Grow the Sport. Goal?

Grow the sport. That is familiar phrase. We know it, say it, live it, and love it. Heck, the whole point of this site is to get more people in the course. Before we go much further let's look back at some articles that I wrote on this topic a while back, just to make sure we don't tread over the same ground again in this entry:

Getting "on course", Part 1 - 4/14/2007. This blog entry went over the basics of what you need to ski a slalom course regularly. It also focused on the people aspect of course skiing— that is, just finding dependable, focused people you can stand being in the boat with regularly.

Getting "on course", Part 2 - 4/21/2007. This piece covered finding a lake or club to ski at and actually getting a portable course if needed.

Barrier to Entry - 1/26/2008. This entry explores the difficulties of getting into this sport in detail.

Nw that we've done our homework, let's move on.

I suppose I'm a pretty good example of what the end result of "growing the sport" would be at the single-family level. My parents did not ski regularly or competitively, nor did we have a boat (that worked) for the majority of my childhood. My wife's family did have an old Sea Ray, but again, no course skiing, minimal slalom skiing, nothing competitive, just fun on the water with combos and tubes. Because of this, we are "new blood", plain and simple. Our own family's skiing lineage starts right here, right now. This is it. First inboard, first slalom course, first club membership, first ski school graduates and first slalom website in the entire history of the family.

How did we become new blood? All it took was for me to see 1) someone really good at slalom free-ski and put up walls of water AND 2) I rode in, observed, and became fascinated with inboard ski boats. Those two things started what you see today. Literally tens of thousands of dollars spent on the industry, loads of family fun on the water, a hobby I can be passionate about and think about constantly, and even an entire website created and managed for the sport. I did not care that I had to buy a boat. I did everything in my power to buy a boat as soon as I could, which I did at age 22. I did not care about buying a tow vehicle. I traded in my dream car at the time for my first SUV. I did not care that the sport was incredibly hard or that I didn't have a course. I bought a course. I went to ski school. I read every forum I could on water skiing. See, once seed is planted, the passion instilled, it doesn't matter what other barriers to entry there are because we smashed them all down. There's no reason to think that others won't do the same thing once they get a taste for the sport.

So, getting the sport in front of more faces obviously will help, and barriers to entry can't keep us down. That's covered. Here's the next question: how popular do we want the sport to be, ultimately? You hear a lot of people talk about growing the sport on the Interweb, but how can you hope to achieve something without a fixed goal? I have not heard an actual goal from anyone, unless I missed it in my all my forum digestion over the past 10 years. Let's set a goal for growing the sport. The goal is... what? Make it more popular than Curling? How about as popular as NFL football? Perhaps golf. Golf is wildly popular as both a spectator sport AND a participant sport, so it's a good proxy. How about just a little more popular than it already is?

Let's look at the golf scenario. I think if the sport absolutely took off and blew up all over the place to epic proportions, you'd have a lot of unhappy amateur slalom skiers and a lot of very happy pros and sponsors/manufacturers. Let's all be honest here. It's probably a safe bet to say that there is a fair amount of "not in my back yard" mentality out there in the slalom world. Imagine if your club was so packed with members that you had to reserve your ski time weeks in advance? Imagine getting up at 0600 only to get to your public lake and see a line of inboards at the ramp 10 boats deep? Part of the draw of course skiing, in my opinion, is that there aren't many people doing it. The elitist in me is very happy with this aspect of the sport. Early in the morning, when we're the only boat sitting out on glass water, it feels good to know that we're out here doing this amazing thing while most people are sleeping off their hangovers or out on the golf course. As for the club, it's hard to get into a club at all these days as it is. Imagine trying to get into a club if skiing was as popular as golf. Every course skier has their "secret spot". It's a private lake, it's a cove in a public lake, it's a bend in the river somewhere. Imagine that spot just being overrun with people. So, more lakes? If digging a lake was not such a non-trivial experience then I suppose that could happen, but even with more lakes, we'd be at capacity (that's another point entirely: what is our capacity for course skiing? How many skiers, realistically, can we support world wide?) really quickly. We can't shuffle foursomes of skiers through private lake every 11 minutes like a golf course. Each skier needs at least 20min per set, and there is only so much time in the day. In the golf scenario, pros would be multi-millionares, which I'm all for. They probably wouldn't be as accessible as they are now, but there would be so many people in the sport that only the absolute cream of the crop would be inaccessible. I can still go to the driving range and get 1/2 hour from a PGA pro for 50.00, but I'll never get a lesson from Tiger. Product development would be state of the art and fueled by billions of dollars. There would be many benefits and many drawbacks to this level of popularity, if at all achievable.

