FAI, soaring and Olympic Games

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

Someone may have said something similar on previous post for I have not read all.

Looking at current sports in the Olympics (http://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/sports/) it seems to me the one thing they have in common is spectators. Maybe not televised but in the stands. IMHO, I think the committee looks at what will bring revenue into the host site. There have been great strides in helping make soaring better for spectators with tracking but until sailplane racing gets more into every household and becomes an event that can be watched and cashed in on, its a long shot to be an Olympic sport.

True, but this is a new age. Traditional media and even tradition spectating have changed dramatically and continues to change dramatically. Soaring has an opportunity to get ahead of that rather than constantly trying to catch up. Spectators are now world wide via a smartphone either live or via a recording of live video (or edited summary) watched at the spectators leisure.

I think soaring Olympic spectators could be at the airport over a big screen just like sailing often is (see first link below). Imagine watching small boats race 1 mile away. Not very exciting in and of itself. That's not really what those spectators are there. The spectators are there to support the sport and be a part of it. They are watching the movie screen to see the on the water camera footage. At least with soaring they can see the actual finish up close from this position.

Here is the most recent Olympics sailing event as an example...

This one shows a good view of 5-10k spectators watching the sailing event from the English shore in the very beginning of this video: https://youtu.be/mOD3JSw-ghg

High performance sailing: https://youtu.be/4emdfoTvNKk

CNN interview of German team creating millions of media impressions for sailing (free promotion x10,000+): https://youtu.be/u7EUQbsYHrc

This could be soaring.

More sailing commentary. Really funny!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gPjMvTmE2g