You may want to post your question on steerplanet to see the other side of the story because there are very few people on this site with personal clubby experience. The stereotypes are that they have no use beyond the show ring (which is true for many but not all) and steers tend to be more expensive than heifers because they have higher premiums/prizes offered at the major shows. As far as being a game that rich people play, yes and no. It's mostly 4-H/FFA members that buy the calves (hence the CLUB part) along with some trading of breeding stock. The breeding of clubby calves is more of a rich-man's game because you may breed 30 calves that are all going to get discounted at the sales barn in the hopes of producing maybe 5 "good ones" that will bring big money.
As for the type of breeding, they truely have developed into sort of a breed of their own. Typically a club calf is just a fluffy commercial calf with a bunch of crap in the woodpile. The two most common "breeds" are Maine and Chianina, though modern club calves don't look anything like the traditional breeding stock (Only need 6.75% chianina to show at the national shows). There is also some shorthorn/charolais dabbled in here and there, and herefords are starting to get bred into the mix for the "baldy pattern" calves.
