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Bodybuilding seems to be dying a slow death. I can remember waaaayy back in the day (2002), when the Night of Champions would sell out the Beacon Theatre. 2600 seats, prejudging and finals. Somewhere between 35 - 45 competitors. Big show, real nice venue, lots of guys competing, lotsa' fans, Manhattan's the best city on the planet, etc. This year's New York Pro: 800 fans in a small theatre that wasn't sold out, 19 competitors. Manhattan is still awesome, but.. the New York Pro just ain't the Night of Champions. Sorry. Sad to see. I can remember waaayyy back in the day (2000 - 2003, if memory serves), when the Cal (California State Championships) would have 180 - 200 competitors. This year? 90.
Way back in the day, in the mid to late 90's, bodybuilding had a TV presence. Now, this was in the media stone age when regular old cable television only had 50-100 channels. Every year on ESPN, you could watch the Olympia, the Arnold, the Nationals, the USA. "American Muscle Magazine" was on ESPN every month. Rick Valente was hosting "Body Shaping". They had a show called the "Flex Magazine Workout", hosted by Boyer Coe and a variety of top pro's and top amateur guest hosts. Lee Haney had his training show that was on at 6:00 a.m. Bodybuilding had a real PRESENCE on TV. NOW? Now, there's a 1000 channels if you have Direct TV. 1000 CHANNELS. And bodybuilding is on.. drumroll please... none of them. No where, nada, zilch, zippo, ZERO. I see everything else on TV at night. Any week I can find poker, ping pong, badminton, X-games sports like extreme snowmobile riding, surfing, snowboarding, motocross, something where you high jump a motorcycle over a bar, and OF COURSE.. THE HOT DOG EATING CHAMPIONSHIPS. I can find a million makeover shows where they makeover a house, a car, some plain jane chick. I can find cooking shows, cooking realty shows, cooking contests where this Iron Chef and this Hell's Kitchen guy go head to head in a battle over who can fillet his mom's nut sack the fastest, and 100 more realty shows where they do anything and everything. Everything except bodybuilding, that is. Ummmm.. I hate to say bodybuilding has issues, but, the Hot Dog Eating World Championships gets on TV every year, and bodybuilding gets bubkus Where's bodybuilding going to be in another 5 years if this downward trend continues?
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