X-Games

What happen to X-Games i saw a show leading up to this year, all the do it skate, bike, and moto, oh and rally car. How is rally car in the X-Games and wakeboarding has been dised and thrown to the side. They did it with our sport and whole lot of other cool things they use to show. I love the sports the show but why only them now, come on X-Games give us some props.

this is a very sore subject with me and was talked about here last year. TRAVIS PASTRANA DOESN'T WAKEBOARD.

they should really re-name it and call it the travis pastrana games. wakeboarding was all but eliminated a few years ago, but like you already noticed, they got rally car now, and guess what, travis started driving rally car.

wake was too expensive for espn to put on. they had to pay for the venue, security, boats, gas, staff, etc., and it was free to the public. on top of that, not many wake companies were steppin' up to help cover the costs.

I wonder what the Oakley pool/rail cost to build that one year.

I heard it was over a million. but Oakley has more money than god.

(Message edited by steezyshots on July 22, 2008)

TRAVIS PASTRANA DOESN'T WAKEBOARD.

good point there!




but I bet Shaun White can, put it in the Winter_X games...

if travis pastrana did wakeboard, they would find some way to add it back to the X games with full financing, no matter the cost.

not bashing pastrana, but we really need to get that guy into wakeboarding. does anyone know him? can you take him out for a pull?

He actually does wakeboard and to quote a pro wakeboarder who shall remain nameless, "We finally found something that Travis sucks at!"

Yeah in Thrillbillies there is a section where they are cruising around some lake and doing some tubing if I remember right (Powell maybe?? Sandstone cliffs and stuff looks like it but I guess it could be a lot of lakes there) on an MC of some description, at least the tower looks like a MasterCraft, don't see a shot of the boat... There's no wakeboarding in it though, just all the other madness that dude gets up to.

we'll have to send him "the book". LOL

i've seen travis on a hydrofoil many years ago but i have yet to see that in the x games.

i agree rally car racing is a lil entertaining and all but doesn't even come close to wakeboarding nor is it nearly as deserving to be in the x games

i hope shaun white never starts wakeboarding. i bet his first time out there he'd probably be throwing 10s.

and lastly i'll say what i said about a week ago. all we need is a pool, a winch, and a rediculously large ramp (the kind that will allow double flips or 1080s). it will be somewhat cheap to make (for the x games budget), they will be able to sell tickets inside, and the general audience will love it.

I thought travis is sponsored by nautiques, if not him than some other big name MXer. next time they do the X-Games we should just happen to have some winch event going on right next to the stadium that they have the X-Games at. BTW does anyone know if they change the location of the X-Games every year or not?

there could be a lot of protesters with signs encouraging wakeboarding

Travis is a Mastercraft guy. He has/has, not sure, a yellow x-star for awhile. good for tubing in his case haha. the dude shreds on a bike though so he can tube away.

I like the protester idea, just everyone show up say when did extreme sports become a sell out industry

Travis does (ATTEMPT TO)wakeboard and has a 40th anniversary x-star. Heith Voss is the MotoCross rider that rides for Mastercraft.

And if you look at Step Up web site you will see they have done some big rail-jams at the Motocross venues (Texas being one of the biggest).

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quote:

By Chase Weeks (heelside10) on Thursday, July 24, 2008 - 7:28 pm:

I like the protester idea, just everyone show up say when did extreme sports become a sell out industry

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so i'm confused...are you protesting the x-games because you WANT wakeboarding in the games? if they include wakeboarding in the future, will you then be ok with extreme sports selling out?

James Stewart is the big name in moto that is sponsored by Nautique.
http://www.wakeworld.com/getarticle.asp?articleid=1030

>>remain nameless, "We finally found something that Travis sucks at!"<<

He's not very good at snowboarding either... just watch DC Mountain Lab 1.5 video

NO what i am saying is they only cater to the sports that pay the most, when the use to back in the day put all sorts of sports in the X-games wither or not the brought in a lot of money from ads or whatever, i mean the use to have rock climbing and luge and all sort of stuff. now its just the big three

What does everybody think it will take to get wakeboarding back in? How would you find out? Surely one of the big boat companies has enough muscle? At least if we knew what it would take...............

The XGames were created for one reason only! To generate revenue for ESPN. They saw the extreme sports industry blowing up and wanted to capitalize on it. They make thier money based on television ratings. Wakeboarding obviously didn't fair very well when it came to a general audience tuning in. Same with Surfing and it got dropped this year as well. Millions of kids skate, thus that means good ratings. Moto has the shock value which equals good ratings. And yes, people do tune in just to see Pastrana and Shaun White.

