Footbag going backwards

Psilocybe · Post by **Psilocybe** » 29 Jul 2007 18:14

Well who cares what noobs think. They can stick to their inside kicks.

Luckily theres a store in my town which sells mesh lavers. It was a nice find. Too bad they're like 60 bucks.

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 29 Jul 2007 18:20

Psilocybe wrote:Well who cares what noobs think. They can stick to their inside kicks.

if you want the sport to get bigger, you should.

if not, then yeah i agree.

and also i dont agree that it should be so equipment dependant. i learned mirage, atw, butterfly, legover, and osis with polo sports. so dont act like "if you dont have lavers you might as well quit" to or in front of newbies. encourage freestyle, not the necessity of lavers.

jrstubs · Post by **jrstubs** » 02 Aug 2007 04:59

I'm just going to test this out, I thought it would be the best thread...

Chris Obara is a fat whore.

So he doesn't care what you think.

janis · Post by **janis** » 02 Aug 2007 05:21

encourage freestyle, not the necessity of lavers.

so true, people who really get into it will get lavers anyway (or quantums

).

ericksonj · Post by **ericksonj** » 03 Aug 2007 09:01

It doesn't really suprise me that footbag is not searched as often on google. I think most of the current players already know where to go to look up footbag, and new players are hard to come by. Freestyle footbag is one of those things that takes so long to learn and is so frustrating that I doubt very seriously that it will become as big as say basketball or even skateboarding. Plenty of people play hacky sack, which is footbag. I see and hear people playing and talking about it all of the time. That is extremely popular. There just aren't a lot of people out there who want to devote several hours a day to developing a bunch of tricks. It can be much more fun to just kick in your regular shoes and jeans and have fun with a big circle of friends. Competitions in all honesty are not that fun to watch, so I don't think we will draw a huge spectator crowd. At best it is something people like to see for 5 minutes and comment on how crazy it is that you trained yourself to do it. I mean my own girlfriend or even brother would not come out to just watch me play footbag for an hour. They've seen it, they could care less at this point, it really is boring to watch if you don't play footbag.

Why it seems to lose peoples attention over something else, I don't quite understand. I mean they have the world series of poker on tv and people love it! What could be more boring than watching people play cards? To the untrained eye I think footbag ends up looking the same after seeing a few runs. They can't really see the different links you are performing, they just see you dancing around a footbag for a little bit. People who watch us play in Eugene stay for 5 minutes max, seem really into it for the 5 minutes and then walk away. We rarely get people who stick around multiple times, and we always try to put on a freestly show when we shred in public. Without much of a fan base it seems like it would be really hard to develop a truly large player base.

That's fine with me, I would rather footbag stayed small. I'm not sure I would like it if 3000 people freestyled in Eugene. Maybe it would be cool, but I prefer the way it is now with 3000 people playing hack in eugene and only a handful of people freestylin.

crazylegs32 · Post by **crazylegs32** » 20 Aug 2007 20:46

Word from worlds is that the net and freestyle will be split up into different event sites and dates. That would be a step backwards

professor · Post by **professor** » 20 Aug 2007 23:30

I think Vasek on Jimmy Kimmel Live will help footbag tremendously. A lot of people watch that show.

dp · Post by dp » 21 Aug 2007 10:28

When's Vasek gonna be on Jimmy Kimmel Live?

professor · Post by **professor** » 21 Aug 2007 11:06

The 29th.

http://abc.go.com/latenight/jimmykimmel/index?pn=guests

What's funny is this was planned before Vasek won Worlds this year, so basically they were betting that Vasek would win Worlds again. Pretty safe bet I guess.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 21 Aug 2007 11:57

Word from worlds is that the net and freestyle will be split up into different event sites and dates. That would be a step backwards

That would actually be a step forward for both disciplines from the organizational aspect of running Worlds. It is hard for a net club to properly assemble a freestyle venue and vice versa, but each year the host club is forced to. Year after year, one discipline feels shafted due to poor accomodations. This Worlds split, which may or may not actually happen any time soon, will be a great first step toward eliminating poor Worlds accomodations.

calemccoy · Post by **calemccoy** » 08 Oct 2007 23:21

one thing i would say... ive read a book about the rise and decline of skateboarding popularity it spikes only every ten years, but when it does, it is massive. maybe theres another spike coming. me and my friend eoghan are up and coming, and im sure there are so many others like me. just wait for the next generation before we say footbag is dying.

Grade Zero · Post by **Grade Zero** » 09 Oct 2007 23:03

calemccoy wrote:one thing i would say... ive read a book about the rise and decline of skateboarding popularity it spikes only every ten years, but when it does, it is massive. maybe theres another spike coming. me and my friend eoghan are up and coming, and im sure there are so many others like me. just wait for the next generation before we say footbag is dying.

Don't forget about me.

ashleyd · Post by **ashleyd** » 10 Oct 2007 12:11

If everyone told 10 people about footbag the word would be spread so much faster, and possibly more players.

Even if only 10 people did it thats 100 more people who know about footbag.

david · Post by **david** » 10 Oct 2007 13:03

Know and play are different things. Everyone I talk to here at school knows that I am the guy in front of the student union who plays footbag and who has been in the newspaper. But none of them play.

People know footbag exists, but wanting to search and gain information about it takes some initiative that most people just don't have.

I would estimate that a great deal of the people who search "football" or "soccer" are fans just as much as players. There are no footbag fans searching google to find out about the next tournament so they can go and watch. Anyone who takes an active search in footbag probably plays or wants to. This is just a point, other sports have people that just watch which adds to their popularity in general.

As for footbag going backwards I don't know, but it isn't going forward.

dc

Asmus · Post by **Asmus** » 10 Oct 2007 13:09

Maybe this just proves that we are really good at handing out links to footbag ressources when people show interest?
Then they don't have to look it up on google..

Just throwing it out there..

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » 10 Oct 2007 14:01

Footbag won't grow for the simple reason that it is unmarketable.

No major company is ever going to invest in footbag, as our clothing/style is not something the average person on the street will want to emulate. Also, there is a great lack in comprehension of exactly what we are doing with the bag. Any non-skaters ever watched a skate vid? It all looks the same at first, just like footbag. Skateboarding got HUGE, because corporations were willing to invest in promotion and sponsorship, which caused the sport to grow in popularity.

This all stems from the fact that skate clothes look cool, and short-shorts and nasty cut-up shoes don't. Before skating was mainstream, people thought it was cool, specifically the teen demographic with its massive amount of disposable income and free time to take up the sport. How can footbag tap into these same reserves of fans/potential players???

ashleyd · Post by **ashleyd** » 10 Oct 2007 17:37

i guess we need to start playing in jeans and a baggy tee shirt.

gMoney · Post by **gMoney** » 10 Oct 2007 18:08

I always thought of footbag being an underground sport forever, which I don't think is nessicarily a bad thing. I think it needs to be bigger than it is now, but I've never really been a fan of mainstream anything. Even if footbag existed in mainstream life, there would still be hacky slackers, they'd just be more informed and pretty much be posers, giving the sport a bad name. Footbag is an incredibly hard sport that takes up an incredible amount of time and effort, and even if it was mainstream, all the people playing it wouldn't be fully committed, and I think skill level would regress a little. Especially with the new wave of laziness that's hitting kids everywhere. Everyone wants to do things that look cool, but no one has the iniative.

I might not have been completely sane writing that, so just take it for what it's worth. I want footbag to grow, but not to be too large.