Dunc, I appreciate your comments from the perspective of someone who has worked in the field and yes to an extent I was generalising and over simplifying. I do appreciate that your reply was not a pop at me, but none the less I felt the need to reply
Given the nature of this event that had genuine global pull I don't think it needs particularly advanced or sophisticated media marketing skills to get this in the national media. The associations should have access to knowledgeable resources who understand the mechanisms of media and the best channels to follow to get press interest so not suggesting it is or should be a completely amateur approach, but it doesn't need a high powered PR talent that comes at a high powered cost either.
There will always be sports editors and journalists that will be sympathetic to shooting sports and happy to promote coverage, sure this might not be in every single red top, but Nicola's original point was that this wasn't even covered on the websites owned and run by the shooting organisations. A good PR officer would know who the sympathetic journo's are and use them at every opportunity.
Of course there is the risk that shooting is seen as elitist, but that is why we need articles about personalities to break that down. It might be a tough ask to try and increase exposure, but it cant just be filed in the 'too hard to try' pile and forgotten about.
Those who are offended by the cost of entry to any sport will be offended regardless of the activity, winning over that negative audience is not the prize, it is engaging those who would be genuinely happy to celebrate British success on a world stage regardless of the activity.
There are loads of sports that are seen as having a high cost of entry, not least golf and sailing, yet both have brilliant media coverage even at an amateur level.
Going off at a slight tangent look at the attendance demographics from the various game fairs around the country, there is a very sizeable portion of those that attend who don't shoot and certainly don't do any game shooting they just go along for a day out. That should give an indication of the general level of acceptance of shooting in this country, there will always be a vocal minority shouting for and against, but the majority of the British public actually don't really feel strongly about it in any broad sense. It is the apathetic majority that positive media coverage can influence and build greater support, tolerance and ultimately engagement in the sport.
The general type of media coverage around shotgun shooting in particular in the UK revolves around game shooting, the overwhelming image being one of tweed clad toffs strutting around on the grouse moor.
An event like Dubai comes along where very the very media worthy royal family of the very media rich city sponsor a global spectacle in shooting and our competitive associations appear to idly stand by watching a fantastic opportunity to advance the sport that they represent across the UK fly on by. If nothing else engaging a PR company just to promote the output of this event should have been considered and done. So many other people inside the shooting industry capitalised on it from grounds running pre Dubai events to the shooting press coverage pre and post event so why on earth could our associations not do that.
Good news about British success is exactly that, Dubai represented a wonderful good news story for Cheryl in particular and I really cannot imagine any national paper turning down a story on that.
To go back to Nicola's original point, the associations didn't even have a story on their own websites, that is nothing short of disgraceful and that certainly needs nothing more than someone who can write reasonably well.
