Can gliding become a TV sport?

Imagine the fun and camera's covering a landout...

Like the one story in Soaring magazine where the buuba's on the four wheelers and the babes in tank tops come out with beer to help...

Or Farmer Bill goes off on a rant about his destroyed peanut plants and the thousands of dollars he wants in recompense, swearing at flyboys havin their fun and not caring about the 'merican farmer...

Glider pilots getting into fights back at the field about sharing thermals, circling the wrong way, near misses, etc...


...you know, all the stuff that never happens until a camera crew turns up.

If that aint reality TV nothing is.

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 2:20:09 AM UTC-5, Scott Alexander wrote:
If racing sailboats or racing bicycles can be a televised sport, then there's no good reason why Soaring can't be too.

How many sailboat races have you watched in the last 5 years?
Some sports get TV support because they are an extension of a sport that the viewer participates, or did participate in, or are a fantasy extension of common activity.
Examples:
Golf- participitory
Tennis- participitory
Sailing- participitory
Cycling- same
Auto racing- fantasy extension
Gliding has the unfortunate position of not falling well into either of these catagories. Also note that the first four are all activities that can be undertaken quite casually and with limited commitment so folks can identify quite easily. Gliding doesn't fall into that catagory.
Skeptical
UH

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 9:30:56 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 2:20:09 AM UTC-5, Scott Alexander wrote:

If racing sailboats or racing bicycles can be a televised sport, then there's no good reason why Soaring can't be too.



How many sailboat races have you watched in the last 5 years?

Some sports get TV support because they are an extension of a sport that the viewer participates, or did participate in, or are a fantasy extension of common activity.

Examples:

Golf- participitory

Tennis- participitory

Sailing- participitory

Cycling- same

Auto racing- fantasy extension

Gliding has the unfortunate position of not falling well into either of these catagories. Also note that the first four are all activities that can be undertaken quite casually and with limited commitment so folks can identify quite easily. Gliding doesn't fall into that catagory.

Skeptical

UH

Good points but I think they will be overcome.

Glider racing will never be completely "real-time" and clever video editing can increase the pace and excitement. Biased though I am, I think glider racing is enormously more exciting than boat racing.

The masses of TV viewers will never adopt gliding but they don't adopt many other sports either although do enjoy watching them. At any one time our infrastructure can only accept a few thousand newcomers. If TV coverage of glider races could provide those few, we'd be in great shape.

Glider racing will never be completely "real-time" and clever video editing can increase the pace and excitement. Biased though I am, I think glider racing is enormously more exciting than boat racing.

Bill - Have you watched any of the re-boot of the America's Cup Sailing races. It is pretty spectacular now with immense amounts of data being off-loaded the boats and superimpose don them by the race officuals. It shows what Sailplane GP might become. However, we'll see how the viewership numbers go and if sailing sees any "bump" from the activities this coming summer.

EY

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 10:37:30 AM UTC-7, wrote:
Glider racing will never be completely "real-time" and clever video editing can increase the pace and excitement. Biased though I am, I think glider racing is enormously more exciting than boat racing.



Bill - Have you watched any of the re-boot of the America's Cup Sailing races. It is pretty spectacular now with immense amounts of data being off-loaded the boats and superimpose don them by the race officuals. It shows what Sailplane GP might become. However, we'll see how the viewership numbers go and if sailing sees any "bump" from the activities this coming summer.



EY

Mario Hytten and his company have cutting edge video technology as good or better than that used with the America's Cup races.

One which caught my eye is "GPS aimed cameras". As I understand it, a system much like FLARM "knows" the relative 3D position of other gliders and uses that information to control glider mounted pan-tilt-zoom video cameras. This automatically and accurately keeps selected gliders in the video frame. That's seriously cool technology. I can't wait to see the videos.

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 12:09:41 PM UTC-5, Bill D wrote:
At any one time our infrastructure can only accept a few thousand newcomers.

I wonder what the real 'uptake capacity' is? The two clubs that I know can optimistically accept 2-4 new students per year. The student experience breaks down if more than 2-3 students show up.

2-4 new students every year keep the club membership at a constant level, so there is not much incentive to increase the membership. The club gliders are fully booked at the present membership level and availability is already a problem if there is lift.

