What is wakeskating missing?

[asterisk1]

So I have been thinking about wakeskating a lot lately and keep thinking to myself: "what is wakeskating missing? What keeps the sport from really growing?" "In what ways do we want it to grow and which ways do we want to avoid?" Are we looking to get a skate in every boat? Whose boat? In short, how do we (or do we at all) want to spread wakeskating?

Of course, things like exposure in the media and lack of support from major sponsors hinders things, but I was curious to see what you guys think holds wakeskating back? We as a sport have a ton of passion and that has fueled people stomping tricks I could have only dreamed of ten years ago.

So anyway-sound off. The more the merrier!

[Gnarly Dancer 42]

I think the fact that you need an engine of some type to do it is the biggest thing from keeping it growing. It's never going to be even close to skateboarding, snowboarding, or surfing because of that.

[jake .R.]

Gnarly Dancer 42, That's if you look at it in the board-sports periscope. Look at tennis, golf, sports that require a full course or court. Or go-carting even, dirt biking, 4-wheeling. Those sports are more expensive than some forms of wakeskating. We need to reach bigger groups of people who otherwise would not even consider wakeskating, show them the benefits of the sport, and get more people involved. It is far from a lost cause. Additionally with new technologies coming out that allow riding in different areas, now is the time to spread the word. Any lake community would benefit more from a small cable being installed, than an unused basketball court that sits dormant by the boat launch 98% of the time. In my opinion.

[wakeskate77]

You know why it's not growing? it doesn't pull the chicks. I'm married and don't worry about who I impress but back in the day... you better believe I'd strap up and get upside down to impress the ladies.

Now that's half tongue in cheek but I have thought about this while spinning laps... "even at cable parks nobody is wakeskating". My opinion is it's way harder and doesn't have the flash wakeboarding does. Doesn't draw the new folks in. People LOVE instant gratification... wakeskating provides instant humility.

[asterisk1]

Wakeskate 77 I do have to admit there is some appeal to the general public in that regard (getting upside down) and "wakeskating provides instant humility"-def a true statement.



has anyone thought of maybe commercial winch parks (I know they are unlikely to be profitable, but maybe with the new winches and other modifications that come out-maybe one day they could be a viable option?) or else maybe just doin it for the lolz?

I could see one day maybe a private set up like some of the ones the pros have could be a viable option-depending on where and what the setup is.

[knox]

Wakeskating is extremely expensive, accessible only if you're close to a calm body of water, and in most places there is a brief season for it. Perfect storm of attributes that make wakeskating pretty tough to get into.

I think cable/winch/sesitec parks are the best bet for expanding the sport.

[pumpyourbreaks]

The Kid, I remember you were one of the first people to really hate on boats with wakeskating and how we need to move away from it. Wakeskating moved on from the boat, and the world move on from wakeskating.

The majority of people who bought wakeskates were boaters. Not people winching in ditches or even really cable parks. They were people who could barely do an ollie and did a few turns behind the boat. Those were the sales. Most people winching are probably starting their own wakeskate company or already want a board for free. People getting trying to get into wakeskating aren't going to buy a board to go winching. I remember people saying it is so unfair to showcase wakeskating behind a boat that people can't afford. As cool as the backyard wakeskate tour setups are, I would say they are much more farfetched than a boat to people.

Also the open bashing of wakeboard magazines was awesome. I don't remember the last time I saw something meaningful wakeskate wise in one of those publications. The same guys who used to run full articles based on wakeskating. We need more people embracing anything we can. Not turning things away.

[electricsnow]

The other thing I think about The Kid, is most of what you say is pretty applicable to snowboarding--ridiculously expensive between gear and lift tickets, need to be by a hill/mountain of some sort, etc. In some regards, jibbing adds accessibility because you can work your way up on your own, but that's beside the point.

I think one thing about wakeskating is progression is hard.wakeskate77 said it best, in that wakeskating provides instant humility. It takes a certain kind of person to keep getting up...beyond that it's hard to say. On a similar note, the people who used to say wakeskating was going to be a big deal are now wakesurfing and not wakeskating. Wakesurfing is what you do when you give up? I don't know. That's kind of a joke.

[dirtyohioriver22]

wakeskating is to lacking a growing market because its to damn hard to explain to people,,,,,, "yeah i can waterski and wakeboard , but my favorite thing to do is actually called wakeskating, which is like skateboarding on water, (receive confused look) yeah you;re actually not connected to the board (they ask you how is that even possible) well actually its just physics the water pressure pushing up against your feet allows you to stay on (they look even more confused,, and say well thats cool you can ski and wakeboard)))) all hope lost

[pumpyourbreaks]

electricsnow, I don't think it is any of those. You wanna talk humility. Look at people when they start golfing. But in golf, you sit there and drink beers with friends outdoors usually in a pleasant atmosphere. Which is kind of what wakeskating was about when it was peaking. At least to me, most people still rode behind a boat or a jetski and enjoyed it. They would usually wakeboard, then have a beer or two and pull out the wakeskate and have a go. But then everybody started hating on everything about this. I remember hearing actual pros at wakeskate tour stops talking about what a waste the boat was to have at their events. Do you think somebody would keep golfing if they couldn't play the game at all and their first experience was being taken to a muddy course with a chance of catching a disease? No.

