Competitions a Change Perhaps ?

[Stevie Boy]

Should skiers be made to step off the dock , on a line length or speed within two full passes of their PB, would this add some excitement, liven things up and change the format where you watch skiers go up and down the lake, running passes that generally they make, would this shorten the time frame instead of a all day affair or possibly allow for more entries ?

Could this facilitate a lower entry fee, encouraging more people to participate.

[dave2ball]

@Stevie Boy great thought. Skiers do have that choice as you know to go at what ever line length they feel comfortable with which may include wind direction for hardest pass. As far as entry fees going down as a result of what looks to be what you are call minimum line length not going to happen.

Entry fees well that is another thread.

[Drago]

No

[BCM]

I'm not sure about this one, I think 2 full passes is a little short for me. I could maybe see a max number of passes, maybe 6? But, at the last tournament I judged at this season (about 40 skiers) very few ran their 4th pass, I would say the majority fell/missed on their 3rd or 4th pass.

 

I have noticed tournaments with similar skier capacity, same format, same promo boats, same skiers, etc. with very different entry fees. I don't think reducing a few trips down the lake will drop entry fees.

 

I do think adding more rules about where you have to start in relation to a PB would further discourage new tournament skiers. The reason mountain bike racing is growing is because the rules are simple. Fastest from A to B along a given route and be respectful of your fellow competitors. People like simple.

[BraceMaker]

Agree with BCM I don't think too many people go to a multi round tournament and plan on 6 passes. Similarly I think there are certain "steps" that prevent it from being too much of an issue. For instance do the skiers you know who get deep into 39 taking openers at 28 or 32?

 

Maybe in a multi round tournament you could design it to have some restriction of passes like in the second round you had to start within 2 passes of your first round?

[Chef23]

Generally the only people I see running more than 4 (in very rare occasions a 5th) passes are kids and beginning skiers. Kids sometimes don’t have a good sense of what they can do and push themselves more in tournaments. Similar to beginning skiers. I like speeding up the sport but my 3rd pass is not a guarantee and the 4th is risky at best. I would generally go 22, 28, 32 (hopefully) and 2-4@35 on a good day. I am not sure how I would fare at running 28 off the dock then 32. I would think I would have lots of missed openers and missed 32s.

[jcamp]

I would say a hard "no" for regular events. However, I've always thought a cool pro event concept would be to have all skiers go down the lake at 35 and come back at 38. If they made it, they got off the water and advanced to the next round. If they didn't they were out. Then second round everyone would go down 38 and come back 39. Everyone who made that gets off the water and advances to the third round. Then they'd go down 39 and come back at 41, etc., etc. Eventually the field narrows down to the champion.

 

It would be an easy way for the general public to tell who is winning, i.e. if they made it back to the dock they were still in it.

 

And yes, I know that it would be tough for skiers to go off the dock cold at 38 or 39, but it would be a show that determines the winner for that day (with the crowd the priority), not an event engineered for maximum scores.

[MattP]

@jcamp I think cable skiing everyone runs the same line then goes back to the dock for the line on the cable to be shortened. Then everyone runs the next line.

[klindy]

@jcamp interesting concept.

 

If the skier takes the 3rd pass (away from the dock) then they may as well take the 4th pass. Unless you set it up to where the boat would literally just go down and back with a skier before hooking up to the next skier, you're not going to save a lot of time.

 

In terms of multi-round tournaments, part of the concept of the turn-and-burn format was to save some time by letting the skier get their third round in without having to "restart" from scratch. The thought was that most skiers taking advantage of the format would retake the pass they fell on or, at most, drop back a pass. The fact that not many tournaments even offer this format likely says a lot about the mindset of skiers not wanting to just get a pass or two in for a round.

 

[jcamp]

@klindy They won't take a third pass. Each round is always just down and back and that is it. If they ran both passes they are still in, if not they are out.

[6balls]

My 4th pass is the hardest I can actually make on occasion -38. I've seen plenty of skiers off the dock miss their opener or second pass who set up this way. Not sure there would be a real advantage to this idea...but I like that you threw it out there...it's always fun to explore different ways to do things.

