What’s Killing Our Sport… The Result’s
The Pigeon Insider has been running for over 5 years now. I started the Pigeon Insider in 2009 to help preserve and promote the sport as well as to unite fanciers and create an outlet for fanciers from all over the world to get together and share our common love for pigeon racing. The Pigeon Insider was also created as an educational resource to help new and old flyers alike have success. Over the years the Pigeon Insider has grown by leaps and bounds and I strive to always make it better as well as having a continued focus on helping make the sport in general better.
One of the very first posts I made on the site was a discussional post where I asked you and the rest of the Pigeon Insider member’s what you all thought was the current state of pigeon racing, did you think it was a growing or dying sport. That post received over 500 comments with the majority of people saying that sadly they thought the sport of pigeon racing was indeed a dying sport. Roughly 80% think it’s dying and 20% think it’s growing. In that post I also asked everyone to post their comments on why they thought the sport was either growing or dying. Like I said before your participation was amazing! and continues to be the reason why the Pigeon Insider has become such a powerful resource for the pigeon racing community. Again that post received over 500 comments which I througly read and went through each and every comment. It took me some time but I wanted to narrow down the most common reason’s why people thought the sport was dying this way we can focus on some solutions to fix them.
Of those 500 comments a few things kept coming up and stood out and I was able to narrow it down to 8 common things that people thought were killing our sport which were,
- Change of laws in towns and cities (society)
- Higher expenses and cost’s
- Higher hawk, falcon and bird of prey population’s
- Poor sport management (greed, members fighting, poor leadership, club politics, etc.)
- Young people not interested
- Outdated (technology, keeping up with changing times etc.)
- Not enough information for new fanciers
- Poor marketing and National PR for the sport
This was a good thing because now we narrowed down the week points of our sport and when we know the week points we can focus on fixing the problems and focus on stregthening, preserving and growing our sport.
Now what I wanted to do was figure out which of those topics were the most hurtful to our sport and which ones we should focus on first. So I put the 8 topics together in another post and asked everyone to vote which topics they thought were the most impactiful to the decline of pigeon racing. That post received almost 400 votes and here were the result,
- Higher expenses and cost’s (65%, 255 Votes)
- Young people not interested (54%, 210 Votes)
- Poor sport management (greed, members fighting, poor leadership, club politics, etc.) (48%, 189 Votes)
- Poor marketing and National PR for the sport (33%, 127 Votes)
- Change of laws in towns and cities (society) (27%, 107 Votes)
- Higher hawk, falcon and bird of prey population’s (22%, 86 Votes)
- Not enough information for new fanciers (16%, 63 Votes)
- Outdated (technology, keeping up with changing times etc.) (4%, 16 Votes)
High costs took the number 1 spot with 65% of the votes followed by Young people not being interested with 54% of the votes and poor sport management rounding out the top three with 48% of the votes. Now I wasn’t surprised to see both high costs and young people not interested being the top two because I do agree that both of those are major things that we need to work on but I was a little surprised and to be honest disapointed to see that poor sport management was in the top three. Poor sport management include things like greed, fighting between memebers, poor leadership, club politics and things like that. This means that we as a community are helping in the decline of our own sport. This is something that each one of us as fanciers need to be held accountable for and is something that we need to begin addressing and fixing immediatley so that’s deffinelty a great place to start.
The Pigeon Insider has also been focused on getting young people interested in the sport and I am currently working on a few things that are focused on just that which I think you are going to love! so make sure to stayed tuned for that as I will be giving you the details on all that good stuff very soon.
We have also been focused on marketing the sport better, educating new and old fanciers alike, and keeping the sport up to date since the very beginning and will continue to keep that a focus.
Continued change of local laws and high bird of prey populations are the two most difficult topics and are probably things that we as a sport and community are going to have to learn to deal with and adapt too. But I do believe if we focus our attention on the other 6 then this sport can have a thriving a bright future for generations to come and all accross the globe. These things will also continue to be a major focus of the Pigeon Insider and I hope they will continue to be every fanciers focus as well.
