The internet and message boards COULD have been a huge help to bodybuilding, but it has had the opposite effect. Why? Most come on these sites just to get a rise , stay in the shadows and never do anything constructive for our sport.
You know - I tend to agree with you there, which is why I wrote some new guidelines on the main boards to start working on making bodybuilding more positive for all. People who don't like the industry so go away.
Magazine sales are down and I doubt the internet has helped supplement companies much.
I know I haven't spent a penny on tickets, magazines, videos for at least the past 5 years yet i'm more up to date than i've ever been.
Now this is a serious issues. Magazine sales are down for all - for entertainment, sports, news, niche mags - because the Internet, in the last 7 years lets you find information, news, pictures and more faster than the magazine. How does Time Magazine give us the news when you can get it right away on the Internet, on television.... same with entertainment magazines... and with bodybuilding magazines. What can they do to make people buy them.
The answer is to give us the stories that we can't get online right away. Interviews, training pictures, photo shoots, more on the expo, training articles, etc.
Less dollars coming in (mags/tickets) must be making it harder and harder for them to spend it on the shows and athletes... I guess my point is that back in the 80-90's weider were earning big dollars from supplements, magazines and healthy ticket sales and that some
Well - it was different then. In 1993, there were no bar companies nor very many supplement companies. Steel Bar, Powerbar were the first bars. Balance Bars, Clif Bars came later. Now you have many different bars by many different companies. Same with the supplement industry. Before Met-Rx came along (when Milos was selling it from his trunk), there where very few. Twinlabs, Weider, etc. Then in the 1990's, you had an explosion of companies (EAS, Labrada and so one) until there were 100's of them. Then in the 2000's, mainstream started to buy some out (EAS, Pure Protein, Metrx, etc), and putting them in mainstream markets, dilluting the health stores, etc. Many supplement companies sponsored athletes, and still do. But everybody now looks at their ROI.
as a result, people don't need to go to shows, go to seminars, buy magazines, buy books, buy webcasts or pay per views, buy dvds, or even spend money on most supplements to get the information and images that such purchases normally provide. seven methods of revenue that the internet may be wiping out.
This is the worst of it. Somehow, there should be a way where the fans of bodybuilding should come to the shows and expos and go over things, like many other sports or industries do. I do not understand how one can criticize, yet never go to a show or expo. There is absolutely ZERO reason why you can't go to one of them. Zero.
Hopefully, we can start working on that.
