By: Dave Chancellor

I was mindlessly surfing the television when I stumbled upon an ESPN X Games highlight reel. My short attention span was instantly hooked on the BMX half pipe competition. I was in complete awe watching the fearless athletes go for massive air.

They would launch off the pipe spinning, twisting and back-flipping. I freaked out! Partly because I rarely see any boob tube or X Games at all, but mostly because of the fast pace thrills and spills. As I watched on, I kept thinking something is missing in our climbing competitions. Our sport needs something to help hook an uneducated climbing audience. I came to the conclusion that the “something missing” is an element of danger.

I think that for someone who doesn’t climb it’s difficult to grasp what hard climbing is. They see the athlete competing in the difficulty division but there is no understanding of how hard the problem is, which move is the crux, or what hold is the worst. Better
yet, they don’t even care! In today’s society, people don’t want to think, they just want to be entertained.

As far as competition climbing goes, the closest we have been to hooking a non-climbing audience is with speed climbing. We added a clock and some quicker action, which ultimately has given non-climbers something to relate to. Other sports have successfully
branched outside their initial industry. Take a look at NASCAR. How many people attending a race can understand the technicalities of the sport? Could they appreciate the difficulty of passing another car, handling the automobile at breakneck speeds, or the operations of the pit crew? Most people just want crazy action and the possibility of a crash. Sad but true!

How can we bring danger to climbing competitions at large without hurting our athletes? My thought: Move the wall over water. Imagine a climber 20+ feet off the deck executing a double dyno with a huge pool of water beneath him. I could almost hear the announcer now…

“The crowd eagerly awaits the moment when all points release from the wall. The climber swings through the air in a desperate attempt to snatch the next grip. Missing the hold, his body swings out from the wall. He quickly reacts as gravity sucks him to earth. Having cat-like reflexes, his body adjusts right before slapping the water. And the crowed goes wild!”

So, where could this take us? If we had portable walls that could move from event to event, then it’s just a matter of finding the correct application. We could set up the walls in universities over huge Olympic-size pools. For the next event, the wall could be moved to a lake to coincide with a water sports weekend. I could see this attracting media coverage, which brings more dollars to the sport, and bigger advertisers on board. Add some danger, add some beer and this is a formula to help branch out. It’s time to help capture an uneducated climbing audience.

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