[disland]

By far the biggest use of time is between skiers not the actual skiing. To make tournaments fast would be to use two boats, Its done all the time in trick and jump. Its typically not done in slalom so all skiers get the same driver. Lately we are lucky to get one promo boat so boat shortage is an issue.

[BraceMaker]

A person operating a golf cart going around and around the lake to pick up skiers would IMO be one of the fastest ways to speed up an event, miss 1 ball, ski to the shore and they come and snag you. Instead of riding it down the lake and having them pull you back.

 

Pretty much anything to return the boat to the dock faster is a time saver.

 

Depending where you are sitting around wet waiting for another round pretty soon is just gross if I had multiple pulls I'd want them to be pretty much right away or I'd want a good amount of time between so that I could change and get dry. Similarly you don't want to sit around buckled in to your boots.

[76SS]

I've been thinking of something very similar. For instance in Jump, a skier is only allowed 3 passes. Why not do the same for slalom? If we are honest, we don't really care about watching most skiers opening pass. This should speed up the contest and increase the risk factor slightly.

[klindy]

@jcamp I understood the idea you suggested. My 3rd/4th pass comments were directed to the OP since the suggestion was to limit it to 2 passes before your hardest pass (presumably your 3rd pass then).

[UWSkier]

Interesting idea. Maybe to eliminate the "falling on the opener" risk, you could give each skier a single fall, but they have to enter the course from the opposite end if they're doing a re-ride on a fall pass. Would also need to have a "fall clock" for them to get ski back on on platform and be up and skiing in a binding release condition.

[elr]

Yep - $33 a PASS ($200/6 passes in a 3 round tournament) is a sure way to increase my tournament participation and encourage me to take my kids along.

[BraceMaker]

In slalom you are really only allowed one miss whereas jump you're allowed 3...

 

I for one don't think anyone really likes looking at their scores and seeing a bunch of <6's for missed openers.

 

A possible fix to this could be to assign a penalty after 4 passes, you still get to ski the next pass but your balls are subtracted for purposes of ranking.

 

Another fix could simply be to mandate a minimum opener based on your average scores year to date.

[rico]

@BraceMaker A few issues here:

 

Having the boat come back to the dock faster would not work as you are supposed to give each skier the same conditions, hence why the boat has to go to the end of the lake and come back to the dock anyway.

 

In slalom you are allowed 0 miss. you miss, you are done.

 

Finally, for most people, paying a tournament entry fee, traveling to the site, paying for hotel... Helping as an official and being given a penalty for running more than 4 passes is insane.

 

We should encourage skiers to enter tournament and make it as much fun and worthwhile as possible.

[JackQ]

Hell no! A good way to injure skiers.. I have seen it, in a tournament that was running late. So the decision was that for the last round everyone had to start at their last made pass from the previous rounds. Sam Ingram ran mid 39 on the last round so he had to start at 38 and had a horrendous pass and dislocated his shoulder. Two physicians on the site could not reset, he had to go to the Hospital and be sedated to reset.

 

I find that many skier start at too hard of a pass, and never loosen up and get settled in before their hard or hardest pass.

[ScottScott]

I don't think that anyone wants to run more passes then they need to. Opening passes are chosen to have a pass they know they can get through, but won't tire them out when they reach their hardest pass, with some adjustments for wind directions.

 

Certainly don't want to penalize someone for reaching a PB.

[ToddL]

Which problem are we trying to solve today?

[Stevie Boy]

@ToddL there is a feeling that there needs to be change, things have become a bit mundane especially from the spectator side, but on the other hand I understand skiers want value for money, as entry fees are fairly high, I asked the question to explore ideas that may help the sport to move forward, not many people like change, but there has to be change to move forward, many other sports have had to evolve to attract both participants and spectators to maintain traction.

It would be interesting to hear a Pros point of view, it has been suggested to me that even some of them are bored with the format that exist at present.

I am passionate about water skiing and would like to see it grow, at this moment in time the age demographic is quite high and the sport seems to be on the decline, probably not quite so bad in warmer climes where the youngsters do not have endure cold water.

[Drago]

@Stevie Boy Your original idea is the exact reason nearly every course-but- non-tournament skier stays away from tournaments:water time.

Pros and Watching skiers go up and down the lake have nothing to do with this.

