Outside the Olympic calendar years, the sports primarily contained within the Games rarely get the recognition those athletes truly deserve. The X Games helps some, but not all. But the presence of professional sports, at least how they are run in North America, may assure that those sports never climb that ladder either.
A world cup ski cross event just took place at Blue Mountain yesterday, the snowboard cross event will arrive at the village this coming Wednesday. Covering it for a publication I spent the day on the slopes – or well at the bottom of the slopes. A good sized crowd appeared, although it was boosted by people using the hills that day that stopped to watch what was taking place.
An entire roped off section was given to school children who were shipped in for the event. They made lots of noise and had lots of fun, and it was announced that some of the Canadian skiers in the event had visited the schools to talk with the kids. Can’t find any fault there—especially since Canada won gold in both the men’s and women’s events, and finished 1-2 on the men’s side.
Instant heroes for some of the kids no doubt, I myself was impressed by how exciting things turned out in the end. Anyone would have been.
Speaking with local business owners however they said that although there was an increase in foot traffic thanks to all the visitors from around the world stopping in, there were still people unaware of what was going on. This was a world cup event, a rather big sporting event that many were left out in the dark about.
When I sat down with my fellow reporters for dinner after the event was done and they had a televised cycling event, the indoor variety held within a velodrome. Even after coming from a ski cross event we still found it odd and out of place that was on television. I think our society has just been conditioned to dismiss most of the sports that don’t come with some catchy theme song intro and colour commentators.
Olympic sports simply do not function as regularly scheduled viewing for the average person North American. And the presence of pro sports will not help change that perception.
The Super Bowl takes place this weekend, following a two week media hyped ramp up. Hundreds of thousands of people have been reported on the streets of Indianapolis the past few days, taking in the festivities. But even on a regular gameday there anywhere over 60,000 people taking in the experience, with every single game televised. Huge crowds and ample TV coverage has become the norm.
That isn’t the nature of amateur sports though. Even ones as exciting as ski cross, a staple of the X Games, aren’t considered sexy enough to garner a large turnout. Unless there is a real vested interest that someone has picked up over time the average sports fan looks at the crowds turnouts, and the lack of mass media spectacle involved, and refuses to give the event the time of day.
It’s a sad reality because yesterday was as exciting sporting event as I’ve been to in a while, the crowd was fully engaged and the action was top notch, the best skiers in the world were flying through the air gunning it down the slopes, and the last race came down to almost a photo finish. Here in North America, many of us are missing out on some real excitement based on the narrow mindset we have adopted. It’s a shame really, but not something that will change anytime soon.
Picture courtesy Michael Gregory
