Should we still have organised record attempts ?

[donmoore]

When I became interested in freediving I did Internet searches on Tanya Streeter, because I knew she was a freediver. In these searches I read several interviews. In almost ever interview I read, she said that CB was the most respected discipline among freedivers, even if they were interviewing her on a no-limits or variable attempt. Well, if CB was the most respected discipline, of course I wanted to know more about it so I studied and learn.

I don’t think record attempts of no-limits and variable take away from the sport . We are lucky to have divers like Tanya in this sport. We all need to support each other.
don

 

[Erik]

?

I think that there is another question.....who cares if the sport is promoted? I don't itend to make a living from it and will continue to dive whether there is a Federation of Frantic Freedivers or Sponsors of Special Superhuman Sports or not.
Why is it that there is a drive to get Media and Marlboro behind us as far as competition goes?
On the other hand, people in the 'living' (or survival as Mr. Streeter says) and business end of the sport are the ones that bust their asses to get sponsors so as to be able to do the attempts and pay the bills. These people deserve the sponsorship for 2 reasons which no amount of whining or complaining will change:
1) Those in the business of freediving work extremely hard to get the sponsorship......
Who are we to say that they aren't justified in their line of work or deserve the rewards? Where is it stated that a man/woman must be altruistic about their work and means of living? BullS#@t.
There is much more benefit to the sport by these attempts than we may be willing to believe.

2) Sponsors invest money based on the perceived return on investment.
Who are we to tell a sponsor that he should sink 'X' dollars into this as opposed to that if his returns don't come back with extra change? We can't and we wont, I assure you!

I'm open to suggestion and abuse amigos,
Cheers,
Erik Y.

 

[ADR]

There is a big difference between saying it would be great if Paul would share some of Tanya's limelight with the broader freediving community and suggesting that he is some how obliged to do it. It is their blood, sweat and tears and not ours! And therefore it is their success not ours.

I personally would be really impressed if the Streeters made benefiting the freediving community a greater focus but let's not pretend for one minute that they don't do it at all (THEY DO) or that they are obliged to share it ALL simply because they use the term freediver.

Andy
Andy

 

[Kars]

Sebastian Murrat of Australia is about to try for the 200m NL, he hopes to put the NL 'madness' out of reach of anyone for a long time, if not forever.

And what do we have left to ask the worlds media attention for when the last depth record is established?

Do we need this attention?
Can we be without?
Do we want this attention?
Do we want attract people who want just to say I'm better than you?

I know competition requiers a lot of money, and this will keep on growing for some years to come as new safety standards devellop and divers reach new dark depths.

I already received many unbeliveble faces for my modest PR's, people see it already as superhuman, and extreemly dangerous.
Would it not be nice if the people realised they all poses these aquatic abilities and find it interesting to discover their own?
Nowaday's I do not tell people about the numbers, but about the feelings, the numbers scare people off.

I'm not sure I'm still on the subject

Carlos

 

[Mr. Streeter]

ADR,

Do you not think that any freedivers whether it be Tanya, Umberto, Sebastian, Mandy or whoever who have success at a competition or record attempt that brings sponsors and media benefits the sport as a whole. I beleive that it does. So any success is good for freediving.

Also I do not write for "The Streeters" I write for myself. Tanya has her very own and very capable voice.

 

[Mr. Streeter]

PS.

I do not think that 200m will stop people pushing deeper. And that number would be broken relatively soon after.

 

[ADR]

Paul(not Tanya)

Pal, if that is a way to respond to someone who was actually "on your side" in this discussion you have an interesting way of interacting.

.....I suggest you read my post again!

Andy

 

[ADR]

I like the party analogy and would like to explore it a little more. For those that didn't see it GlenV wrote:

"Just compare it with the party scene (something completely different of course). How do you get lots of people in your club where you have some local non famous DJ's playing. : Invite a big famous DJ . He will bring with him the media attention and the c rowds, which means more money for the organisation."

I think that this is absolutely correct, so the question then arises….How do you entice the high profile DJ? If we look at it that way then the obligation is on the freediving community to make it attractive to Tanya and maybe Paul to attend and in doing so it benefits everyone. This is very different from expecting Tanya and Paul to put themselves out there for the benefit of the sport regardless of the benefit or lack of it to them

regards

Andy

 

[Scuby]

Fascinating thread. Mr Streeter, I am entirely impressed by your dedication to promotion of Tanya – as you say, you did take a huge risk to pursue this, you are clearly devoted to her and are doing an excellent job of making the name synonymous with freediving. She is totally awesome. But don’t dress it up as something it’s not – this is about you promoting your partner and her world class abilities, her excellence in her chosen sport and not about the sport itself. It’s about how Tanya can do it better, longer, deeper and more safely than anyone. Any publicity fall out the sport receives is, to be fair, incidental rather than intentional.
As a publicist I think you’re doing a superb job, although I don’t agree with your methods. I’m afraid you lost me after I read an article in which it was made clear you had shown the journalist video footage of Audrey Mestre’s death – the journalist said that Tanya went upstairs to make coffee because she couldn’t bear to watch. I wondered how you’d feel if the boot was on the other foot, if Tanya had been killed and Pippin was freely showing footage of it to some hack to make a point?