So how about "a little more popular than it already is"? Is that a better goal for us? I wouldn't mind a few other boats at the course in the morning. I wouldn't mind people actually knowing what I'm talking about when I tell them I ski the course. I wouldn't mind people thinking water skiing was more than that "one time they got up on two skis behind uncle Joe's bass boat", or more than skiing in a circle behind an excavator boom. I'd love to have this site generate enough revenue that I could devote 100% of my time to it. All of these things would be awesome and would all be achievable with reasonable growth of the sport.

So, what's the goal, and how do we measure it? Let's figure that out, and then let's go for it.

Comments:

WadeWilliams, 1/17/2010: A reasonable goal?

How about getting one more skier added to your fold?

If everyone got one more skier, then that would achieve a few things.

#1 it would stop the downward trend
#2 it would achieve the a little more popular than right now goal (which is trending downward)
#3 it would double the size of the ski-addict population.

OK maybe adding one more skier for each person is a little too lofty. Maybe not.

You're never going to see pros making millions of dollars. You probably won't see pros making hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, there should be more than 5 guys who can make more than $50,000... which is about where we're at right now. I don't know, maybe, world wide, including all 3 events, MAYBE there's 8 or 10 folks making more than $50g.

I don't know, this coming from someone who like yourself is "new blood" - not from a ski pedigree family, grew up on a public lake, got sucked in, made it a goal to become a pro... now that I've been there it's kinda sad. I haven't made more than $20,000 for the last 4 years. And that's a high-ball estimate, including all the clinics, coaching, web design, working at my friend's liquor store, and selling old gear out of the Abacus (my vehicle).

So, a little more popular than it is? Ya. that would be nice.

But getting back to my original plan... why doesn't everyone bring one friend into the sport? Maybe it would take more than 1 try... maybe it wouldn't. Like you said, it really doesn't take that much for the right person to get addicted. What we're doing is cool, despite an image problem we've been fighting since the inception of wakeboarding. When you see pro events in the 80s with tens of thousands of people at them, that's what I'd like to see again.

It isn't ever going to be as popular as golf, nascar, baseball, or any other major professional sport. It doesn't need to be, anyways. We have an ADD culture. It's never going to be THAT cool. But a golf model is a nice one to dream about.

With more parks like Okeeheelee, located around the country [world].... that could see significant growth.

Over-use of lakes is a separate issue. I nearly got arrested by the City of Lynn for waterskiing on the pond that my family has lived on since the 1920s. Why? Overuse. Pure and simple. I had all my friends over skiing. Every day. We used the pond so much that the water quality improved and there were no pond weed problems. In december (8 years after the last year for the slalom course) they pulled a car out of the lake with a dead body in it. Do you think that would have gone down with active water skiers on the lake?

But i digress.

A little more popular than it is now.

Bring your friend to the lake this summer that's never skied.

Get them addicted.

Have them do the same thing next year.

Get some kids into the sport.

Have fun.


jhughes, 1/17/2010: Bring one more person in. I like it.


CedarLakeSkier, 1/19/2010: I'd be happy with just some mainstream sport education. I've requested several times to get a permit to get a course on our lake in Michigan. I don't know why a state with so many lakes (a state that could REALLY notch up the popularity of the sport) makes it impossible to get a permit for a course. The one page permit requires all Riparian owners (everyone on the lake) to OK the course to get a permit. One "no" and your permit is denied. If you have a single non-watersport fisherman on your lake, forget it. Is it that hard for tennis players to find a court to play on? For basketball players to find a court? both of those require paved surfaces, usually on public land. I just want to float a few buoys, and I'll probably use a portable course and remove them when the weekend is over.

