We’re in our prime

I’m going to be in the minority with this opinion. I’m sure people are going to be lining up to tell me my thoughts on this are wrong, but let me explain.

I feel like there’s been a heavy focus, trying to attract younger people to the sport. Extra heavy, for years. It’s the industry’s hope and dream to have a mass resurgence of young people flocking back to the sport.

It’s old news (pun intended) that the average blading participants age is 30-45.
The reasons for why you would want to have younger people enter the sport is obvious, so there’s no need to explain it.
What I will have to explain is that I think….

It’s a waste of time.

I’m not saying that the youth shouldn’t skate, they definitely should. What I’m saying is that they’re just not going to in the large numbers that we saw in the 90’s-00’s. That ship sailed and if you’re reading this, you’re still on it.
This isn’t unique to blading, this is happening across all wheeled sports. There’s an abundance of other reasons that kids today have other things to do aside from participate in our little, niche sport.
The 90’s boom will never happen again, that’s common knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that skating still can’t grow.

Maybe the future we envisioned for ourselves is going to look a little different.

I believe we should embrace the growing number of people that want to start skating.
It just so happens, the newcomers are all 30-45. That’s badass.

Society is always changing and I think even the definition of what young is has too.

30 year olds used to look like George Costanza. That’s not the case anymore.
….. Mostly, haha.

If the grand majority of our user base are adults, lets push that image.
Let it inspire how we create media, our products, our events.
Personally, that sounds like a lot of fun.

I think it’s great to have entry points for the youth to see what it’s all about.
I also don’t think we have to cater to them as often as we do.
Especially if they’re not even what’s financially driving the sport in the first place.

I remember when I was much younger, when skating as a whole was much younger, I was looking at the Razors Website (back whenever people looked at websites) and I saw an AM rider that was in their early 20’s.

Young me thought to myself,

“man, if you’re not already pro by now, you might as well give it up.”

That’s super laughable now, but back then it wasn’t.

There was a time whenever our pro’s were turning 30 and skating was impressed that they were still skating as hard as they were.

That’s super laughable now, but back then it wasn’t.

I think you see where I’m going with this.
We don’t know how far we can push ourselves. We don’t know how skating is going to change in the future.
What we do know is that our community is always going to change.

To sum it all up, I think it’s ok to imagine blading as an adult activity.
It’s dangerous, after all.

I think it’s ok for our events/media to have some teeth.
Not everything has to have a PG rating.
We act right at our 9 to 5, but skating has always been an escape.
I don’t believe we have to pander to an age group that will probably never turn up to any athletic activity in droves like they did in the 90’s.

We don’t need to dilute our own experiences in hopes of some future that isn’t even certain (or probable).

We can’t force it, but we are going to live it, whether we like it or not.

So let’s support the people that are here, the people that care.
To all the dudes that just started (thanks covid), cheers.
All the “back-to-bladers,” what up.
To everyone that never left, love ya’ll.

Lets get it while we can. Right now. Lets do it better than we’ve ever done.