Wow, there are some pretty blind opinions here.
First I will address Pesca, because you so completely have your head in the sand on this. Your main complaint about an increase of exposure for Newschool skiing would be that there would be "far too many new skiers in MY park"... obviously you were completely oblivious that parks were only a symptom of the massive influx of snowboarders.. in fact most ski hills designated them "snowboard parks" and did not allow skiers in.
So exposure of a sport is what GAVE you that park in the first place... Exposure of the sport you will do will only serve to make investment into that park even more profitable to the Ski Hill.. which in turn means you will likely see better rails, better pipes, better hits.. and maybe even a dedicated high speed lift... all so YOU can spin your threes, sevens and try for a grab like you were when you were young.
Now for the second thing I am going to address.. the pay that Newschool skiers make..
What amazes me is that some of you seem to think that these kids make good money. Tanner is well off because like many others on good advice, he invested early what money he did make in Real Estate.
In ANY other job.. I mean ANY, if you were asked to take the risks these kids are EXPECTED to take for the money they make you would laugh at the person and tell them to take a hike... you would find a different job. I make what most of these kids make working in an unrelated feild, my work can on occasion pose a high risk for injury or death (as these kids face regularly.. look at CR ).. when this happens in my case.. I will get paid many times what I normally would.
Well you are probably saying that this is not sports.. and in sports its part of of.. well you are right..
But in every other mainstream sport, atheletes get very tidy and clean contracts that guarantee them substantial wages if they get injured during work.
Ask yourself, how much is your ability to walk and speak worth to you?
Mainsteaming of this sport will undoubtedly bring an increase in the salary potential for the top players. I have seen it happen in a sport I am very very familar with.. BMX.
I can assure you that Tanner Hall and all his compatriots come nowhere near what Nyquist or Mirra make.
But they should.. They should be able to invest the time and energy they do, take the risks they do.. and know that even if they have a career ending injury by 24, they will have made a lifetime of money.
Remember, if you hurt yourself an permanently disable yourself at work, you will be compensated for the rest of your life..
for these kids, their only compensation is the money they make until that point.
Now the last thing I am going to touch on..
Regulation.
Regulation of the sport will be the most drastic change that will occur after this sport sees the olympics.
But the changes will not be what you think, sure there will be official limitations on equipment, as there is now on race skis.. but no-one can convince me that Bode's skis are not the most state of the art, advanced skis on the planet..
These limitations only force engineers to work harder on improvements. But in truth that will not really affect you, the average everyday park skier..
However, there will be something that will drastically affect you, the regulations on park/pipe.
That would mean that more and more hills would adopt a standard for their pipes, imagine every place you go to, the pipe would be the ideal dimensions, ideal transition, ideal lenght and ideal slope.
That is where you will see regulations taking effect.
Yes, I won't discount that it will change our type of skiing from it's current form, and some of those changes will not be agreeable, but change is how this all started, why would you want to stop it now?
Can you honestly say that regulation of the other aspects of skiing has drastically hurt skiing in general?
If so, please ditch your park skis, put on some skins and tour out of the damn resort.