- Location
- Sacramento, CA
Good call.
Other Why isn't Jet Skiing in the X-Games????
- Thread starter JETSKIHORDER18
- Start date
stanton
High on jetskis.
- Location
- atascadero,ca
Easier said then done. As enlightening and inspiring as everyones posts are, it won't happen. Some of the guys in the group have been trying to do the things many of you have mentioned for years. A few things that come into play, legalities, safety, sponsors, control, miscommunication etc.
Last year I spoke with the Director of the US Open (surfing) in Huntington Beach. I had been talking to him for over 4 months about how to incorporate the oside crew into the event. Though I had his full support, the board slammed their foot down and said, "No f-ing way."
I understand everyones frustration. Everyone here puts a lot of time and money and should be able to show it off a bit. The guys in my group are the best riders in the world. They aren't good, they are the very best and they all have to experience the same things as all of you do. They do not receive any special treatment. Even then, they still can't put on a demo at a local event. But thats okay, because freeride is a new sport and it just shot off.
I am discouraged by everyones remarks when they say, "jet skiing is dying." Guess what? Its not. It just started. Racing had its glory days and now they are working hard to get where they were before. Will they ever reach that mark? I don't know. Will freeride ascend into the best years ever?yeah it is. If any of you have noticed, OEM is getting out of the sport. And new companies are coming in, and offer way better stuff IMO. I think Ross made a post earlier, about how Yamaha hasn't done anything since '96, and yet Blowsion, Cold-Fusion, X-Scream, Wamiltons and everyone else are constantly producing new products for us. The superjet hasn't changed much any for 15 years. And yet, because of freestyle and freeriding BOOMING, there are probably more then 20 hulls designed in the last 3 or so years. Don't know what you guys think, but when you look at our sport in black and white, the sport is sky rocketing and the time to be in it, is now. Everyone riding right now make up the foundation of the sport and are building a platform for years to come.
I'm going riding...That is, if anyone actually PICKS UP THEIR PHONES!!! TEXTERS!!!!
Word. I don't think getting us in with a surfing event will happen. When a crowd sees a jetski do a backflip, the surfer may not be so interesting. I want to throw an expo someday at pismo. Get jfb on the mic and watch the crowd assemble!
SuziQ
Banned
- Location
- an hour or so away
You can do just about anything you want in life, if you want to do it badly enough. Vast amounts of people said we would never fly, and the Wright Bros proved all of them wrong. People said we would never put a man on the moon, and we did so. There are few things more discouraging than a negative attitude, and there is nothing more distasteful than a quitter…it’s weak, and deserves no respect. If one idea fails, you learn from it and develop another one.
1. Positive attitude
2. Networking
3. Perseverance
That’s a start.
1. Positive attitude
2. Networking
3. Perseverance
That’s a start.
Nascency Chris
The Nascency Project
Oh geez... is there any way to sticky a few of these threads to keep them from reappearing every few months? Please?
At first I was gonna multi quote a bunch of people, as alot of people have good points, but instead I will poorly summarize...
The simplest answer as to why we are not in the Xgames is money. You may not like it or disagree but it is the cold hard truth. Before you can get a sport into the games (and lets not even talk about airtime at this point) you have to show the people at ESPN that you are as prepared to throw down as much change as they are to designate you a spot at the event, on the schedule, and why you think you can draw in crowds (this references the 20 bucks a head comment made earlier). Then you have to back it up with recent past history. How many people have attended similar events in the last five years? How many active participants are there in the sport and yes, how much are the top riders making in sponsorship and endorsements (references what Tanner was saying)?
So who has about half a million to throw into the sport, with absolutely no guarantee of a return? That is a conservative number as well. Who also is willing to throw away at least the next five or six years of their lives to push this into the mainstream? I hate to be negative here but alot of the responses here are based so far from reality it scares me a little bit.
We really need to stop trying to compare freeride to surfing aside from similar riding attributes. The industries, markets, and people involved in them are so completely different its like comparing apples to steak. Even if we push aside the environmental argument and assume that a viable green option was available to us, I doubt very highly the sport of freeride would be embraced by the surfing community as a whole, the reason being is that there are only so many waves and surfers have a hard time sharing them with other surfers let alone other non-surfers in the water. Hell, I just read an article about the opening at Mavericks this year where they proudly pronounced that Mavericks was "paddle only" and those lowly tow in guys could not even get close enough to snag anything.
