try drag racing spending thousands A DAY to win a 20 dollar trophy .......or IPSC traveling around ammo race guns (read 2).....
Waning SCUBA Participation
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Cowfish Aesthetic
Contributor
I think it's partly a combination of economics and logistics. The majority of people don't live near the kind of diving that really draws people into the sport (yes, I'm sure some of you are very fond of your quarries and I'm sure they're really wonderful, but they're not what gets people into diving). So add travel costs (in time and money) to the cost of gear, and it gets really hard for a lot of people to dive regularly enough to stay confident and interested.
I have multiple coworkers here in Chicago who are scuba certified, but they have no interest in diving the waters around here; they want to see pretty fish on warm reefs. If they're lucky, they might be able to squeeze one trip a year to the Caribbean on top of all of their other responsibilities. And so then they become apprehensive about diving, because they're unsure of their skills and start to feel rusty. Which leads to even less diving.
Personally, I'm an addict who would dive in the bathtub if my wife would let me, but I don't think there are enough of me to grow the industry.
Sure, some folks are big players in those sports. Most folks I've encountered that have shot in IPSC do it more casually. If you're dedicated enough that there is some reason for you to travel around to compete well..that's more than a hobby in my opinion. I mean you can play soccer/football for a couple hundred bucks a year including uniforms. Get onto a competitive national team and I'm sure there are some major costs, but in both cases I think you've gone beyond hobby. Just as becoming a scuba instructor makes scuba no longer a hobby or getting a job as a computer engineer pretty much ends computer engineering related hobbies.
Maybe we should consider the cost of entry into the hobby rather than the costs associated with elites. I can enter into bicycling with a $79 10 speed from walmart. That's it. I could get a new firearm and a box of ammo for under $250. Scuba on the other hand. The cheapest I've seen legitimate classes in my area is $350. That doesn't include the $80-100 for required training materials. It also doesn't include the required mask/booties/fins that shops in my area require you to purchase rather than renting. It also doesn't include the required boat rides for the check out dives. In my experience, that's two boat rides so another $160-$200 (Shore diving californians notwithstanding). That's $590 plus basic gear on the low end to get certified in my neck of the woods. Maybe 430 if you live in a place where class dives can be done from shore. $650 on the high end (or maybe $1000, if you signed up with GUE). Scuba may not be the most expensive thing to do in the long run, but it's got a gigantic cost just to get started. Since the training is required - unlike almost every other hobby (aviation is a consistent exception to all of this). Aviation truly is a rich man's hobby. Even auto racing can be done cheaper. I met a girl who bought a thrashed Saturn SL for $100, put minimal money into fixing it up and raced it on our local dirt roundy-round. I think she won more on her first race than the car cost, or so she said.
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OP
J-Vo
Contributor
OP
J-Vo
Contributor
[QUOTE="...bicycling with a $79 10 speed from walmart....[/QUOTE]
The best way to ensure somebody never rides a bike is to buy this one from Wall-Mart. Would you buy a $75 regulator from wall mart? No, you would consider it a death trap. I certainly would take that Wall-Mart 10 speed down a mountain road at 60mph like I do my road bike. $1000 entry fee is the standard for pretty much all sports if you really want to participate.
The best way to ensure somebody never rides a bike is to buy this one from Wall-Mart. Would you buy a $75 regulator from wall mart? No, you would consider it a death trap. I certainly would take that Wall-Mart 10 speed down a mountain road at 60mph like I do my road bike. $1000 entry fee is the standard for pretty much all sports if you really want to participate.
Cowfish Aesthetic
Contributor
The best way to ensure somebody never rides a bike is to buy this one from Wall-Mart. Would you buy a $75 regulator from wall mart? No, you would consider it a death trap. I certainly would take that Wall-Mart 10 speed down a mountain road at 60mph like I do my road bike. $1000 entry fee is the standard for pretty much all sports if you really want to participate.[/QUOTE]
I get what you're saying. The riding you do can't be done on a cheap bike. Also, the diving that technical divers do can't be done with split fins, shorts, a 30 year old unbalanced regulator and a single al80. Again I will point out that I'm talking about the minimum entry cost for getting into a sport. The low end for scuba is out of reach of many people. Just as most divers don't map miles of unexplored deep caves, most bikers don't go down a mountain road at 60mph. Those are things only the elite in either sport does.
gawd DONT give walmart any ideas about getting into the dive business we have enough problems now !!!!!
Good post.
I think loving diving and being environmentally savvy go hand in hand.
As a diver, I am way more conscious of our oceans than non divers. My girlfriend and bestfriend are the same way. Since we all dive (he freedives) and care so much about what lives in the ocean, we do everything in our power to preserve it.
So if we get more people into our hobby, they'll take measures to protect it, just like we do! And how do you do that? Start young. There's plenty of ways to target the millennial crowd which has been covered on multiple threads, but I think the most important part is to teach your kids. Don't let them sit inside watching TV all day. Don't rely on TV to get them into diving. Take them yourselves!
