Records sell. But why sponsor a whole big competition, if you can have a record by sponsoring a (relatively!) small individual record attempt? Big plus: the probability to see a record happen is bigger (several attempts, if necessary / no pressure from team...)
First step, that is necessary (in my eyes): no records outside a competition (with the exception of no limits).
Really big problem: to many federations (AIDA, Free, IAFD, CMAS...). Very difficult for the media to understand who is the "real" one.
Resulting form that: Medai interest is splitted: Italy (with relatively big media interest in freediving!) is not interested in AIDA, most contries are not interested in CMAS...
Next problem: you get all the results, everybody goes home, the sponsors cheer the winners (mabe they make some ads) and 3 months later someone tells us, that there was a slight involuntary movement of the left eyebrow during about 1/100 of a second and the results have to be rewritten. There is a big need for reliable results handed out just at the end of each disciplines. Can you imagine the 100 meter final at the Olympics and at the end of the race the message: results will be available end of next sunday. Nothing is more boring for the media but old results. Even if they are the newest available.
There must be a sign. If you make it, you pass, if you don't make it, you are disqualified. Maybe that is not 100% reliable. But so aren't the decisions of a judge in about every other sport.
Then we need more, much more small competitions. These are the ones, that will make a sport growing. For that we need regulations, that allow us to organize a competition without a 6 digit budget, but still with the opportunity to see records. (no need to have about 100 cameras in every single corner and several judges flight in from the other side of the world).
Less disciplines. CW, Dynamic, static. That's it. Neither the media nor the public understands the differences between all these different disciplines. And they don't want to. With fins, without fins, with one fin (?), free immmersion, not so free immersion, constant weight, weight watchers weight, constant depht (?). Nobody can sell someting that nobody understands.
Some nice, good looking athletes (Hi Paul, at least that one shouldn't be a problem).
Individual championships. People like individual championships or real team events (like soccer, basketball and the likes). "False" team events, where only results of individuals are counted together are not interesting to watch. When the last athlete surfaces, I want to know wheter he has won or not. Don't like to do mathematics before that.
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Swissi