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Paul,

Incidentally - Habitat (which, for those of you that don't know, Tanya designed some Champagne glasses for) have advertising campaigns on buses around London. I'm still waiting for the Tanya one to appear and will forward a photo if I see it.

 

[naiad]

Originally posted by Stephan Whelan
Habitat (which, for those of you that don't know, Tanya designed some Champagne glasses for) have advertising campaigns on buses around London.

I'll look out for them!

 

[Mr. Streeter]

Hi Scuby,

THanks for your comments and I agree in part. Yes I do this to promote Tanya but I believe that the sport gets promoted as a biproduct.

As for the article you read, (I am not sure which one it was ) , but as a publicist you should know that you can never believe what you read in the newspapers. We don't drink coffee.

Stephen,

Thanks for looking out for the Habitat promotions it's very exciting to be involved and the product is pretty cool. Should be lots of media off the back of it.

Also this thread was supposed to be about "should we have record attempts" so maybe we can get back on it.

 

[neshamah]

hi

Hi Mr. Streeter

As for the comment about stress, imagine being on the back of a boat ready to go to 160m, having a BETA video camera in front of you, to the side of you and behind you all within 4 feet of your face. A sound boom is just over your head, Director, producer etc just feet away, plus members of the press watching, which have flown in specifically for the event. Your sponsors are 20 feet away in another boat along with hundreds of spectators, all clicking there cameras to get a good shot. 6 months work all for one dive and tell me thats not a lot of stress!
_________


Yes that's truth but tell Tanya to post here at deeperblue sometime- It will

not stress her

saludos

Daniel

 

[rubberpag]

joefox:
i didn't understand your statement about genoni & co., could you explain what you mean exactly?

cheers.

 

[joefox]

Rubberpag: Mr Streeter can correct me if I'm wrong (I don't organize record attempts).

When you organize a record attempt you need to set up a pretty big organization. Of course, this is going to bring you a bunch of bills, that's why you need to get money from sponsors to pay those bills. When it's time to ask for money, you need to have something to give back to the sponsor = media.... and nothing else.

Hope this is clear.

Joefox

 

[rubberpag]

hi joefox,

well that much was clear, i just don't see the connection with carrera. i don' t know much about the other two you mentioned, but saying that carrera is interested in the sponsor's money for his personal interest and greed of fame and glory, and that he knows that "media ratify records better than any organization" seems completely out of place to me.

if you are referring to his free immersion record attempt, than maybe i'm not much informed, but i was reading on your own website that in the 2001 he did 91, taking away stepanek world record? was that not official?
and, on apneamagazine again, i read his letter, presented by balbi, who is writing about his modesty and purity,and the fact that he never went to competitions because of policies and commercial reasons.

am i missing something?

cheers,

rubberpag

 

[Mr. Streeter]

Joefox,

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. It normally takes me 4-5 months to set up the logistics for a record attempt. The bigger amount of time being spent on getting international media coverage. It takes a great deal of money to fund an attempt and while we have good sponsors they rairly put any money into an attempt, so we have to find event sponsors. The first question they ask and always ask, is what media coverage we expect to get. The best coverage is from TV, and international TV is of course the best. If we can attract international TV then we can attract large international companies as event sponsors. Trust me this whole media thing is not easy, and in fact I think its the hardest part of organisning an attempt. In the early part of Tanya's career we invested a great deal of our own money into the attempts but thankfully, we do have the luxury being able to break even on funding an event. Also, I would like to point out that there is not a great deal of money in the budgets of corporations to give to freediving so we have to organise the media much better in the future. I have touched on this before but to have an event be successful (apart from the safety and competition) there needs to be media coverage. I make it very easy for media, they have access, images, footage, sometimes flights and accomodation can be provided, in short spoon feeding them. Thats the way they unfortunately need to be treated if you want to get good international coverage.

 

[joefox]

@Rubberpag

"well that much was clear, i just don't see the connection with carrera. i don' t know much about the other two you mentioned, but saying that carrera is interested in the sponsor's money for his personal interest and greed of fame and glory, and that he knows that "media ratify records better than any organization" seems completely out of place to me".

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I didn't say Carrera and the others are interested in sponsor's money, I said they need it to make an attempt.
What they don't need is a ratification provided by one of the existing organizations, because ratification costs money and sometimes it brings new undesidered problems (think about Coste, Mifsud, Briseno etc etc).

When Davide set the FI record he didn't want AIDA or FIPSAS judges.... Davide dives for himself, he doesn't care about politics and organizations...and doesn't need them. Same story for the others I mentioned. Even Tanya doens't need AIDA.

Mr Streeter: I can imagine how hard it is to organize a major event like Tanya's. You must be really goot at this job, Tanya is the most famous freediver and always attracts media and sponsors, even if I remember you saying that you managed to break even 3 times on 9 (correct?).
But this in my opinion has nothing to deal with sport, with all the respect I consider it show business.

I have my ideas regarding how freediving can get media attention and attract more sponsors, I believe the answer is competitive freediving. When I say competitions I mean Olympic Movement and all the money in its orbit.

Ok, I undestand this may sound bad

Joefox

 

[Mr. Streeter]

Joefox,

You may well be right and I to would like to see more sponsors involved iwth competitions, but the question is how??? A lot of people on this forum want this to happen but I have not seen any suggestions as to how we make it happen? Anyone got any ideas????