We also need to quit looking at Pastrana as a guideline... he is a unique individual in a world of mediocrity, an exception to the rule as such. In laymen terms, he is crazy... flat out utter bat crazy, and that is his marketability. The same mentality as watching NASCAR just for the wrecks or Hockey for the fights, inherently everyone likes watching things that make us go "oh damn".
And this is where we reach the chicken or the egg part of the argument. No one wants to go risk life and limb without some great back up plan, but someone needs to do it in order to get people interested. Case in point, the last few years we have thrown around the idea of a Cortez trip when it is huge... but at a cost of roughly 40k to make it happen this has been impossible. I feel like if we could pull it off one time we could get more people interested in funding future expeditions but for right now we keep trying to find other ways...
All that being said, this sport is almost completely different than anything else on the planet. My belief is that we need to utilize some of the old ways (sponsor support, etc) to justify us moving into new directions in terms of exposure and overall growth of the sport. We can't follow the set formulas of skateboarding, FMX, whatever because as a sport we are nothing like them. We need to figure out new ways to do things, how to utilize new media, new opportunities, and new avenues to achieve overall growth of the sport.
The X games is great. I don't think having any form of personal watercraft there would hurt the sport but I truly do not think it would help as much as some think it would, it is not the golden ticket. The sports that do well in the games were doing well before the games and would do well if they decided to never run the games anymore. You don't get big from being involved with ESPN or the X Games, you get big enough for ESPN to take notice. Why? Because dealing with the powers that be in that venue is akin to dealing with 5yr olds with the worst ADHD you have ever witnessed.
In the course of one day this year for a demo event at the LA coliseum, we dealt with;
Our gate opening time changing three times in two hours...
Our gate price going from free, to 10 bucks, to 20 bucks, and then back down to general admission (I think 14 or 15 bucks) in the space of five hours...
Our event start and end time growing and shrinking by about three hours in the space of half an hour...
Us being included in the vendors and then not, and then again, and then not, and finally again, in the space of 45 minutes...
Those of us with ESPN badging being allowed into the venue at one point, denied access at another, and allowed in again about 15 minutes later...
My point is this... they are not there to handhold a sport into greatness, they are there to put on a TV show and make a quick buck, and if you cannot keep up you are not only going to get run over but then also trampled by a horde of 14 yr olds who just heard Danny Way is buying a slushie somewhere. We need to grow from within our own industry first, then branch out to things like the games.
I wonder if there is a shovel racing forum somewhere with this very same thread... hmmm...
At first I was gonna multi quote a bunch of people, as alot of people have good points, but instead I will poorly summarize...
The simplest answer as to why we are not in the Xgames is money. You may not like it or disagree but it is the cold hard truth. Before you can get a sport into the games (and lets not even talk about airtime at this point) you have to show the people at ESPN that you are as prepared to throw down as much change as they are to designate you a spot at the event, on the schedule, and why you think you can draw in crowds (this references the 20 bucks a head comment made earlier). Then you have to back it up with recent past history. How many people have attended similar events in the last five years? How many active participants are there in the sport and yes, how much are the top riders making in sponsorship and endorsements (references what Tanner was saying)?
So who has about half a million to throw into the sport, with absolutely no guarantee of a return? That is a conservative number as well. Who also is willing to throw away at least the next five or six years of their lives to push this into the mainstream? I hate to be negative here but alot of the responses here are based so far from reality it scares me a little bit.
We really need to stop trying to compare freeride to surfing aside from similar riding attributes. The industries, markets, and people involved in them are so completely different its like comparing apples to steak. Even if we push aside the environmental argument and assume that a viable green option was available to us, I doubt very highly the sport of freeride would be embraced by the surfing community as a whole, the reason being is that there are only so many waves and surfers have a hard time sharing them with other surfers let alone other non-surfers in the water. Hell, I just read an article about the opening at Mavericks this year where they proudly pronounced that Mavericks was "paddle only" and those lowly tow in guys could not even get close enough to snag anything.