My two main hobbies are snowboarding and diving. I grew up skiing with my family and being an ocean enthusiast (living in San Diego) with my family. I transitioned from surfing 5 times a week, to fishing a ton, and now I'm a die hard scuba diver. Even at 24, I snowboard every weekend in the winter and dive every weekend I'm not boarding. Well I didn't randomly get into these hobbies, my family got me into them when I was young. They made me fall in love with the snow and they pushed me to surf/fish and got me scuba certified when I was 13. They took me diving in Cancun and Cozumel when I was young. It's no coincidence that I am either snowboarding or scuba diving on my free time when my parents took me to do it so much.
I think loving diving and being environmentally savvy go hand in hand.
As a diver, I am way more conscious of our oceans than non divers. My girlfriend and bestfriend are the same way. Since we all dive (he freedives) and care so much about what lives in the ocean, we do everything in our power to preserve it.
So if we get more people into our hobby, they'll take measures to protect it, just like we do! And how do you do that? Start young. There's plenty of ways to target the millennial crowd which has been covered on multiple threads, but I think the most important part is to teach your kids. Don't let them sit inside watching TV all day. Don't rely on TV to get them into diving. Take them yourselves!
My two main hobbies are snowboarding and diving. I grew up skiing with my family and being an ocean enthusiast (living in San Diego) with my family. I transitioned from surfing 5 times a week, to fishing a ton, and now I'm a die hard scuba diver. Even at 24, I snowboard every weekend in the winter and dive every weekend I'm not boarding. Well I didn't randomly get into these hobbies, my family got me into them when I was young. They made me fall in love with the snow and they pushed me to surf/fish and got me scuba certified when I was 13. They took me diving in Cancun and Cozumel when I was young. It's no coincidence that I am either snowboarding or scuba diving on my free time when my parents took me to do it so much.
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
Well, there is another form of diving that the kids are getting into, and that is freediving. Freediving has actually exploded in popularity, especially spear fishing.
It has a relatively low entry cost. All you need is a wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, weight belt, gloves, spear gun, etc. Many times it’s some young dude that has buddies that are into it and they help him get into the sport. It’s almost 100% mentor driven. There always spare gear they can use until they can piece together some stuff. They tag along to see how it’s done and little by little they dive deeper and can stay longer.
It’s a very loose layed back lifestyle, just a bunch of buddies getting together, freediving and spearing, and cracking beers at the end of the day and cooking up fish tacos.
The girls are into it too. I attended an abalone free diving contest recently and I was amazed at how many young women were there.
They all seem to love it because of the lack of structure, or certs, or certain “rules”, etc. Maybe it’s just a California thing,
There are no certification costs.
Most of the people I see getting into it are from 18 to 40’s. They mostly seem to be the surfer, outdoor, water types. The gear can range from dirt cheap used stuff to very high end gear that can end up costing thousands. Just like any hobby, there is entry level stuff and high end elite stuff. The thing is, cheap gear can be upgraded little by little, and since there really isn’t any critical “life support” gear in the mix, cheap gear doesn’t really matter even though it may not be ideal for a pro.
Some custom spear guns can go for big bucks, but a $39 pole spear works too. A $800 custom made freediving suit is nice, but a $169 generic rear zip one piece suit works too.
The freediving world is separate from the scuba world, and interestingly, rarely do they cross over.
Look at some of the spearo websites, they are booming with participation and a lot of comeraderie. The scuba websites seemed to have stagnated or dropped off completely. I’ve seen many scuba forums dry up over a 15 year span.
It has a relatively low entry cost. All you need is a wetsuit, mask, snorkel, fins, weight belt, gloves, spear gun, etc. Many times it’s some young dude that has buddies that are into it and they help him get into the sport. It’s almost 100% mentor driven. There always spare gear they can use until they can piece together some stuff. They tag along to see how it’s done and little by little they dive deeper and can stay longer.
It’s a very loose layed back lifestyle, just a bunch of buddies getting together, freediving and spearing, and cracking beers at the end of the day and cooking up fish tacos.
The girls are into it too. I attended an abalone free diving contest recently and I was amazed at how many young women were there.
They all seem to love it because of the lack of structure, or certs, or certain “rules”, etc. Maybe it’s just a California thing,
There are no certification costs.
Most of the people I see getting into it are from 18 to 40’s. They mostly seem to be the surfer, outdoor, water types. The gear can range from dirt cheap used stuff to very high end gear that can end up costing thousands. Just like any hobby, there is entry level stuff and high end elite stuff. The thing is, cheap gear can be upgraded little by little, and since there really isn’t any critical “life support” gear in the mix, cheap gear doesn’t really matter even though it may not be ideal for a pro.
Some custom spear guns can go for big bucks, but a $39 pole spear works too. A $800 custom made freediving suit is nice, but a $169 generic rear zip one piece suit works too.
The freediving world is separate from the scuba world, and interestingly, rarely do they cross over.
Look at some of the spearo websites, they are booming with participation and a lot of comeraderie. The scuba websites seemed to have stagnated or dropped off completely. I’ve seen many scuba forums dry up over a 15 year span.
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