ASRA - Australian Skateboard Racing Association

Tags: adelaide, bad, jayden, media, news, report

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Good Media for Adelaide:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/daredevil-longboarders-pushing-the-li...

its all the same stuff my friend. they are bored and want a story. think nothing of it

Mmm yea true

Mmmmm, not so sure. I was talking to one of the big longboard distributors today and he reckons that all the heat the bad press is bringing down on Adelaide riders has reduced sales in Adelaide significantly, this translates to not as many crew buying gear because they get busted when they ride. We are seeing the same things starting to happen in a few places around the country, the public sees bad news stories and get hyped up, they see guys sessioning in their area and call the cops, the cops have to respond to calls from Joe and Jane Public so they shut down the session.

Good news stories mean that Joe and Jane see skaters and are more likely to think of those nice skaters who were raising money for Camp Quality or the local hospital or just getting ready for the World Championships ( but getting good press about it) and are less likely to call the cops - so long as the skaters in their area are being respectful and polite.

Just the opinion of an old fart, but one who has seen this scenario played out across a number of sports/disciplines over waaaay too many years.

Jacko said:


its all the same stuff my friend. they are bored and want a story. think nothing of it

My understanding of your argument Ado: popularity leads to a backlash, so it's better not to have the popularity in the first place.

Not at all mate. Bad Press leads to a backlash, so posting film of you and your mates "dodging cars, crossing to the wrong side of the road", etc is not going to help the sport. Film if you like, send the footage to your mates, or post somewhere private, but splashing it around YouTube with your name and the names of the other riders is not going to help at all. I don't believe the mantra "that any press is good press".

Popularity is good, but actions are what people will judge us on, and the press are the quickest to judge and they tend to control public opinion.

Bugs said:

My understanding of your argument Ado: popularity leads to a backlash, so it's better not to have the popularity in the first place.

The cops must love those videos.

evidence on a plate!

You say "bad press leads to a backlash" but I'm saying that popularity inevitably leads to bad press, cos with genuine popularity there is no real capacity to control the tens (or hundreds!) of thousands of people with regards to things like posting stuff on youtube, and nor is there much capacity to control what the media does with that stuff. This isn't the luge world where's there's only a handful of people involved, and a relatively docile, compliant handful at that.

It seems remarkable that a distributor who makes $$$ out of the popularity blames that popularity for subsequently causing a drop in sales. Would he prefer he never had the high sales to begin with? 

Bernie - I imagine the cops hate those videos cos they make it harder for them to sit back and eat doughnuts. They're not interested in evidence - they can't be arsed even learning the law regarding skateboarding on the road. They prefer the quiet life to doing any work.

Bugs, you seem to have completely misunderstood me. I am not saying that popularity is in anyway bad, nor is the distributor, what I am saying is that drawing bad press is bad and for guys who are "well-known Adelaide longboarders" to be posting this stuff isn't helping.

I'm not stupid enough to think you can control what the 1000's of people post, I never said you could. What I was, and am, commenting on is the idea that any publicity is good publicity, it definitely isn't and we should be trying to reduce the impact of the easy bad news stories by trying to build relationships with the press and police in our areas to reduce the impact of these bad news stories each time they occur.

This isn't easy, it takes time and patience but when you get there it is definitely worth it. Not all cops are lazy coffee swilling, donut munching arseholes. I have met quite a few of those, but I have met an equal number of really straight up, helpful, caring officers who just don't want the job of visiting someones parents, spouse, kids, partner, whatever to tell them their loved one is in hospital, or worse. It has taken me over 12 years to build the relationship I currently have with the local police here and it hasn't been easy, but now it is comfortable to know that we are working on the same goals for this sport in this area. It won't happen overnight, but it can happen.

Bugs said:

My point is that with genuine popularity there is no real capacity to control the tens (or hundreds!) of thousands of people with regards to things like posting stuff on youtube, and nor is there much capacity to control what the media does with that stuff.

It seems remarkable that a distributor who makes $$$ out of the popularity blames that popularity for subsequently causing a drop in sales. Would he prefer he never had the high sales to begin with? 

Bernie - I imagine the cops hate those videos cos they make it harder for them to sit back and eat doughnuts. They're not interested in evidence - they can't be arsed even learning the law regarding skateboarding on the road. They prefer the quiet life to doing any work.

the main thing is that the video wasnt that bad really. its nothing short of the normal stuff thats posted, everything in the vid looked legit. they just love putting it in the media that its worse than it actually is. one day they go "ok damn theres nothing to report on today lets get the skaters again" and find the latest adelaide video and slap it with "these hooligans are at it again! look at this one shot of the guy falling and nearly killing everyone in his path!" when really he was fairly over in his lane, doing an extremely slow speed, clearly no traffic on the road and he kinda just stumbles and no harm done.
then they go on to say how they are all over the road, no control what so ever bla bla bla whatever, its just what they do no matter what. If they feel like doing a nice piece on skaters they will run this story, if they wanna do a rip-on-skaters story they run this one. Its like the circle of life, world keeps on spinning just like the wheels on the road. the story will be forgotten about by most by tomorrow guaranteed. at least average joe in adelaide is well aware of longboarding, if they like it or not is up to them, but im pretty sure they would either like it or hate it regardless what the news tells them

Jacko,

what you say is quite true, but imagine if there was a group of riders in Adelaide who had built a solid relationship with the press, so that when this story was brought to the journo he/she could contact the group and they could put the spin on it you just did, rather than the death and destruction one that is out there now.

Most folks hate it if they spot us on the road while they are driving anyway. Regardless of what media they may or may not have seen.

I dunno where you're getting info that sales in Radelaide have dropped? I'm still getting messages each and every day from stoked out kids in Radelaide wondering which board they should get and where they should ride. A few of our groms left but that was largely due to only groms being left in Radelaide (Leigh Bow and I were all gone) and with no one to punch them into line, Anarchy began. That is all good now.

I think, if there is a drop in sales in Radelaide it is because all of the shity surf shops are starting to realise that DAily Grind has such a strong following and mad reputation in Radelaide that it is not worth their time to compete and there fore less shops are ordering longboard equipment. Meanwhile, the Radelaide scene still kicks ass. 

this argument always tends to pop up whenever anything downhill is posted in the media and how much of it has stuck? remember the tunnel skating incident? hardly. remember a bad media report form 2 years ago? no way and we're activly apart of the scene. How long do you think the average joe holds onto a media report memory?

Don't forget that at our roots we're skaters. .

Lets put it in perspective .. for the most part street skating is illegal in the USA.... and there is 15 million skaters...

the most extreme case, where it has been outlawed and the sport still flourishes. to blame sales purely on the basis of a bad media report in a city is not thought out. A kid sees a wicked sport on a negative news report and thinks "that's not something i want to do" heck no, they see it as a wicked sport

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