Sports, Marketing Mix May Not Be So Extreme

Rhode Island and the world watched for a week as athletes challenged one another in nine death-defying, non-traditional sports.

Skysurfers spiraled through the air at 10,000 feet; bungee jumpers rode kayaks, bicycles and other contraptions off the 160-foot platform above Waterplace Park; BMX bikers somersaulted over 6-foot mounds of dirt; and street lugers careened down College Hill.

But was ESPN’s multimillion-dollar Extreme Games showcase a steppingstone to a new dimension in sports or an exercise in futility?

Sociologist Allen Sack is among those who are betting that extreme sports - boosted by ‘90s marketing, technology and the media - will gain popularity.

“The role of media has changed the extreme sports,” said Sack, a professor and manager of the sports industries program at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. “The Extreme Games are putting these sports in a context.”

Sack sees sports such as skysurfing as “the ultimate pairing of media and sport. The actual score is based on a combination of what the person does when they jump out of the plane and how well the other jumper has photographed it.”

The marketing world has worked hand-in-hand with the media to promote extreme sports with ever-growing technology pushing them along. Walter Brown hoped to capitalize on those possibilities when he started an extreme-and-adventure sports company in San Diego 15 months ago.

“I noticed many companies using extreme sports to market almost everything,” said Brown, of Outlook International. “You could sell something like insurance by listing all of the reasons why you need it. But if you show a guy going off a cliff in a kayak, suddenly it becomes eye-catching. We’re using fewer words and more visual. Generation X obviously likes it, and Baby Boomers are not aging as quickly these days, so it appeals to them as well.”

Sack said the media, in turn, have tapped into extreme sports, which are highly commercialized and technologically enhanced. “Today you need time and an expendable income to catch the incredible wave,” said Sack.

For example, he said, when he first started rock climbing years ago, he used only a rope and a carabiner - for securing the rope. After a few years away from the sport, he went out again.

The other climbers, he said, “were staring at me like I was a prehistoric human. They were looking at my equipment, saying, ‘You actually climb with that stuff?’ There’s been a change in marketing and promotion within all kinds of sports. Now they have special clothing and special magazines. They’ve become subcultures that create a feeling of meaning and belonging. There’s something cool about that.”

Jack Wienert, executive director of the Extreme Games, said that Ron Semiao, program director of ESPN2, watched many of the competitions. “He had the vision to bring these sports under one umbrella and ESPN bought into it. If we do it correctly, there are lots of opportunities for future events,” Weinert said.

“A lot of people questioned us when we wanted to televise the NFL draft, but it’s become a franchise for us now,” said Semiao. “We got a few chuckles over televising the America’s Cup, and people said that showing auto racing from flag to flag would be like watching traffic. People even asked why there should be a 24-hour sports network, but now we have two of them. We like to be aggressive and take some risks. The original idea for the Extreme Games came from the fact that extreme sports are emerging.”

And the world caught on. The Extreme Games’ press center received more than 500 requests for media credentials. The sports network broadcast close to 70 hours of the games on ESPN and ESPN2 to 130 countries.

ESPN’s goal, said Rich Feinberg, the coordinating producer, was to “expose the extreme sports and set a standard for years to come. We didn’t want to show them as three-minute rock videos. We intend to change the exposure, knowledge and perception of these sports and let the pictures tell the story.”

Will events such as kiteskiing, bungee jumping and skateboarding endure the test of time?

“I define sport as an institutionalized game with a widely accepted governing body,” said Sack, of the University of New Haven. “It takes time for them to emerge and spread. Whether these extreme sports hang on over time depends on how well they dovetail with the larger social context. Some will catch on and fit into contemporary society and some will die out.”

Sunday, ESPN announced it will hold another Extreme Games in ‘96, with a location to be announced.