FAI, soaring and Olympic Games

I'll paint a picture...

The budget for Olympic sailing RIO this summer was around 25 million dollars (from what I have heard). And advertising investment was 5-10x that amount for NBC. Other Olympic events have far, FAR, larger budgets (obviously) and the network makes a fortune. Think about that. The media investment (and in turn sponsor investment) in Olympic coverage can be enormous. With that kind of money focused on soaring, even a fraction, Olympic Sailplane Competiton coverage would be like nothing we have ever seen before. Chile and New Zealand would look like child's play in comparison. It would probably be broadcast live from the cockpits in addition to improvement everywhere else. If that happened, and based on the history it has a snowballs chance in hell, Olympic Soaring would gain enormous exposure.

And this attention would be more than "just the Olympic event." The bid process for the sport alone would be major news. The media around each countries qualification process (trials), the test and pre-Olympic events leading up to the Olympics, the glider design/manufacturer drama deciding what gliders will used for the Olympics, etc would all begin to play out years before the actual Olympic event. A whole new level of potential interest would be created on a scale we can not really imagine. Sponsors may even become interested outside the Olympics which could carry into domestic events, national organizations such as the SSA, etc.

We might even grow again.

FAI where are you?

By the way, there is a great article on this very subject in gliding international this month.

If you want soaring to be comparable to sailing you have to make soaring a collegiate sport. With the right Title IX lawyer you probable could Otherwise the Olympic comparison to equestrian events is more apt. Without specifically searching how much Olympic equestrian coverage do you see in the regular press?

College Soaring is an AMAZING idea Gregg!

We could help create a virtual engine (with careful care and feeding) that would give high school and college kids a focus. Learn to soar, learn cross country, get your CFIG to teach other youth, learn to race and compete and win in College on your College Soaring Team.

If the SSA actually pursued any of this ideas with any focus (rather than recreating their own rules, for example) we might have some growth.

Meanwhile, we look forward to the upcoming US rule changes which provide ZERO measured (or other) value to our sport.

College Soaring Teams in the USA? I truly love this idea. Did I bring this up before? ;-) Just like College sailing, the local club that hosts these teams will get a huge boost. I am thinking of Sandhill hosting the University of Michigan near my home. Imagine 100 American colleges with active soaring teams (with instruction, coaching, fun social activities & social networks surrounding them) and a network of contest, competitions, championships and ultimately a College National Championship.

Why not high school too?

It just take 5-10 to start...in 20 years, this could be really big.

Sean

On Friday, November 4, 2016 at 7:32:28 PM UTC-4, Sean wrote:
College Soaring is an AMAZING idea Gregg!

We could help create a virtual engine (with careful care and feeding) that would give high school and college kids a focus. Learn to soar, learn cross country, get your CFIG to teach other youth, learn to race and compete and win in College on your College Soaring Team.

If the SSA actually pursued any of this ideas with any focus (rather than recreating their own rules, for example) we might have some growth.

Meanwhile, we look forward to the upcoming US rule changes which provide ZERO measured (or other) value to our sport.

College Soaring Teams in the USA? I truly love this idea. Did I bring this up before? ;-) Just like College sailing, the local club that hosts these teams will get a huge boost. I am thinking of Sandhill hosting the University of Michigan near my home. Imagine 100 American colleges with active soaring teams (with instruction, coaching, fun social activities & social networks surrounding them) and a network of contest, competitions, championships and ultimately a College National Championship.

Why not high school too?

It just take 5-10 to start...in 20 years, this could be really big.

Sean

How about making it the Collegiate Soaring Association?
UH

It could even be something like this: http://www.coloradosoaring.org/ssa/coll/home.htm

Why is this called the Colorado Collegate Soaring Association? Something driven by the Air Force Acadamy?

Why not the US College Soaring Association? Why was this not owned by the SSA?

College soaring clubs/teams sound great, other than thr fact that this is literally the first that I have ever heard of them. I have never seen anything about this on the SSA website, Social Media, or heard about it in conversation.

What a great place for the SSA to help focus a local SSA clubs efforts on developing a college soaring club (and eventually team). This ticks a lot of currently challenged SSA growth "boxes" if you think about it.

But as with all 2nd tier college "sports" clubs or teams, without active competition, good marketing and GREAT social fun for the college kids, it is doomed to fail quickly. And, as with all things new, this effort would take a good amount of care and feeding from a number of established clubs and SSA leaders to create a self sustaining/growing new segment of US soaring participation.

I would definitely be willing to work on University of Michigan or Michigan State University, if, 20-30 other major Universities had equal commitments from other pilots to seriously explore found clubs/teams ;and the SSA put a plan together to develop something for college). it needs to be a national effort that can feed of itself to succeed. One or two at a time would fail.

A great first target would be a "Big 10," "PAC 10" and "ACC" college soaring team series.

Who's with me? ;-)

https://youtu.be/6eX3fiQLo84

Sean,

If nothing else, you are entertaining.

Busy with work this evening, but in a nutshell... The Collegiate Soaring Association has been around for 30 years. It is an affiliate of the SSA. It was founded by Dr. John Campbell in 1984 who was a post-doc at Princeton when I was an undergraduate. The two of us, along with several others, spent years working very hard to revive college-based soaring activity. John was incredibly passionate about the project, and spent countless hours promoting, cajoling, and driving this. We obtained 501 C3 status, we received a few donations, we even hosted competitions. I personally drove around to Penn State, Ohio State, RIT, and several others with John to conduct workshops, help with recruiting drives, etc. I drove the 1-36 which was donated around to several sites as a loaner to help drive activity.

Eventually, we were able to pull together a few Collegiate Championships, but in reality they were just a couple of juniors participating in existing SSA Regionals (I believe Sean Franke won one, though calling it an "MSU Championship" was really a stretch). John managed to pull a "local" competition together in Colorado due in large part to the presence of the Air Force Academy. When John tragically died way too young from brain cancer, the CSA really started to fade away.

In the end, it turned out that College Soaring clubs are very hard to maintain. As an example, the Princeton club was at one point one of the largest campus organizations, with over 70 members. It was started by Steve Sliwa, himself a Harris Hill Junior. We had tremendous advantages, being a university with an active Flight Research program and our own airport. That meant qualified CFIs, towpilots, and even mechanics. But, over the years, the university got out of the Flight Research business, they sold the airport, and the nearest glider operation was an hour away. After a few years, the membership was down to a handful of students, and those students rotate out every 4 years. Also, many recent graduates are challenged by finances, time, and frankly have other passions. So, imagine the difficulty at other colleges and universities that don't already have an active group of students naturally inclined toward aviation.

Soaring is a very quirky sport. If a person with as much energy and drive as John can't achieve critical mass in Collegiate Soaring over 10 years, it's not something that a couple of posts on RAS will change.

Erik Mann (P3)

..