1. Soaring as a spectator sport will never be popular.
2. If #1 is wrong you guys are going to hate what soaring becomes. All of you currently racing would be out of the game, perhaps allowed to compete only to fill the grid as backmarkers.
3. Soaring is declining in popularity because men have given up control of their free time. When soaring was more popular if your dad was a soaring pilot you grew up at the airport. Now you grow up playing team sports while your dad drives you around to your games, that is when he isn't standing around the mall holding your mother's purse.