Wakeboard & Waterski Magazine UK

[interfearence]

Now you do sound like you work for them!

[El Bastardos]

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Seeing the start of a new extreme sport mag reminds me of watching the progression of RAD (skate mag in the early 80's). First few issues were a bit thin on articles but it got bigger and better as time went on.

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Now there was a Magazine, do you remember Skateboard too mind you it was Sev's

[interfearence]

OK, maybe I'm being a bit hard but...
I used to contribute to RAD, later Sidewalk, Snowboard UK, White lines, Ride and have published my own national mag...
About four years ago I tried to set up a UK Wakeboard mag, I had writers (pros of the time), photographers (both here and in the states) experience and a plan!
Nobody wanted to know... whats Wakeboarding? Advertise? Not a chance. Backing of UK Distributors... sorry we do'nt make enough money to help!
(and we don't really give a toss about the sport, just making the money..)

I know why I'm a bit hard, I KNOW I could have done it better, that why.
I feel the sport is getting short changed, again.

[El Bastardos]

Sorry to hear about what happened. My friend was the Editor of Snowboard UK and he had all sorts of dist. problems and you're right about Advertisers.

The market is soooo small in the UK that it is hardly worth bothering unless you have the backing of a bigger organisation to support the mag through the first 2 years.

It's good that people try, and there have been many in the past. I even made the cover of Waterski Illustrated back in 1996.

Trying to keep it non cheesey is difficult when most of the waterski fraternity are very conservative, (you want to try being an official of the BWSF)

[northernmonkey]

Ok so the first issue was kind of ok but then we ended up with the whirlybird feature at the end of issue 2 containing skiers.
the mag would get alot more respect from everyone if there was no waterskiing in it it would get just as many people buying it as the skiers will just wait for free handouts from the bwsf like the federation mag which is naff! the skier element will never actually buy a mag - hell they dont even buy board shorts except for the ones who have extortionet grants from the sports council-sorry 'bout that but it gets on my nerves!

anyway more riders would contribute if the ski element was absent it would be our mag not just another watersports mag, plus only let riders write the editorial about tour stops and other competitions cos the editorial team just sound like they normally write for a golf magazine.

* Note: edited by moderator to remove offensive term, sorry but we have to do it ops:

[leithal]

At least the magazine has stimulated some discussion!

I would agree that these things need the interested people to contribute to them. Perhaps we should all write to them with our opinions!

But this forum and website fulfills that side of things quite well and almost removes the need for a magazine other than just to fill space in WHSmith shelves.

From a personal (beginners) perspective the most useful thing to publish would be individual reviews of ski/board clubs and lakes. I have a choice of places to ride (around Manchester) but can't really decide which are better without going to each of them individually.

At the end of the day a well supported sport should grow regardless of the quality of the publications, its driven by the enthusiasm of the people actually doing it.

Leith