Where to start on this topic?
The false necessity of specialization.
I’m just north of 60 yrs old. Over time all sports have become niche-specialized. Athletic shoes. Bicycles. Snow skis. Boats. Motorcycles…. Just to name few activities that interest me. The idea that to do any sport you, especially to get started, you must have the absolutely correct, specialized gear. The venue, the attire, the eyewear, blah blah.
Here is nice picture of some people having fun in a boat. (The wake size even looks pretty good) This is a fishing boat. It is a ski boat. It is a wakeboard boat. It can be purchased for $2000 - $3000. Go buy it. Do some stuff. Learn to drop a ski and slalom. Does it line up with the optimized perfect setup that Ballers are after? No. But a lot of us started here and had some of our best memories here.
Cast a wider net. Get people off the couch. Define and welcome people into “the sport” in the broadest way possible. Private lake course skiing behind a zero-off tug on a $2,000 ski isn’t the hurdle of entry.
I’ve posted this before, if the filter for calling it “snow skiing” was one skier at a time, shinning gates on steep runs against the clock, the sport would shrink and be nearly unsustainable.