The reality is, tournament waterskiing is going up and down a lake and most people want to do it more, not less.

[ToddL]

I don't have any solutions. No one does.

 

I often wonder why fans go to watch NASCAR races. It seems similarly boring (cars going the same speed in a circle all day long). The best answers I can come up with about NASCAR are: Beer, the potential for crashes (even though no one wants one to happen), hearing the communications between the driver and crew, and cheering for a personal favorite. Everyone drives a brand of car, so there is one layer of fandom. Then, the driver personalities are hyped to create drama between them.

 

Imagine if a pro water ski tournament was about which brand/team has more season points, if the skier's had drama between them, and if spectators had beer and concessions to consume. Maybe, it would be better. But, slalom skiing is still pretty boring to watch.

 

Ask yourself why any boring "sport" is on TV and has fans (corn hole for example). The one common denominator is that there is a large population of the general public who does that "sport" recreationally. When water-skiing had that context in the early 90's and back, you would see fans at pro events. That's what has changed.

 

So, the NASCAR-style water ski tournament still wouldn't work, because there aren't any non-competing fans who have the ability to slalom ski on public water, so there is no "public" fan base. Until we fix that problem, all our other problems will continue to exist.

[Stevie Boy]

@Drago I see where you are coming from, the particpants want as much time on the water as possible, scenario (it,s not going to happen) but for the likes of RedBull they only want to see the action when it comes down to the exciting bit.

I only threw this out there, to provoke discussion to see if anybody, has a light bulb moment, maybe two/three round slalom and the top sixteen going into a head to head, for lesser skiers there could be a handicap system so they would not miss out on the opportunity of the Head to Head.

Only ideas, the cost of travelling and competition entries, accommodation etc, is a big committment, so I understand that you would actually want more for your money.

How stoked would that youngster be, to make the head to head and ski with people they look up to.

Thinking about how youngsters can be pretty competitive, how about a section in the day where they do a head to head, just like the Pro,s would that fire them up ?

[ScottScott]

As I alluded to, I really don't think its a matter of cost vs how many passes. I think most skiers are more concerned with whatever process that will get them as far down the lines as possible, more than getting as many passes as possible.

 

I would like to see more individual tournament incentives, such as a handicapped scoring for awards within a given tournament, to go along with a score that goes toward your national ranking. If I see bad weather for a tournament coming the next weekend, I know I won't be getting into my hardest passes and setting any new PBs or helping my overall score, so why would I spend the money and time to go. I would put in an extra $10-25 for a tournament to go toward a handful of awards, like restaurant gift cards or something to go along with bragging rights.

[RichardDoane]

Tournament water skiing is a personal thing. Running passes is only fun for the skier. Watching is like watching paint dry, unless you’re a painter, and then it makes sense. I like to set up my round so hopefully I ski into a 5th pass. Waiting hours for just a down and back Is no fun.

[BraceMaker]

@rico not saying I like those ideas...

They're just variety.

 

What about just being more technical with running order. Often your view is boring because you are at the starting dock because you aren't sure how long till you are up. Build in a text alert on the scoring software.

 

What IT resources could USA waterski direct to make events more engaging?

 

Even let people subscribe to tournament invites nationally.

[jjackkrash]

There is pretty much no better way to spend a weekend than at a college waterski tournament. After college I figured out pretty quickly regular tournaments were not college tournaments.

 

Aside from the general party/college atmosphere (which is a part of it), skiing on a team, rooting for and razzing teammates, and rooting against and razzing other teams (in good fun) makes all the difference in the world. Every college tournament is like the Ryder Cup in Golf. The team aspect makes the whole day and whole experience fun and enjoyable.

 

IMO, someone needs to figure out how to make regular tournaments more of a team or at least group experience rather than an isolated individual experience; adding or subtracting a pass or two for each skier isn't going to fix what sucks about non-college tournaments.

[Zman]

I'm sure Willie, Freddie and Nate will love starting their rounds at 10.75 all the time.

[Zman]

@JackQ You don't want to start at 38 from now on? :D

Was the tournament where Sam dislocated his shoulder at the Ski Ranch, 2008ish?