If there were a little more education perhaps more people would be tolerant of a course on a lake and the 100% approval rating could be dropped to a mere majority.

I know I'm ranting, but when logic and common sense fail there isn't much else to do.


Behindpropellers, 1/19/2010: CedarLakeSkier-

I suggest contacting MWSA about it. They will know how to help you.


jhughes, 1/19/2010: CLS - I've found it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask permission before deploying the portable course. I've never had to do either.


laz, 1/19/2010: I've been a vague participant for most of my life, but thoroughly addicted x 2 years. I see the sport as getting a bit more popular in my area. We had a small group of regular skiers this past summer and now the group is twice the size signed up for next summer.

As for the portable course, asking for forgiveness has worked out quite well while asking for permission got us nowhere.


CedarLakeSkier, 1/20/2010: So you folks all spent a chunk of change buying a course just hoping that you would be able to put it on your lake? I wasn't going to shell out the cash until I knew I could use it.


Deke, 1/20/2010: Our little slalom group has grown in the last 2 years, maybe double. Unfortunately we're on public water and the wakeboard/wakesurf contingent has grown as well. The result is that the window for good water has shrunk and we have more skiers to put through the course during this shorter period. Grow the sport? Are we sure? What does it mean? What should we actually grow? The upside of growth is better equipment, great boats, more events, super high quality coaching available, and just the plain old cool factor of participating in something that others recognize as, well, cool. We all benefit during this period of growth... until we can no longer do what we were originally attracted to in the first place. As the industry grows it searches for ways to accommodate the "middle of the bell curve" with easy to enter, less demanding, and less specialized sports that can be done on public water which pushes slalom out. So here we are with no where to go but a private lake!

So what are we growing? The industry? Slalom? 3-event? Watersports in general? I'd like to think about growing slalom specifically myself, and I think that means more access for the general public to protected facilities at a reasonable cost. We already have an industry, an organizing body, events, etc. The only bottleneck to slalom growth seems to be the number of facilities that will allow the number of slalom skiers to increase. How can we solve that?


jhughes, 1/20/2010: Deke, exactly the purpose of this post. What exactly is our goal and do we have the capacity! I think we just have to start small. Our numbers are so abysmal as it is that just a minor increase would be significant percentage-wise.


Behindpropellers, 1/20/2010: Growth:

Growth needs to fall on watersports in general.

Yes, Wakeboaring too. How many people do you know that only slalom? One of the biggest attractions for me is the fact that I do not get bored behind the boat. Barefooting, Hydrofoil, Wakeskate, and Slalom are my favorites. Would I ski on a course more if I had the chance.....sure.

How do we get access? Cost?

I'm working on getting a course set up. I don't see (initial) cost as the big hurdle. I found some buckets on craigslist for $1 each. I called the local concrete place and they will fill the buckets for free. I bought some U bolts a a surplus store for $10. I will be double sub-bouying the anchor so I will have $7 per anchor. Rope and U bolts puts me to $10/anchor. Surveying will be less than $200.

So to get the sub bouys in and surveyed we will have $450 in the deal.

The biggest problem is going to end up being the local park district. I have been told that the DNR would actually work with us on it. Unfortunately the Park District is anti everything. Unless it is natural, they don't like it.

I'm debating on just putting the balls on when we use the new course or ask permission and leave everything in full time.

Once I leave it in full time I need to pay $75 to USAwaterski and then pay $500 for a base premium and then $100 for the course. SO $675 per year to insure some bouys floating in the water.

Its sad that we have to jump through these sort of hurdles to do something that is recreational. Look at the divorce and obesity rates. Wouldn't you think that it makes more sense to get people off of the couch and outside recreating together???


jhughes, 1/20/2010: CLS- yes, we put up the coin for the portable course without knowing we could use it. It's never been a problem and it's been deployed all over the place dozens and dozens of times. One of my best slalom investments ever.