Archery's popularity way up

[DocM]

I totally love this ?because I've been an active archer since age 8 :)

Besides every range in the area, commercial and municipal, being busy as Hell, the #1,cable event in the Olympics is now field archery.

They cite 'The Hunger Games', 'Brave' and the upcoming TV series 'Arrow' (as in 'Green Arrow') and 'Revolution' as stimuli for archery's new popularity, but I think they're totally missing the influences of 'The Avengers' (Jeremy Renner's 'Hawkeye') and 'Game of Thrones.'

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/08/02/archery-ratings/

?Hunger Games? fever: Archery tops Olympics cable ratings

Yup, archery is firmly hot.

Ratings for Olympic coverage of the sport have surged on cable, say NBC Sports chief Mark Lazarus and NBC Research President Alan Wurtzel. And the executives have a suspicion why.

?Archery is the new curling,? Wurtzel said. ?The numbers for archery have been nothing less than huge. Maybe it?s The Hunger Games phenomenon. We?re going to keep an eye on that.?

The executives told reporters on a conference call Thursday morning that archery coverage on MSNBC and NBC Sports Network have rated higher than any other Summer Games sport on cable so far this year, averaging 1.5 million viewers and beating out basketball as the top Olympic sport among the network?s non-broadcast network coverage.

Olympic archer Khatuna Lorig (pictured) trained actress Jennifer Lawrence on how to dispatch rivals as Katniss in The Hunger Games. Archery was also featured in the recent Pixar movie Brave and in The Avengers. Plus, there?s two upcoming new fall TV shows that have plenty of bow-and-arrow action: NBC?s Revolution and The CW?s Arrow.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2018840303_apolyarcfivethingsaboutarchery.html

5 things to know about archery

So you don't know a crossbow from a rainbow? Here's a crash course on archery, which is having a huge spike in popularity during the London Olympics:

LONDON ? So you don't know a crossbow from a rainbow? Here's a crash course on archery, which is having a huge spike in popularity during the London Olympics:

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THEY'RE HOW FAR?: For the Olympics, competitors stand at a line 70 meters - about 230 feet or 76 yards - from the target and use a bow to shoot their arrows. The closer they get to the grapefruit-size yellow center - the bull's-eye, or just bull in archery talk - the higher the score. The target is made up of 10 evenly spaced rings. Hitting the center is worth 10 points, the first outer ring 9, etc ...

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WHO DOMINATES?: South Korea, for the most part. Archery was out of the Olympics for 52 years, but since it returned in 1972, the South Koreans have dominated like no one else.

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AMERICANS FARED?: The London Games were a breakthrough for the U.S. The trio of Brady Ellison, Jacob Wukie and Jake Kaminski won the silver medal in the men's team event. It was USA Archery's first Olympic medal since 2000, and the first medal won by the U.S. Olympic team at the London Games.

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TEAM HOLLYWOOD?: No question, USA Archery has seen a boost from having its sport mentioned in pop culture of late, particularly in "The Hunger Games," the 2008 novel by Suzanne Collins that was turned into a film featuring Jennifer Lawrence. To prepare for the role of Katniss Everdeen, Lawrence trained for 15 days with Khatuna Lorig, who represented the U.S. in the women's events at the London Games.

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GRASS-ROOTS EFFORTS: Trying to get kids involved, the National Field Archery Association has come up with ASAP - the After School Archery Program. As kids progress as archers, they win patches, with the hope that they will eventually want to make archery a lifelong sport. Officials say 1.5 million American children have been exposed to archery through that program and others in recent years.

[Rappy Veteran]

Katniss has been a big influence I feel and Archery I think is amazing

[DocM]

It is amazing. It brings in fine motor control, strength, vision, breath control and mental discipline. Besides my normal activities I've used it to recover from shoulder and hand injuries & surgeries as a form of physical therapy. Fact is, most all of our family are archers so it's a great family activity too.