Windsurfing Dying?
Edward W. Scott
I'd post the following article I found in the June 2, 1994 edition of the
Mercury News:
SNOWBOARDING FASTEST-GROWING SPORT IN U.S.
STATISTICS should be taken with a grain of salt, but a couple of
recent studies on two totally different subjects - participant sports in
the United States and survival in avalanches - offer interesting figures.
First, participant sports. This annual survey was commissioned by the
National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), which represents 22,000
retailers and 3,000 product suppliers.
The survey was based on responses from 40,000 Americans.
In 1993, as the year before, exercise walking was the most popular
sport. About 64.4 million Americans participated, a 5 percent drop from
the year before. Swimming was second with 61.4 million participants, while
fishing moved from fourth to third with 51.2 million anglers.
Bicycle riding dropped by more than 12 percent to fourth place.
The survey speculated that the significant declines in a number of
participant sports was ''due in some measure to the major flooding the
Midwest and South experienced last year.''
THE FASTEST-GROWING sport was snowboarding, showing a whopping 50
percent increase. In-line skating also was up a sharp 27 percent. Other
sports showing large increases were step aerobics, baseball, football and
scuba.
On the other end,*windsurfing*was down by almost 22 percent. Tennis
dropped 18 percent while other big losers were racquetball (down 17.6
percent) and cycling (down 12.3 percent).
No explanation was offered for the sharp drop in the tennis and
cycling categories, nor was there a breakdown between road cycling and
mountain biking.
The NSGA said that for the study, a participant was somebody seven or
older who played a sport more than once within the year. For swimming,
exercise walking, bicycling, exercising with equipment, running/jogging,
calisthenics and aerobics, participation was defined as doing the activity
six times or more within the year.
The survery confirms the decline of the sport. Not enough newbies, I
suspect, as the hard-core doesn't seem to be in decline by my
observation. Also, the shops seem to be hurting, judging from the number
of shops going out of the business, and those with excess or very limited
inventory.
Does anyone care? For my own selfish reasons, to keep the kook factor to
a minimum, I don't care about the decline. If that's going to result in
higher priced, lower quality equipment, and lack of mainstream acceptance
to have any political clout on access and other issues, I'm not sure that
it's good for the sport.
--
-shrEd
Ed Scott
sh...@netcom.com
brun...@brunelle.crd.ge.com
STATISTICS should be taken with a grain of salt, but a
couple of recent studies on two totally different subjects -
National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), which
represents 22,000 retailers and 3,000 product suppliers.
The survey was based on responses from 40,000
THE FASTEST-GROWING sport was snowboarding,
showing a whopping 50 percent increase. In-line skating
also was up a sharp 27 percent. Other sports showing large
increases were step aerobics, baseball, football and
scuba.
On the other end,*windsurfing*was down by almost 22 percent.
Tennis dropped 18 percent while other big losers were racquetball
(down 17.6 percent) and cycling (down 12.3 percent).
One has to question who those 22% of windsurfers who quit were.
Every time I go to Kalmus or Hatteras, there are more people than
the last time (probably >100 on the water on July 23). I don't know
of ANY windsurfers who have gotten to the point where they are
planing and in the straps who have quit. Since this survey was
conducted by sporting goods retailers, I suspect that anybody who
EVER bought any type of windsurfer would qualify. With the
amount of disposable income decreasing, I'm not too surprised that
fewer people can afford to spend $1000. just to try something out,
when Rollerblades only cost a couple hundred. IMHO, the "decline"
in the sport is coming from people like my ex-wife, who would hop
on my Windsurfer (yeah, the original) once or twice a year, but only
if the sun was out and the wind wasn't blowing too hard. My present
wife, who is working on her jibes, and got her waterstart down
pat in Margarita this year, wouldn't dream of quitting!
I think a similar thing has happened in Tennis, which I've been playing
for about 30 years. Counting somebody who plays tennis once or twice
a year as an enthusiast is misleading. Yeah, a lot of those quit each
year, but the guy who plays 3-5 times a week (me) usually sticks with
it.
