Hello to everyone:
I´m 38 years old, and I windsurfed (racing and fun) for 16 years before I start kitting, 4 years ago.
I realised that the sport industry will kill the sport with his consistent cost increases.
When I start windsurfing in 1988, the cost of a the whole windsurfing equipment was about U$ 500.- The beaches were crowded of windsurfers because the sport was fun and accesible. But with the competitions and the introduction of the windsurfing as olympic class, the materials evolve and the cost rises beyond reasonable limits. So the windsurfers stopped windsurfing and newbies were fewer and fewer.
Now, the same thing is happening to kitesurfing. As the competition in and out the water grows between kitesurfing companies, the prices goes high, and high, and te easy buying is dissapearing, and so will be with the fans.
I think we have to discuss this matter in order to avoid the kitesurfing to stop growing, and start to dissapeared as it happened to our "cousing´s" sport.
Thank you all for the opportunity, and sorry about my english!
Santiago Weisburd, (Rosario, Argentina).

Have you looked at what a full suspension mountain bike costs now?.. holy crap!!!!!
Every issue of Bike magazine that comes to my house, just confirms that I will keep riding my old GT I-Drive.
A round of golf is through the roof, the cost of clubs is ridiculous.
Snowboarding lift tickets are expensive.
So it's not just happening in kiting.
I'm gonna start playing basketball and soccer and poker and swimming and hiking.

SWEET, I'm all for NO growth. Spots are crowded enough. Love it when there's only 3 or 4 people the beach. Don't care what happens to "the sport" I'll do this till my body gives out... I'll continue to demo everything I can,then buy used gear, closeouts, switch kites, build my own boards, and fins, resew and repair my kites. .....let the suckers pay retail,

Oldnbroke: I think we cannot compare to bike sports or golf because they are massive sports that have been practising so many years and with millions of fans allover the world.
What is more, you have expensive bikes, or cheap ones, so you can practise them at reasonable prices.
On the contrary, in kiteboarding, there is no a single new kite that cost less than U$1600 and rising.
So, I think with all respect, we have to do something, to avoid market kills slowly the sport.
Thank you for your post !
SW

+1

Why would you want more people kiting unless youre making money off it ? But hey, i'm a selfish bastard. I used to enjoy surfing when you didn't have to fight for a crappy wave.

I thought it was kiteboarding that's killing windsurfing
I mean it killed it for you 4yrs ago, killed it for me 5yrs ago and counting, killed it for countless others I'm sure, killed it for the olympics too. Yeah I'd say kitesurfing is to blame

If you hold the two sports up for youngsters to see for the first time I bet they all pick kitesurfing... just a hunch though.

I'm in the bah humbug category - less people on the water more fun. That said last time I looked there are still loads of people taking up the sport. The manufacturers are not stupid they know what they can sell the gear for and people are paying it.....

Bear in mind that your assertion that competition is driving prices UP doesnt comply with the laws of economics. What drives prices up is suppliers behaving as a cartel to protect higher prices and margins, and there certainly appears to be some evidence of that. Practically none of them appear to compete on price - 50% of kite mages are made up of ads and almost none refer to price.

I suspect there is a major opportunity for one supplier to break ranks and capture considerable market share on being less expensive than the rest. It makes sense as most of the purchases are by the large number of newbies coming into the sport who will try and minimise their spend until they are sure it is for them.

It is a matter of time before one of the manufacturers does a solo run and it will be interesting to see how the others react.

500 dollars against inflation is probably about 1200 dollars today. So inflation explains at least part of that.

Secondly competition is good. It leads to decreased margins for kiting companies and this should lead to fewer companies in the long run as the industry is less profitable. What I think we are seeing is a complete lack of competition between kite companies. In soft drinks we have Pepsi and coke? Why are there at least 30 companies making kites? It's an inefficient specialist niche industry that's why. When Nike or someone like that gets involved then we will start to see real competition.

I don't think kiting companies are super profitable. The CEO of one major kiting company that I met didn't seem to think so.

Finally, windsurfing and mountain biking have grown up a lot since you guys began. Nobody would have thought to use the super expensive light weight material that they use now. But their consumers have also grown up. If you're 40 and can't afford to spend a few grand on your sports hobby then you should probably work more. If you can't afford the latest equipment, I'm sure that you can sill get that same 1980s stuff for cheap, or even free, out of someone's garage. So actually, this is deflationary. So if you wanna be a cranky old grandpa simpson wishing that things were how they were, then just go ahead and buy that old equipment off somebody for next to nothing.

I for one though would much rather pay 1500 dollars for a 2012 kite rather than 500 for a 1985 one.

I would rather pay 500 for a 2012 one