[Jake S]

Has wakeskating peaked? Is it on the decline?

Can we see some hard numbers? What riders are getting paid? Board sales?

Wakeskating.com is dead for obvious reasons, but is that a reflection of the sports participants?

Where is Wakeskating now?

Let's open this up.

[electricsnow]

I can see your point to some extent with golfing, but I generally disagree with the comparison, aside from wanting to drink beers and hang out. At this point, aren't those boat dudes the ones who wakesurf? Why wakesurf and not wakeskate?

So with the weekend warrior type rider, are you depending on them for long term growth or short term sales? I can understand people getting upset about that image--at that point the wakeskate means little more than a tube or some other boat toy, and that was not how thomas or jason ever saw the big picture for wakeskating (jason's first high end "commercial" board was 400 in 1998). On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are people investing their ideas and time, trying to make it something that stands on its own, and not have it be just a boat toy. That said, i'm not trying to discredit the importance of the casual rider--I remember thomas saying they'd still sell more flat decks than bi-levels because of this.

I think that while aggressive/high level winching is incredible, it takes such a long time to get to that point...I'm sure in some regard, that's why many of the remote/watermonster guys have teamed up with sea doo, or danny has teamed up with yamaha. Those are decent vehicles that are accessible. I think the growth of cables is a really great thing also. The riding options were never taken away from the public, but people choose not to wakeskate.

One other thing I've thought of is there's really not a lot of outside acceptance or championing for wakeskating. Surfing and skating were related and grew together; snowboarding was able to grow along side of skating (while distancing itself from downhill skiiing) and there was a pretty great mutual respect (there snow ads in skate mags, and thrasher even had a snowboarder on the cover of a magazine); wakeboarding had some crossover imagery through ads and such (mainly things like snowboarders riding wakeboards and having those ads in the snow mags), with wakeboarding not wanting to be seen as a waterskiing activity; really the only thing wakeskating synergized with was wakeboarding (there was next to zero cross over coverage, but I can think of andy macdonald riding a remote...and how I want that board!), and at a certain point wakeboarding is exactly what wakeskating was trying to get away from. And now here we are.

[wakemitch]

I was very hopeful that cable parks would get more people wakeskating. Partly because the cost of equipment and all the possibilities for tricks.
But after having parks around for a few years now, there are still barely any wakeskaters and no kids. It's pretty much the same guys I've been riding with for 10 years.
There are a bunch of new people wakeboarding at the parks, but no wakeskaters

I think it's just too hard for people. You guys know, it's crazy hard to be good at wakeskating. It has taken me a long time to get where I'm at and I still can't kickflip.
Everyone wants instant fun, which makes sense. That's why wakesurf boards sell so well (and it's WAY more expensive than wakeskating)
There will always be people that want to challenge themselves, but it's obvious that the majority of people don't want to.

[electricsnow]

The other thing is, in all reality, wakeskating is pretty young and we have no idea what to expect in terms of growth cycles and such. Many of us have been around to see the first commercial boards, the first specific videos, contests, etc. That's pretty incredible to be a part of, and it kind of puts things into perspective.

How old is skateboarding and how many times did that industry dip before it grew again? We can see what other board sports have gone through but wakeskating is still wakeskating. The important thing is to keep riding, get people to start riding, and continue to support the brands that support wakeskating. Difficulty and what is possible changes with each generation--look at the little kids that hit the mega ramp? It's like wakeskating, only in that it's full commitment. On a wakeskate, you can't start by learning tricks stationary or going slow--you need to be at a certain speed to start with. The mega ramp is way gnarlier, for sure, but it's still full commitment, and you're already at a certain ability level.

Wakemitch, have you seen a lot of growth or an increase in popularity with wakeboarding at the cable? How busy does it get there?

Pumpyourbreaks, what is/was your expectation for media coverage at this point? You keep going back to the boat thing. On the one hand, that's great for many riders, though we specifically reference the recreational rider. But if the riders at the heart of wakeskating don't want to ride behind a boat, then what's supposed to be in the mags? Shouldn't the magazines be reflecting the current direction of riding? (how many snow or skate images in mags nowadays are fully accessible? It's more about how it makes us feel that makes it accessible, not that someone is hitting a 100 foot jump or what have you.) Or, where does the footage come from? The same 5 guys who primarily ride boat? I think that totally stagnates the media and disregards some of the gnarliest progression. And generally speaking, a wakeskate move a weekend warrior sees in the mag behind the boat is going to have some aspect of challenge to it, right down to boosting a stalefish behind a fully weighted wake boat. it hasn't been easy since lip tricks, and there's consequences. I see that many wake dudes who focused in certain areas are opening up again to the big picture (like nick talking about how he wanted to get back into boat riding), but I don't think not seeing those dudes behind boats killed wakeskating. Again, there's still an element of choice here.