So in closing thank you for your continued support and participation to the Pigeon Insider in helping us help the sport move forward. And be sure to keep an eye out for updates on projects that we are currently working on to help preserve and promote our sport which we may need your help with. We can do great things when we come together as a community!. So let’s keep the future of pigeon racing and it’s growth and preservation first place in our agenda’s from now on.
Please feel free to post your thoughts and comments in the comments section below this post because I would really love to hear your thoughts.
Today is July 1st 2022.
Last week I received an offer form you to become a founding member of the pigeon Insider for the sum of $25 a year. Then the next day you send an email, saying last chance, then another saying extend time remaining for those who need it. Come on man, what kind of a joke are trying to pull on me. Look at the comments, there all from 2014. That’s 8 year ago. I would say it’s people like you that’s hurting my sport.
If I may add something to the discussion,
1 The advice that some of the members give the new fancier is not good, they will mislead the person (direction to train the pigeons and medication)there after the person lost a lot of pigeons during the training season.
2 There is not much young people in the sport due to the high cost to keep pigeons. That is to build a loft, purchased a clock, baskets, medication, pigeons and food for the pigeons. Also for some of the pensioners it’s a challenge.
3 The one thing that is also a big issue is when a new member visit the pigeon club and some of the members arguing about nonsense. What is going through the mind of that new person that visit the club.
4 If a proposal made to start a new club and let members close to the new club go over then it is a big issue because we do not want to loose members.
5 Management of the club and members are not of a high standard, people swearing and accuse each other.
6 We can do more to promote the sport in news papers and on TV. If I think about Mike Tyson, a lot of people did talk about the program, we need to think how we can promote the sport in our community.
Thanks and all of the best for the future.
The cost of having the birds is crazy anymore…. The Ol Timers are very reluctant to help New Fliers. Though I haven’t flown since 1990 (when my father died and my family forced me to get rid of the birds) I am ready to get back into it. Finally.. it’s in your blood and never leaves.. I try to help someone who is new that I see often, but you know Kids know it all… If and when I return to the game I will not be using all these new fangled probiotics and fancy this n that… I will do the old fashioned way… the way my Dad n Uncle taught me… less costly and just as effective..
The main problem with the kids is they won’t put the time and effort that it takes.. BUT in their defense the cost and the Old Timers are no help… Older Fliers should try to encourage them give them quality birds and help them along, but instead, they refuse to get beat with their own birds. Instead of getting enjoyment out of watching a young guy do good, which in turn will encourage him to try harder
To grow your sport seems very simple to me:
1. You must keep the members you do have and not allow anyone to get suspended or put on probation without it coming from the American Racing Pigeon Union and/or the International Federation. These two organizations must have a 9 member board to make all decisions concerning any suspension. This will ensure no one gets rail roaded out because of his success. It will also ensure that no reputation is ruined because of malice. The committee should consist of members from both organizations to ensure honesty.
2. Make it enjoyable! Make it interesting! Make it into a sport with knowledge behind it. All the rest will fall by the wayside. Anymosity will always be there and Greed will always be there. It must not be the driving force.
a: Have classes for everyone by individuals (not a video because it should be hands on) who has a credible race record and is willing to demonstrate what the physiology of a pigeon is and what happens to it while flying home.
b. Provide a demonstration and workable in depth proven method to individuals requesting a seminar that demonstrates how and when to use certain medication and training methods.
c. Be able to show the early warnig signs and symtoms of a bird not being well.
d. This individual should be able to distinquish certain structural facts that make up a long distance pigeon and a short distance pigeon.
e. Illistrate breeding technicques that has been proven to him.
f. All theories although may not be proven should be considered helpful for the next generation of pigeon flyers, therefore providing future experiments and interest.
g. It may be nescessary to incorporate more than one individual to present the classes.
Attending these classes should be made fun and recognition given when others are successful.
But all recipients of this knowledge needs to be aware that there are variables and being 80% correct means that you will be competitive 80% of the time. This should be given by a pigeon fancier because you are loosing the knowledge of a lot of your great pigeon men.
There is only one other hard fact. Some pigeon fanciers are in it for the money so we must let them have their fun and not let it get in the way of our hobby.