It's far easier to be skeptical about something than to go after something. Fearing failure is my main pet peeve. In this case someone else is doing ALL of the work and massive upside exists even if he/she is only marginally successful.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Just because those who have tried before have failed is no reason not to try again. We need growth. Growth requires marketing. Grass roots marketing (look around you) only gets you so far.

Here, a guy (Mario Hytten) is trying to build soaring marking against the tide of ourselves. He asks for you to pledge (for example) $50 to kickstarter so he can make our sport ANOTHER amazing soaring video and build awareness. Predictably, many cant find much positive to say about it and spend more effort sighting all the reasons it will fail. Heaven forbid cough up $50 to support it.

Explains a lot really. I donated to this kickstarter project. Why not? How about you?

If you really want to see the sport of soaring truly grow in a meaningful, measurable way, send in some money. If not, please get out of your own way and let those with some vision and guys take over (do the talking) and try and move the ball forward where we have so clearly failed.

Thanks,

Sean

At 18:54 27 February 2013, Sean F F2 wrote:
It's far easier to be skeptical about something than to go after
something.=
Fearing failure is my main pet peeve. In this case someone else is
doing=
ALL of the work and massive upside exists even if he/she is only
marginall=
y successful.

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Just because those who have
tri=
ed before have failed is no reason not to try again. We need growth.
Grow=
th requires marketing. Grass roots marketing (look around you) only gets
y=
ou so far.

Here, a guy (Mario Hytten) is trying to build soaring marking against the
t=
ide of ourselves. He asks for you to pledge (for example) $50 to
kickstart=
er so he can make our sport ANOTHER amazing soaring video and build
awarene=
ss. Predictably, many cant find much positive to say about it and spend
mo=
re effort sighting all the reasons it will fail. Heaven forbid cough up
$5=
0 to support it.

Explains a lot really. I donated to this kickstarter project. Why not?
H=
ow about you?

If you really want to see the sport of soaring truly grow in a
meaningful,
=
measurable way, send in some money. If not, please get out of your own
way=
and let those with some vision and guys take over (do the talking) and
try=
and move the ball forward where we have so clearly failed.

Thanks,

Sean


Correct Sean, as I said yesterday it must be worth a punt, get your hands
in your pockets guys and donate the cost of your very next launch to the
Kickstarter fund. The very least you'll get out of it is a great video to
watch next time the clouds are down on the deck.

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 1:43:56 PM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 12:09:41 PM UTC-5, Bill D wrote: At any one time our infrastructure can only accept a few thousand newcomers. I wonder what the real 'uptake capacity' is? The two clubs that I know can optimistically accept 2-4 new students per year. The student experience breaks down if more than 2-3 students show up. 2-4 new students every year keep the club membership at a constant level, so there is not much incentive to increase the membership. The club gliders are fully booked at the present membership level and availability is already a problem if there is lift.

One experience point FWIW repeating dropped post.
Our club in SE NY does between 120 and 150 introductory flights a year. We do no advertising except exposure through SSA/Where to fly. This generates 6-10 new members/year, about 75% of whom solo and continue on.
A few years ago we were featured in th NY Times weekend section. This generated a lot of response resulting in somewhere around 400 introductory flights. We also connected many folks with other sites through Where to fly.
The interesting thing about this group was the very low conversion rate even though we handled people exactly the same as normal. We got about 5 or 6 members. The demographic was clearly different. There were a very high percentage of 20 to 30 year olds, almost no teens, and only a moderate number of older people. Our conclusion was that this was a group interested in experiencing gliding, but not interested in doing it.
The marketing benefit was in volume and revenue, but not in membership growth.
FWIW
UH

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013 11:43:56 AM UTC-7, son_of_flubber wrote:

I wonder what the real 'uptake capacity' is?

The best estimate based on the number of trainers, tugs and instructors is about 1000 new starts per year in the US. It could be twice that if you take an optimistic view but the number isn't big. To accept a really large number of newcomers, we'd need a huge increase in the number of 2-seat trainers since that's the choke point. We actually have plenty of people with CGI-G certificates, we can fairly quickly increase the number of winches, tugs take longer for all the FAA 337 paperwork but trainers can take years from order to delivery.