The shops are probably seeing a decline in sales of beginner stuff,
but I bet the advanced stuff sells better than ever. (At least that's
what I see on my VISA card---I spend more each year...two boards,
two masts, and one sail this year, for example).
The Alchemist
Volker Wedemeier
writes:
|> I know that this is an old thread, but I just thought
|> I'd post the following article I found in the June 2, 1994 edition of the
|> Mercury News:
|>
|> SNOWBOARDING FASTEST-GROWING SPORT IN U.S.
|>
|> STATISTICS should be taken with a grain of salt, but a couple of
|> recent studies on two totally different subjects - participant sports in
|> the United States and survival in avalanches - offer interesting figures.
|> First, participant sports. This annual survey was commissioned by the
|> National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), which represents 22,000
|> retailers and 3,000 product suppliers.
|> On the other end,*windsurfing*was down by almost 22 percent. Tennis
|> dropped 18 percent while other big losers were racquetball (down 17.6
|> percent) and cycling (down 12.3 percent).
Well, I don't think these figures are alarming or anything like that. You must
take into account, that windsurfing has had quite a big boom maybe 4 or 5 years
ago (at least here in Germany/Europe) so everybody got himself some kind of
surfboard and started windsurfing because it was sort of 'in' to do it. Now that
those times are over, those who haven't succeeded to really get engaged in the
sport are quitting and doing other things and the impulse for young people to
start windsurfing is lower. Now they rather go to another, new 'in'-sport, like
inline skating for example.
The number of inline skaters will also drop again after 3 or 4 years, but it
won't go back to zero, but stay on a certain level, as windsurfing surely will
do. And I think this level for windsurfing will be high enough to ensure a
constant supply of reasonably priced and good boards and also a continuing
progress in windsurfing technology.
Someone else noted, that the average age of windsurfers is rather high. But I
think it's quite normal that there are not too many teenagers windsurfing. First
of all windsurfing is not exactly a cheap sport, so there are not too many
teenagers who can afford their own equipment. The next thing is, that you need a
car and a drivers license when you are not living right on the shore. This limits
the age of a windsurfer in Germany and in many other European countries to 18
years and in America to 15 or 16. So you have to be at least around 18 to be able
to get serious in windsurfing or you must have enthusiastic, windsurfing parents.
So, in my opinion, the effect of the decline we see in the moment is only the
normal shrinking of the sport after a big boom to a reasonable long term level.
Of course, it's still a good idea to encourage young people to start windsurfing.
Volker Wedemeier
Bye the way, I really wonder, what the windsurfing scene in Germany will do after
the start of the two TV-series about windsurfing in the beginning of 1995. I
guess, we'll get a noticable increas in the numbers of windsurfers again. (If the
series are good, that is. If they're as bad a some other TV-series, I guess
we'll even get a decrease! :-) )
Walt Z
>Bye the way, I really wonder, what the windsurfing scene in Germany will do after
>the start of the two TV-series about windsurfing in the beginning of 1995. I
>guess, we'll get a noticable increas in the numbers of windsurfers again. (If the
>series are good, that is. If they're as bad a some other TV-series, I guess
>we'll even get a decrease! :-) )
Can anyone elaborate on these 2 TV series that Volker mentions?
THanks, Walt Zalph
Dirk Trommer
(Walt Z) writes:
>Can anyone elaborate on these 2 TV series that Volker mentions?
>THanks, Walt Zalph
Walt,
to my knowledge both TV series were planed to be weekly soap operas but
one was cancelled. The remaining one will come from a TV-station under
public law, wich *perhaps* means that the quality won't be too poor. At
least I've read that they took advice from professional windsurfers, but
I don't remember their names. That's all I know - for more you have to
wait until spring '95.
Regards, Dirk
___________________________________________________________
Dirk Trommer tro...@hhi.de
Heinrich Hertz Institut fuer Nachrichtentechnik
Einsteinufer 37, 10587 Berlin, Germany