Well, there's plenty of other shows out there to win, but the money just ain't all that worth it. 10 grand a pop for the majority of shows?...less the O and the Arnold?
I don't mind if the top guys only compete once a year. BBers know that to be your BEST you can (and should) only peak once a year.
You've got guys like Silvio who do it more often, and WIN...but there's a limit to their victories...yet a lesson is to be learned. Guys who will never win the O (ie Silvio) SHOULD compete often at the smaller shows, if only to build a solid career for the short while it lasts...leave the O for the guys who win the TOP shows instead of giving top fives entrance into the so-called "superbowl of bodybuilding".
Marketingwise, who cares. Joe Public don't care about bodybuilding, so really the industry should do what Bob Chick has been saying for a while now: CATER to the fanbase that already exists and find new ways to keep us friggin' happy!
LIKE changing the damn judging standards. Value aesthetics over freakish mass, but only to a degree. Good mass monster?...Ronnie circa 2001 (and personally, his 2003 "HOLY FUCK WHAT IS THAT!?!?") look SHOULD beat out a Phil Heath or even Shawn Ray, but if you DON'T have a guy like Coleman, then don't hand us the Great White Refrigerator Cutler and expect us to be pleased....he's the complete WRONG way a 'mass monster' should look.
Change the judging standards and watch things change...to a degree.
Ultimately, people are just too smart overall to even consider taking the amount of drugs to look like these to 'be succesful' in this 'sport'.
Look at it like this: the PORN industry. There ain't gonna be no more Jenna Jamesons legend type chicks...they're isn't anywhere else to go, the best have already been there, done that..literally. Sure, some young sluts out there might wanna make some easy money and get banged on the internet, but really, why 'would' they? Same as pro bodybuilding. The underlying question is, unless you really have a 'love' for it, why would you take the risk?
Only those who truly have NO other options...the fact that a guy like Phil Heath even exists in the IFBB today is astounding. But perhaps he too realizes that without bodybuilding, he's just another guy with a good physique for the beach.
There's no money, no prestige, your health suffers and the general public, well...they could NOT CARE LESS.
Even Schwarzennegger is looked at by most young people as an old dinosaur!
....it's pessimistic, but it's been said time and time again. It's a niche activity that should be lucky for anything it gets. Expanding?...please.
One way that could work is a tv show much in the way that UFC Ultimate Fighter went....OH , but that's right, you can't do that because you'd have to talk about steroids and that's illegal, remember. Too bad, it would be a GREAT show.
