Dan Foley has been doing a lot of interesting things over on his Youtube channel with a steady flow of riding videos lately. Dan has also taken some time to do a few pieces that will get you thinking as well. This time around Dan gives his perspective on Why People Hate Action Sports, using the recent dispute the Nitro Circus ran into in Maryland when they wanted to take a show back to where Travis Pastrana grew up. On top of that, Dan gives a TON of really great examples of just why action sports are really beneficial and not what most outsiders might see. Dan is a perfect example of a person who rides BMX, but because of that he has also become a super talented film maker, had the opportunity to travel the world, experience a lot of things many people wouldn’t have the chance and more!
One thing to consider, from our perspective, is that “Action Sports” are still young sports in comparison to other well established sports like Baseball, Football, Soccer and more that are more mainstream and easier for people to understand. But slowly, we’ve seen it become more and more understood and have fewer negative connotations that it used to come with. Just referring to it as “Action Sports” sounds more professional than “Extreme Sports”, and that’s a small thing that can have a bigger impact on the visualization of just what it is we do than most might think.
Unfortunately, we do still have a long way to go with these sports and it’s hard to get away from some of the images that have been created like “stoners” and criminals that only destroy property and more. It’s hard for people to see it in a professional light from the outside when it’s painted as a criminal activity, but there has been a lot of changes that have taken place to make it more “acceptable”, like a huge influx of the number of public skateparks. Understandably, a lot of riders don’t want BMX to be acceptable because they’re against the mainstream style of sports, but it’s not like that. Having action sports given a better reputation only helps us grow this sport of ours beyond this niche, making it so more people can ultimately turn riding BMX into a career or just seeing many more riders pick up bikes or whatever it is they might be into.
Either way, we’re bound to see BMX and Action Sports in general keep growing and with that, it will become more acceptable and that will only help make things better for riders. That’s our two cents.