[lpskier]

Most pros start at 32, though some start at 28. Nate starts at 32. Six passes to 43.

[Stevie Boy]

I was there at a Pro event when Will Asher had a run off, against Nate Smith, they had to go off the dock @10.75m, one of the most exciting moments I have watched.

[jcamp]

@Zman wrote "I'm sure Willie, Freddie and Nate will love starting their rounds at 10.75 all the time."

 

Maybe not, but I'm guessing they'd like pro skiing to be more interesting to more people, thus more lucrative to them. Let them go to R tournaments that nobody watches to get their scores in.

[MrJones]

Less skiing. I'm sure it will sell.

[jcamp]

@MrJones yeah crowds are really eating up the 12-hour tournaments we normally put on.

[BraceMaker]

@jcamp does anyone do anything for 12 hours?

 

A ski lake located in a public park with a swim beach and the availability of summer camp lessons will get you new skiers.

 

Particularly if that lake runs some clubs or similar.

[DavidP]

For open men slalom events, I’ve always thought it would make sense (for the spectators) that the opening pass be 35 off. That way, the handle reaches the buoy on the “warm up” pass and then the following passes the handle did not reach the buoy.

[wilecoyote]

Frankly I don't think the tournament format is the issue here. As @ToddL pointed out, people like to watch things they do themselves. BTW I've never been to NASCAR race but I've been to F1, and Indy Car races, and if you haven't experienced it in person, you don't get the spectacle of it. The first time all those cars go past you it makes the hair stand up. I think the real reason is wakeboarding killed waterskiing. It's not a criticism, just an observation. Snow boarding killed snow skiing, kite boarding killed windsurfing. You can't fix that with a better tournament format. Without large grassroots participation, who will watch? If you want to start fixing it, you have to look at the cost of entry level participation.

[dvskier]

@wileycoyote I believe that snow skiing is making a comeback. I work for Vail Resorts and I’ve seen a steady increase over the past 5 years in skiers over snowboarders, not just older folks but the younger crowd as well. I think the access is limiting new slalom skiers but when you’ve got the “bug” you’ve got to do it. Very addictive! I don’t feel the same about downhill gates though, free skiing all the way.

[NikolG]

Awesome way to get injured. So I would say NO WAY

[ToddL]

@dvskier / @wilecoyote - The other issue is that while snowboarding was initially viewed as in opposition to snow skiing, they have since learned how to coexist somewhat. Further, there are mountains which are skiing only. Also, these are pay-to-play contexts open to the public across a wide variety of daily lift access costs. And, I guess anyone can walk up any public snow-covered hill and slide down if they can't afford lift tickets. (That's the closest I can come up to comparison to "public lake" skiing. Still, it doesn't really work, tho.)

 

With water sports, if just one wake-sport or inflatable-slinging boat is on the water, the regular skiers / slalom skiers suffer or cannot safely participate due to the disrupted water. There are not many public lakes which limit wake sports, while also allowing slalom skiing and combo skiing. Most of the safe havens are private lakes. Those could be seen as parallels to mountain resorts. However, not many private lakes offer an open-to-the-public, pay-to-play business model.

 

So, yes. These realities are part of the difficulties in growing a skiing public population and why comparisons to snow skiing aren't as relevant.

[BraceMaker]

@ToddL the difference is at many resorts there was a period of time where they invested in adding terrain parks and converting runs to stay on top of the trend towards snowboarding. This had a lot of avid skiers fairly pissy particularly at smaller resorts.

 

Most public water could be improved simply by boaters learning how to share the water.

 

And this involves skiers too - every year we have a stretch where actual DD ski boats with competent skiers will be spinning in the middle and not running it out - ruins it so hard.

[dvskier]

@BraceMaker The terrain parks actually help the skiers by allowing the snowboarders access to the types of challenges that’s they desire. Much less conflict now.

[BraceMaker]

@dvskier sure you can say that now - and there are way more skiers interested in that type of terrain.

 

But people flipped the hell out. I remember a ski patrol neighbor growing up having some real hissies about it, of course that hill lost their slalom run/ski club for awhile because of it.

[dvskier]

We have lots of terrain, no issues now. Well when we have more runs open, it’s very early season now. Opening some good stuff tomorrow.