The only way to get wakeboarding back into the XGames is to get more people interested in the sport. Example:

Hey Mr. Average Joe, Name a pro surfer.
Answer - Kelly Slater

Name a pro skateboarder.
Answer - Tony Hawk

Name a Pro Snowboarder.
Answer - Shaun White

Name a pro freestyle motocross rider.
Answer - Travis Pastrana

Name a pro wakeboarder.
Answer - Uh, um, well, Tony Hawk?

I think the problem with surfing and wakeboarding is that the crowd don't feel "involved" enough. To them it seems to be happening "over/out there". The irony is that Pro wakeboarders are so much more accessible compared to all the other big name stars of other extreme sports.
The catch 22 is that the riders are not well known enough to go out on tv and they cannot get known because they are not on tv.

maybe it should be called the pastrana, white, and sheckler games....do we not even get a rail jam????

Who cares? the X-games are ghey.

Who cares? the X-games are ghey

Yeah, but not if they had wakeboarding

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MSQY2oAgUWk

^^^
Oh, my, goodness.
Those people that made that video are in love with that guy.

Basically guys, wakeboarding will maybe get as big as those other sports when cable and winch riding is more accesible. There's a bigger market for skateboarding, motoX, and even rally cars. Why? It all has to do with cost. Boats are a very expensive luxury item which means there is a high cost involved to participate. The higher the cost to participate, the lower market share the sport will have. Skateboards are cheap,motocross bikes much cheaper than boats, and even rally cars are cheaper and tons of people drive cars.

The way this sport will become big is if costs are minimized. The best chance for that is cable wakeboarding. Once that becomes more widespread the sport will grow for sure. But for now wakeboarding will be hurt even more by a slowing economy and extremely high gas prices.

Rally car participation is cripplingly expensive. I had friends that used to do it and one tyre could run you anything up to $250. That was 20 years ago???
They way they worship Pastrana is sickening.Sycophanytic behavior by people who should know better (I an not talking about his fans). What would they do if something happened to him?? Cancel the X games??

"Rally car participation is cripplingly expensive. I had friends that used to do it and one tyre could run you anything up to $250"

I'm not saying rally car racing isn't expensive, and i'm sure less people do it than wakeboarding. The key to it though is that more people can identify with it. Even though they may not participate in rally car racing they can identify with it because they drive a car. Wakeboarding on the other hand is very hands on. If you can't participate it in there's no reason for you to watch it.

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quote:

brian deegan said in an interview:

moto is just blowin' up right now. i feel sorry for the other sports. i'm so glad to be on a bike!

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chris said, "I think the problem with surfing and wakeboarding is that the crowd don't feel involved enough", i don't think there's a problem with surfing, their income is right up there with the snowboarders
isn't surfing still in the games? maybe if wakesurfing interest continues to increase, they will get a boat back in the games, i gotta believe that any boat company would make out big time if they had their boat in a wakesurfing competition at the x-games
as far as wakeboarding, at least they tried, along with,
X-Venture (Adventure Race)
BMX Freestyle
Bungee jumping
Barefoot Jumping
Sportclimbing
Skysurfing
Street Luge

Why does travis pastrana get so much say?

i always thought wakeskating would do good in the x games

Wakeboarding is expensive to do. Your average Joe that goes to the x-games can buy a skateboard and go riding 24/7 for about the same money as he'd have to pay for gas for a couple of sets behind a boat.

The pros are accessible because they aren't celebrities because the sport is small, and it will never be the size of skate/BMX accordingly.

There's no need for it to be at the X-Games, do you really want to encourage more people onto the lakes? If you want to see some riding action, go to the PWC. I'm into wakeboarding but watching it is boring. And watching a railjam, - that's even more boring.

James Stewarts Nautique caught on fire and burnt completely up and he and his buddies had to swim in. Bubba should have stuck with the MasterCraft he bought.

Why does travis pastrana get so much say?

He doesn't. People just tend to fabricate stories and look for justifications that don't exist when they feel slighted

The pros are accessible because they aren't celebrities because the sport is small, and it will never be the size of skate/BMX accordingly.

Maybe you should try talking to one of those professionals before you pass judgement on their personality. I skate regularly with many of them at the Encinitas YMCA and I assure you that they are all very friendly and approachable.

(Message edited by caskimmer on August 04, 2008)

Brian deegan owns an X-star. i saw it on CRIBS.

OK, so why not have just a double up contest? Quick, simple, and its one of the most extreme "looking" part of our sport(even to the average joe who know's nothing about wakeboarding). It couldn't be that hard or expensive to throw a double up contest.

double up contest needs the same things as a "regular" contest: boat, gas, venue, staff, security, etc.

so, cheaper? not really.

This is why pastrana attracts and dictates the x-games. The guy is twisted. You'll probably never see a pro anything doing this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDBrdl2sZWs

(Message edited by fulltilt429 on August 04, 2008)

Thats crazy...awesome, but really crazy!