I am the owner of a small Outdoor internet business based in the suburbs of Denver, CO and I have been an active, daily reader and full-time subscriber of the Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News for the 16+ years I have been in Colorado. As an active outdoor enthusiast, and now an owner of an outdoor oriented business I have noticed a disturbing trend in what is now the only large, daily newspaper in the Denver market-The Denver Post. That trend is an almost complete lack of any informative writing about a burgeoning outdoor industry in Colorado. Sure, you get a token article here and there, and even then half of those articles are written by the Associated Press. And by Outdoor Industry I am clumping recreational pursuits such as cycling, fishing, camping, hiking, Ski/Snowboarding, hunting, water sports, bird watching, and you could even include golf into one big pool of activity. In addition to the millions of us in this state that pursue these activities, there is also a huge economic impact of these sports in the form of tourism and retail. And I’m not sure, but it seems like jobs has been a topic of conversation the past few years. But maybe those sobering stats are being drowned out here in Colorado by Tebow-mania.
I did my own random research project to show exactly what I am talking about. If you are the reader of the current Denver Post, and maybe even the old Rocky Mountain News, you were probably spoiled by the writing of former outdoor writer Charlie Meyers who was one of the very best there was and is. Charlie recently passed away, and with his passing also came the passing of anything meaningful from an outdoor perspective in the newspaper. With all due respect to the current outdoor writers at the paper, they have huge shoes to fill. But Charlies inspired people to get outdoors and he wrote with passion about many subjects including fly fishing, hunting, skiing, and many others. It seems we are relegated to stories now that include excerpts about forgetting a fly rod on a trip to a group of 15 or so unknown open water swimmers at Chatfield reservoir.
So what I decided to do was to take 7 straight days of the sports section of the Denver Post and see how much was written about local outdoor opportunities, outdoor stories, and maybe even something about the 100′s, if not 1000′s of Colorado based outdoor companies. By accident, I even picked an off week for the Broncos . It was also an opening weekend for skiing at A-Basin and Loveland, hunting is entering its prime season, fly fisherman everywhere are clamoring for stream spots right now in what is generally considered prime fly fishing time in Colorado, and tourists from every part of the planet are still coming to enjoy the recreational opportunities that Colorado provides. Surely my hypothesis of lack of outdoor writing was in peril. Here is what I discovered from 7 days of sports sections:

Each page of the Denver Post consists of 220 square inches of printable area, including the sports section
* For the 7 days I included which was last Saturday, Oct. 15 thru today, Oct. 21st, there was a total of 88 pages of sports. That is a total of 19,360 square inches of printable space, or 134.4 square feet.
*There was 1977 square inches of advertisements, or 10.2% of total space.
*There was 2174 square inches of Bronco articles, or 11.2% of total space
*There was 477 square inches of Outdoor related articles, or 2.5% of total space allotted.
So, there was 4.5 times as much space allotted to the Broncos as opposed to Colorado Outdoors, even on a week that the Broncos didn’t even play. And even that number would be more skewed as I generously included 2 articles written by the Associated Press about pro skiing. There was one article about Elk hunting, one article about open water swimmers swimming in a gravel pond at Chatfield Reservoir, and one article about skateboarders in Golden. The outdoor business related article for the outdoors was a small blurb about snowboard bindings branded by beer company Pabst Blue Ribbon, based in Seattle, and sold by a company out of Utah. Not a word about any Colorado based company? Nope.
I am not a newspaper reporter and I do not know the economics of newspapers, and news is news, but really, you can’t give props to the people and companies right here in Colorado who create jobs, provide sales tax to the state that pays for our government, and allow us to go into the mountains where we spend our money with other businesses? Nada.
If you have read the small column that Penny Parker does in the business section of the Post, she is always talking about local restaurants, chefs, hotels, small businesses, and fashion shows that raise money for charity. I applaud her for her undying support for local businesses and the people who bust their butt to keep them afloat for all of us. That exposure truly helps all of us and probably even creates a small number of jobs.
In the outdoors, there is almost nothing written about the 100′s of small cycling shops in Denver alone, 20+ ski resorts (sans Vail Resorts which gets their support from the Post), the few of us who have started outdoor gear shops in a down economy, all the fly fishing outfitters, and the state and national parks here in Colorado. I will say, there is usually a token article written about a few ski manufacturers, a local outfitter, and a picture of someone with a trophy animal or fish in their grasp which I do appreciate. I saved a picture of a guy holding a huge trout he caught on the Taylor River in June. It was nice! With the picture, the writer said to email pictures of big fish caught or animals harvested and that they would post on a weekly basis in the paper. That never did happen and no explanation was given as to why it never happened.
Here are some more stats to put my research into perspective. Some are close estimates. Remember, the off-week Broncos got 11.2% of the space, and the outdoors got 2.5%:
-The Denver Broncos bring an estimated $300 million to the local economy
-The new Mile High Stadium cost $401 million, 75% of which was paid by the people in the form of sales tax hikes
-599,000 people saw the Broncos live in person
-2011 Pro Cycling Classic brought in $83.5 million to the Colorado economy in less than a week
-An estimated 1 million people saw the Pro Cycling Classic in person
-Cycling is a $1 billion industry in Colorado alone
-1.2 million cyclists in Colorado
-In Denver, cycling commuters increased 22% from ’09 to ’10. 2.2% of Denver commuted to work in 2010
-People in Colorado spent an estimated 20 million days fishing in lakes and streams in 2009
-There are 168 miles of Gold Medal trout waters in Colorado
-1.4 million people visited Colorado ski resorts last year
-293,000 people hunted either deer or elk in 2010 in Colorado (Division of Wildlife)
-1.8 million people camp in Colorado
-Nationally, Outdoor retail sales were double that of Pharmaceutical sales
-Nationally, more people owe their jobs to snow based recreation than all the physicians and surgeons combined (Outdoorindustry.org)
-1 in 20 owe their jobs to the outdoor recreation industry
So whats my point to all this? I cannot be the only one who loves to read the morning paper with a cup of coffee to see whats going on the world. But I also cannot be the only one whose life does not revolve around the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow and finds articles about Colorado Outdoors interesting, appealing, and also inspiring. As a retailer and a consumer, I also more apt to buy products from those people busting their hump trying to start a business, invent new products, and give us all new reasons to explore the Colorado outdoors whether it’s in my backyard or hiking a 14-er. Colorado is not only the fittest state in the nation, but also the slimmest. My hunch is that we didn’t get way sitting in front of a TV swilling Coors beer, pounding chicken wings and nachos watching the Broncos. A little secret…best time to fish, ski, camp, hike, and bike in Colorado is on Sundays during football season. And I am a fan of football too. C’mon Denver Post, give us more than Tebow and Elway, PBR Snowboard Bindings and erectile dysfunction advertisements.
Eric Graham, Small Business Owner and Outdoor Enthusiast
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Informational Sources:
http://www.outdoorindustry.org/images/researchfiles/RecEconomypublic.pdf?26
http://football.ballparks.com/NFL/DenverBroncos/newindex.htm
http://www.bikesbelong.org/assets/documents/uploads/Stats2011.pdf
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