the benefits from raising entries in the long run you win more but you spend more .Another big problem is no one supports their local clubs anymore.For example in my area everyone wants a big hunt but when you try to have one no one wants to help or get entries.

[Eric J Henry]

I totally agree with Steve about having no support in our area with the local clubs.They have their own click and just go to their own clubs that's why we can't ever have a bigger hunt in our area.