And just to give my background, whether it counts or not, I've been a serious rider since 2002 but I've never winched; I still primarily ride behind my 1960s speed boat and there's also a 2.0 around here. I've never owned a radical wake boat.

[deepcove]

[pumpyourbreaks]

deepcove, Very much a stereotype. I was more so talking about people who get into it later in life for the first time. I would be willing to bet that the majority get brought out by their friends with no clubs, drink beer, hit some balls, enjoy the nice day, then go out any buy their own. Much like I saw how people with wakeskating. Same thing. And then as you get more dedicated to your craft you start going out in more die hard situations without the beer.

electricsnow, I don't quite see the skateboard comparison here. I've been on this site for 12 years and followed the sport for the same amount of time. Not as much anymore, but I feel that if it wasn't for the people who didn't abandon the wakeboard vibe/scene, boats, wakeboard mags, that I don't think I would see thing about wakeskating anywhere. Skateboarding was still always atleast known. You could see a skateboard and a bystander would know what it was. A bystander seeing a wakeskate now wouldn't be able to tell you what that thing was and that was the problem. Our sport was so absolutely tiny and we tried to break our relationship with another small but larger sport than ours. It's not like wakeboarding looked at us like they do wakesurfing. They were stoked for wakeskating. But for some reason there was some hatred for wakeboarding in our community. But maybe we got what we wanted. We certainly don't seem to be apart of the wake scene anymore.

[electricsnow]

I'm using the skateboard comparison because wakeskating seems to be at a low point (I'm not saying dead but the growth aspect does seem or small--it's hard to tell in the midwest), and the skate industry has experienced similar lulls, to the point of companies closing, contests only being held in backyards, etc.

I still don't think it has to be a boat scene, but I can see the benefit of having a connection to wakeboarding after thinking about how other boardsports have grown--again, one having some sort of synergy with the other. There are things in wakeskating that are patterned after skateboarding, but skateboarding has never wanted anything to do with wakeskating. the one thing I think about with the big wake boats nowadays, at least in my mind, is those wakes are actually really intimidating. One thing I still have in the back of my mind is doing the splits, and that would be brutal coming off of some of today's wakes. In that regard, I can understand a shift towards wakesurfing--the boats are totally catered to it and you can carve around on that thing and it's not really a big deal. When I think about this, I think the best thing for any rider is to be able to see that there are a lot of options for wakeskating--pwc, tinny/60s speed boat that seems to have some popularity, cable, etc. and not just a 100,000 wake boat, or not just an intimidating winch spot. Some of that becomes aspirational.

I also question how much media is coming into the hands of the magazines nowadays. Who are the riders shooting with? I think josh letchworth is a lot busier than he used to be. One other person I can think of who still occasionally covers wakeskating is Bryan soderlind. Is tad sending in stuff? aaron pastura? Who else is there besides the editors at each respective mag?

[canalskater]

Who knows where we went wrong or if we even did, but one thing I do know is that our community continued to push the sport in direction of the ones who inspired us. I would much rather wakeskating be exactly where it is now than have the scene look like the wakesurf industry; thriving but a total aristocrat's activity that anyone who can afford to do it frequently, can be a pro. If thats is your idea of success, you can still do it.

The anti-boat sentiment doesn't stem from personally hating the dudes that can kill it behind the boat or their lifestyles, but more from how inaccessible it makes wakeskating look to a complete outsider. Maybe it was outlandish to think that people would rather spend $1000-$2000 to build a winch or buy and old john boat to get started, but it was a theory and it worked for a lot of people.

Its a bummer there was no wakeskate tour this year because it really left the impression that wakeskating had a bit of an off year IMO when in reality, people are still wakeskating. New kids are still coming up, new spots are being found, new tricks are being landed, and new videos will come out. The events are only going to get better and as they get better, they'll gain more coverage. If you need evidence just go watch one of Ollie's six sections from this year, or one of Nick's epic trip videos, or Austin's cable edit. Wakeskating looks really F'in good now, and eventually more people will take notice. I'm happy with where wakeskating is today. It would definitely be awesome to have more people make a living within it so that we could have more pros focus on the progression but if the trade off was to go more in the tubing/golfing direction as more of a leisure activity, no thanks.. Thats not how I approach something I'm passionate about.

This whole thing is just an experiment anyways right? Also, Grant and Marcus should just box and get it over with already.

[electricsnow]

Holy moley. Canalskater's post =

Nothing more needs to be said here!

[wakeskate77]

"Ohh your learning to golf?? Come try it this other way...LEFT HANDED with shorter clubs."

"No chance man, this is hard enough. I'm just gonna stick with what everyone else is doing."


Make no mistake...and I've been DEEP on the forefront of the issue... The anti boat sentiment comes purely from resentment. It's not healthy for anyone or anything.