Opinions

When extreme sports get too extreme, will more sponsors back off?

One-time Iditasport promoter and organizer Dan Bull was always honest about his vision of how best to put an international spotlight on his 350-mile bike and ski race along the frozen Iditarod Trail from Knik to McGrath: Get someone killed.

Sure, he didn't put it quite that bluntly. He couched his thinking more in terms of how someone dying wouldn't be a bad thing in terms of "extreme sports'' marketing. It might be a good thing.

Not for the dead person, of course, but for the race. Death is the ultimate extreme. The world notices. It makes the risk of an extreme sport obvious. And people, for some reason, are entertained by other people taking risks. They're drawn to the danger like moths to light.

In a capitalist society, it should come as no surprise that there is money in this. Many outdoor product companies now promote their gear by linking it to "sponsored athletes'' or "ambassadors'' who get paid -- usually not much -- to eat, drink or wear a "brand'' while doing crazy shit.

Young people (nearly all extreme athletes are young) are being encouraged to take dangerous risks to make money for someone else. It might not be so bad if the money being made went directly to the people taking the risks, but it doesn't.

The companies sponsoring the athletes all make more money than the athletes. But one of the companies -- Clif Bar -- finally got a conscience, and it's causing a bit of a kerfuffle.

'Too uncomfortable'

"A Sponsor Steps Away From the Edge,'' the New York Times reported in a story on the front page of its Sunday sports section.

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"Clif Bar has withdrawn its sponsorship of five top professional climbers...saying the climbers take risks that make the company too uncomfortable to continue financial support,'' the story said. "It has stirred debate in the outdoors community, creating rare introspection about how much risk should be rewarded."

One of the climbers involved asked, logically enough, where one draws the line on risk. Then he blasted Clif Bar's move, saying "it shows a lack of understanding for the sport, and a lack of respect for the athletes who have helped build their brand."

Ah yes, the old "respect'' thing. I got into this once with a group of students at Alaska Pacific University, who took me to task for questioning Alyeska Resort's sponsorship of a 2008 extreme skiing event that left one man dead and another injured. Some of the students were skiers. They were strongly of the opinion it was nobody's business to tell them what risks they should or shouldn't take.

I couldn't have agreed more. Then or now.

But the issue Clif Bar raises isn't what risks people choose to take. The issue Clif Bar raises is what risks people are encouraged to take. Or, even more bluntly, what risks people will take in the name of money or fame or some combination of the two. The extreme risks that people are willing to face in pursuit of these objectives go back to before Roman gladiators fought to the death in the Coliseum.

The Romans simply took the desire for fame and fortune to the ultimate level, and people mobbed the Coliseum to watch.

We're more civilized now when it comes to actual hand-to-hand combat. The modern version of the Coliseum is cage fighting, where people simply pound on each other until one knocks the other out. All of this is, of course, going on in a country where people are in something of a tizzy about concussions in the National Football League and fretting about how children should always wear a helmet while riding a bike.

Apparently no one has figured out that what causes a "knock out'' in the cage or boxing ring is a concussion.

People have built entire careers on taking risks. Can you say Evil Kneivel? The dude was all about staging risky stunts. It enabled him to make a living doing what he enjoyed, riding motorcycles.

Keep upping the ante

The question for society, and for the businesses that fund risk sports, is just how much should be done to encourage the risk takers to keep upping the ante. There is something just a little sick about encouraging extreme athletes to go "bigger'' until someone goes so big they kill themselves.

Clif Bar should be commended for recognizing this and saying enough. Others should follow suit. Companies should find better reasons to support mountain adventures than taking the kind of risks where you die if you make one slip. Not that I'm about to stop people from taking risks. If you want to go do crazy, stupid stuff, do it.

Just don't allow yourself to be baited into it, and don't expect anyone to come save you if you screw up. There are, admittedly, fine lines here, but there are lines.

Life is a one-way street full of risk. We're all going to die, and we all take risks. I've taken my share. Millions of others will take theirs today without even thinking about it when they get in a motor vehicle.

There is money to be made in encouraging young men, and an increasing number of young women, to take risks that could lead to their deaths. Thankfully, Bull never got his wish. No one ever died in the Iditasport. And after the event faded away, only to re-emerge as the Iditarod Invitational, there was a new ethic.

Invitational organizers don't want anyone to die. They just want the toughest wilderness race in the world. There's a difference, but it's dangerously easy to overlook when people get into these things just wanting to make money or secure fame.

Death on the Iditarod Trail would have put Iditasport in the news, and little has changed in America since it was first observed that only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity. Lots of people just want to be famous. You get famous by being in the public eye.

Businesses shouldn't tempt people to their deaths with offers of helping make them famous in ways big or small. And yet businesses do. And from the reactions to Clif Bar's actions, they will continue.

Contact Craig Medred at craig@alaskadispatch.com. The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com.?

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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