Why Aren't There Scuba Celebrities?

[Vegan Shark]

Every sport has pros that represent the pinnacle of their sport, and something for practitioners to admire and strive towards. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Federer, etc. Even more fringe sports like wing suit, base jumping, climbing, badminton, whatever, have sponsored athletes that people admire and want to be like.

So what's different about scuba? Sure, there are a handful of famous divers who pioneered fields like cave diving, but nothing remotely similar to other sports. You don't have videos with millions of views on youtube, with amateurs going, "Wow, look how good his finning and buoyancy are!"

Is it because scuba isn't really a sport, in that there is no clear gauge of skill? Because the majority of divers aren't interested in the skill aspect of it, and just the pretty fish?

 

[TMHeimer]

I think you answered your question. IMHO I agree scuba is not a sport. One aspect of a sport is competition, or the possibility of it--ei. bicycling, skiing and a number of other sports can be done non-competitively, but also competitively. There are no heroes in scuba, no TV, etc. The only competitors are maybe the half dozen who try to set new depth levels. Freediving is a sport, as is swimming. How would one seriously get the public to care about a diver who used extreme skill to go a zillion miles into a cave and survive?

 

[NAM001]

How about no one pays someone to dive/ pays to watch someone diving. Like they pay someone to hit a ball in a hole or hang from a net, or spike the baby. We certainly have our celeb's However thier acomplishments are not felt necessary to shove in everyone's face. I would say Jill Henreth (most probably spelled wrong). Tom Mount, I would also speculate the celebs in our sport are not people as much as it is equipment and specific acomplishments. Certainly NET DOC should be on the list. However I think scubaboard website would rank higher as most will know SB and not have a clue who Net Doc is. Once again the accomplishment and not the person.

 

[pucenavel]

Uh...

Cousteau?

So.... We have one....

one.

 

[Vegan Shark]

I think you answered your question. IMHO I agree scuba is not a sport. One aspect of a sport is competition, or the possibility of it--ei. bicycling, skiing and a number of other sports can be done non-competitively, but also competitively. There are no heroes in scuba, no TV, etc. The only competitors are maybe the half dozen who try to set new depth levels. Freediving is a sport, as is swimming. How would one seriously get the public to care about a diver who used extreme skill to go a zillion miles into a cave and survive?

People care about climbers scaling hard routes, even though it's not in a competition format. As long as there's some clear display of skill, audiences are impressed. Maybe the issue is skills are not so clear cut in scuba.

 

[TSandM]

I think that there are celebrities in specific niches. There are certainly very well-known and admired photographers, like Stan Waterman and Marty Snyderman and Norbert Wu. There are deep divers, like Sheck Exley, and record-setters like Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinlay. There are female pioneers like Sylvia Earle. But unless you have an interest in one of those niches, you won't even find out about those people. I wonder if it is because the majority of divers don't aspire to big, deep, hairy diving . . . and it's hard to make much of a celebrity out of a fish nerd

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Uh...Tiger Woods is a tech diver.

James Cameron...

Lauren Hutton, Lloyd Bridges, Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Sandra Bullock, Nikki Taylor, Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, David Crosby, Kevin Costner, Kathleen Turner, Penelope Cruz and Bill Gates among others.

 

[Vegan Shark]

Not talking about celebs who are divers, but divers who are celebs

 

[dmoore19]

As has been said, if your interests are Scuba Diving or one of the many niches within the sport, there are many celebrities. You can mention rock climbers or sky divers or any other specialty sports. Personally, if someone mentioned some big hairy snow skier I might have heard the name but probably not, I would have no idea if someone was a celebrity rock climber or a celebrity sky diver. They may well be a celebrity within that group otherwise, never heard of em.

 

[muzikbiz22]

Wyland, any Cousteau family member, Andy Casagrande, David Doubilet, Sylvia Earle, Scott Cassell.