If you do this then no organization will never be able to bring down the pigeon sport.
If you want to know who I am ask The Loft Report to print the “Who am I” article I provided to him or the 1981 article I wrote in the American Racing Pigeon Year Book. aloha
It seems pretty clear to me, #2 young people not interested 54% and #7 little help for beginners 16%. These two are the same thing and make make up 70% of your problem. I’ve always been fascinated by the sport and would like to get involved, but looking at what was available to beginners I decioded I would be throwing money out the window. Unless something is done to welcome newcomers your sport will continue to decline.
All of the above are important if the sport is going to survive but i know where i fly we lose
fliers every year cost go up to fly and the old boys club doe’s not want to change i see these
things happening in the UK as well and the US now in some countries drug testing is becoming
a big thing but they don’t know what they are doing which is sad its just one more thing fanciers
have to deal with it needs to start at club level and then Feds Combines and the unions have
to step up its up to all of us to try and fix the problem before its to late.Good luck to all in this
2014 and i hope you all get a new member this year that would be a start or one that use to
fly comes back.
federations and associations might look at offering a product that fanciers want instead of what a minority decide is going to happen i.e. offering oppurtunity for those who only want to race sprint series or only race middle to long distance events or both i.e. if you join an athletics club you don’t have to run in the 100 metres and also the marathon there is choice and you pay for your chosen events not so in most federations in my neck of the woods in fact in the federation in which i belong the management has abandoned the short and middle distance pointscores and only a combine pointscore which only takes in a third of the program and sometimes less than a third of the flyers particapating (like going into a hardware and asking for six inch nails only to be told we only sell chain saws sir) maybe we are steering the titanic into the iceberg.
Hi Keith we fly from 100 to 600 miles there is racing for everyone and we have a small
combine membership now its cost us $325 dollars for 11 races we also use a smaller
trailer for races 300 miles and up this is helping us to survive.We also help beginners
with birds a clock and help building a loft if needed.
I believe you have hit the nail on the head with two of the eight.
1 – Cost, is a big issue
2 – Fighting or arguing among members, devision.
Both of these two have effected our club.
Beginner programs – such as the gift of birds, help in the building of a loft and the purchase of clocks.
would help with new members.
Things that will bring back interest. New technology; Will be the second greatest interest in racing pigeons. Being able to trace your birds from the liberation point – home, on a computer screen would be tremendous. Among a great other amount of benefits.
1 st of course would be getting along and remembering we are there to race birds. The main goal. We tend to forget sometimes and put to much infancies on winning at the club level. A big part of racing is building your on strain of racing birds and pure enjoyment of birds and the Fanciers who share this great sport.
Here are the links to the two post’s that I referenced in the post above. Feel free to submit your vote and comment on each.
Current State Of Pigeon Racing
=> http://wp.me/p1pqXy-4m
What’s Killing the Sport
=> http://wp.me/p1pqXy-1gT
can i pls,,add some words that i feel it would help anyone or the president of the club would realize what they are doing is wrong..first i use to at west san jose racing club,,first i started flying at that club was no help at all no birds were donated no one will help you or teach you how to fly breed and maintane health..even old flyers are in the competition instead of helping new flyers bec the time of old flyers were up meaning they won to many races com on if you want a club to continue pls,,support the new flyers because they are the future of the sport..birds feeds time medication they are all expensive i forgot to mention clock..anyways to cut this short there is no effort in the end of old flyers president vice to help new flyers to join that they would be feeling that they are really in the sport..i forgot a new loft would be expensive too.anyways all we talking in this hobby is money and time..i believe if a club would have some side money to help new flyers to start or help with birds not cull birds hehehe so new flyers will be in the competition ..me when i first won my 1st secong place at the 400 it was unforgettable the reason i stop flying is the club was bad jealousy and to much money involve and no one would help anyone to each his own,,thank you for reading this,,sorry if i offended anyone but theres some things i said that is true and will help a small club to have new members so this sport will stay forever..i love racing pigeons for life..since i was five..you need to love this birds to be in this sport..thank you very much..