We also need to quit looking at Pastrana as a guideline... he is a unique individual in a world of mediocrity, an exception to the rule as such. In laymen terms, he is crazy... flat out utter bat
crazy, and that is his marketability. The same mentality as watching NASCAR just for the wrecks or Hockey for the fights, inherently everyone likes watching things that make us go "oh damn".And this is where we reach the chicken or the egg part of the argument. No one wants to go risk life and limb without some great back up plan, but someone needs to do it in order to get people interested. Case in point, the last few years we have thrown around the idea of a Cortez trip when it is huge... but at a cost of roughly 40k to make it happen this has been impossible. I feel like if we could pull it off one time we could get more people interested in funding future expeditions but for right now we keep trying to find other ways...
All that being said, this sport is almost completely different than anything else on the planet. My belief is that we need to utilize some of the old ways (sponsor support, etc) to justify us moving into new directions in terms of exposure and overall growth of the sport. We can't follow the set formulas of skateboarding, FMX, whatever because as a sport we are nothing like them. We need to figure out new ways to do things, how to utilize new media, new opportunities, and new avenues to achieve overall growth of the sport.
The X games is great. I don't think having any form of personal watercraft there would hurt the sport but I truly do not think it would help as much as some think it would, it is not the golden ticket. The sports that do well in the games were doing well before the games and would do well if they decided to never run the games anymore. You don't get big from being involved with ESPN or the X Games, you get big enough for ESPN to take notice. Why? Because dealing with the powers that be in that venue is akin to dealing with 5yr olds with the worst ADHD you have ever witnessed.
In the course of one day this year for a demo event at the LA coliseum, we dealt with;
Our gate opening time changing three times in two hours...
Our gate price going from free, to 10 bucks, to 20 bucks, and then back down to general admission (I think 14 or 15 bucks) in the space of five hours...
Our event start and end time growing and shrinking by about three hours in the space of half an hour...
Us being included in the vendors and then not, and then again, and then not, and finally again, in the space of 45 minutes...
Those of us with ESPN badging being allowed into the venue at one point, denied access at another, and allowed in again about 15 minutes later...
My point is this... they are not there to handhold a sport into greatness, they are there to put on a TV show and make a quick buck, and if you cannot keep up you are not only going to get run over but then also trampled by a horde of 14 yr olds who just heard Danny Way is buying a slushie somewhere. We need to grow from within our own industry first, then branch out to things like the games.
I wonder if there is a shovel racing forum somewhere with this very same thread... hmmm...
Nascency Chris
The Nascency Project
Now, let me preface this with, I love JFB, the guys is an animal and super fun to be around but... I shudder to think what would happen if we gave him a mic with a large venue... something akin to "aerial barrel roll" I think...
- Location
- Sacramento, CA
damn.
Nascency Chris
The Nascency Project
hey man, you asked lol...
http://www.imgworld.com/marketing/consulting.sps
IMG consulting is the biggest company of marketing in the world and they took on jetskiing for like three months and dropped it like a bad habbit shortly after.
They got Dos Equis involved and it was a complete bust.
If IMG cant do it no one can. simple as that.
IMG consulting is the biggest company of marketing in the world and they took on jetskiing for like three months and dropped it like a bad habbit shortly after.
They got Dos Equis involved and it was a complete bust.
If IMG cant do it no one can. simple as that.
Boris
The Good Old Days
- Location
- The surf-less coast
kraqus
Site Supporter
- Location
- Great State of Texas
I did not know the Chinese are digging Jet skiing so much....Now there is an audience right there.
Benny
Benny
Last edited by a moderator:
KR
www.krlines.com
- Location
- San Diego, California
The person that I was in contact with is the director of the US Open of surfing. He is also on the board for IMG. What him and I discussed is irrelevant, but I can say that there was a great effort. More from him then from me.
Funny, he is an ex jet ski racer from the "glory days."
- Location
- Sacramento, CA
I mean it may be a long shot but hey it'd be fun but like what has been stated in the previous posts, was that we have wave dase, daytona, pismo and some others. They are a place for everyone to go huge with an audience, and have a fricken blast. But I was just saying it would be awesome to have it at X too.
Jetskis have become a sport for wealthy participants like boat racing and aviation. Kawasaki did well to create a new scene that was affordable enough for many kids of the day. Now it is impossible to do well without spending a lot of money. This situation is made more difficult because it takes unsecured credit to buy all the parts. No wonder most riders these days have some gray hair. It looks like we will have to be happy just doing what we do without worry of the future. The few new guys will probably be more serious and stick with it longer than if it were cheap and easy.