I agree you don’t have to have a new boat. But it’s too bad that zero off has made a great boat like the bubble butt 97-01 with a fantastic engine like the gt-40 obsolete if you want the same pull as you would get in a tournament. Either the expense of a new engine or a few years newer hull just adds to all the expense, when you already have a perfectly good boat. Also very hard to find a public lake not riddled with wakesurfing/ wakeboard boats that make the water impossible to train 3 event.
So ya, private lake and newer boat put a lot of people out of the sport or stops people from getting into it.