Shooting sports that have endured either have large appeal or structural support, ideally both. Large appeal meaning the sports are accessible and fun - accessible is a huge challenge for long range shooting centric sports, because there are less and less ranges suitable. Structural support means things like the National Matches, or NRA sponsorships, or Olympics, etc, that guarantee a certain amount of programatic function. Fun is subjective, but a lot of shooters are attracted to competition from the perspective of improving at something they already enjoy. When you skew a sport towards what challenges the very top competitors, you can make it inaccessible to a lot of other participants.
I love competitive shooting and used to compete regularly in 3 Gun, IDPA, and USPSA. I love shooting rifles at distance. I don't ever expect to participate in PRS for the simple reason that it doesn't reinforce skills I'm interested in learning, or equipment I want to use. I don't hunt with a 20 pound rifle, for example, no one does. I don't shoot free-recoil, I don't build guns that need to balance at the magwell, and I don't run 8 oz triggers with marginal sear engagement. People would have laughed at you years ago if you said PRS would turn into a faster paced Benchrest but with camo stocks.
Most other shooting sports that purport to resemble real-life firearm usage take steps to prevent the equipment race with sensible rules. Minimum calibers, power factors, weight limits, and the utter practicality that is moving through a course of fire with your firearm.