When I was growing up in Fremont and Wallingford, the biggest sporting event in Seattle was the hydroplane racing during Seafair. We made wooden copies of the Miss Bardahl, the Miss Thriftway, the Miss Spokane, the Miss Wahoo, the Hawaii Ky. We would drag them behind our bikes for hours in our neighborhood and around Green Lake. All four local news channels would cover the races at the same time. Maybe the biggest thrill when I was a kid was when I got to work in the pits for a day running errands for the various crews, maybe like say being backstage today for a Taylor Swift concert. Admittedly this was before the Sonics, the Seahawks, the Mariners, the Sounders or the Kraken. The younger generations just don’t understand how big it was
Fast forward to today. Not a single local channel is covering the boat race! Channel 5 gets a pass as they have the Olympics, but 4, 7, 11, 13 where are you??? I am getting too old to go to the races anymore. I say shame on them for not carrying one what was once a great event in Seattle.
I agree. Shame on them and a big shame on the sham that’s Seattle city politic. You want the answers? Just follow the money, or lack of it. Apparently not enough to keep our communities spirit alive and thriving.
I too was very disappointed. It just didn’t seem like Seafair without all the tv advertising the hydroplane races. Very sad.
Absolutely where is their community spirit they’re always talking about community and being involved in the community and yet the TV networks were nowhere around and they haven’t been for years. It’s all about money and it’s sad when this sport is giving so much to the community and for the community and yet, it doesn’t get that support from the media I agree shame on them!
I was a big fan in the 60’s and looked forward to the races. I don’t recall more than one station covering the races, but it was aired locally. It just isn’t as popular now as reflected in fewer boats and fewer races. $$$
It used to be an all day event for our family including food and betting on each heat race and the big final race.
Of course the local station covered every minute of the event which seems like it was KIRO at the time.
Nowadays we stream YouTube TV and KONG isn’t even available.
Instead Sunday I had to tune into the H1 hydro channel on YouTube just for a glimpse of the days events. Coverage was spotty and the commentators even apologized for not being able to do some driver interviews due to sporadic internet strength.
It all seemed to go downhill when the O’Berto family backed out of sponsorship.
I would even be happy if a local station would do a recap of the days event and just show the final race in its entirety Sunday night.
With all the billionaires/millionaires in this area you would think someone could step up and help sponsor it.
For now I’ll just have to be happy with memories of towing my wooden Miss Bardahl model behind my banana seat Schwinn stingray.
It also didn’t help when they cut to commercial with a lap to go in the final, and again during the Blue Angels. Sad.
That was SO BAD! My husband was born on race day in 1955. It’s always been a big deal to him. KONG coverage was a shadow of what coverage used to be, and the last straw was THAT!
Sports bring people together. The fact that you need ten different subscriptions to watch makes common experiences impossible. We turned to the Olympics and didn’t even watch the Angels. Just sad.
They were on channel 106 KONG, we watched and enjoyed the fantastic coverage.
I agree. We streamed it but the interruptions were so frequent they were the main event!
They had all day coverage on KONG Channel 6 which is the local coverage of everything on KING Channel 5. KING Channel 5 announced it many times the previous day to watch on KONG. Channel 5 was covering the Olympics. I thought it was great because they did very lengthy show exclusively featuring the Blue Angels following the races. We recorded about five hours of the presentation.
Pat: Nice to see you commenting.
I bounced back and forth between the race/airshow (on KONG) and the Mariners getting pummeled ( on ROOT). KONG show seemed more about Boeing and the waste of lots of Jet fuel than a boat race. I think most of the boats burn jet fuel now too, so I’d say the Mariners and our Environment both took a pretty good beating yesterday but a good time was had by all. I liked the old days better when Bill Muncey either managed to sink a Coast Guard boat by ramming it or generally get accused of cheating to almost always win the race against the Miss Budwiser crew, that always seemed just a little tipsy by the checkered flag drop. Ah, the good old days!
I do not have access to Kong TV and I usually watch Kiro news and I don’t think they even mentioned to boat race or anything about the results
The demographics just do not support the local TV stations dedicating a ton of resources to Seafair anymore. If you’re under 50, chances are you don’t care much for the hydros. If you do, you’re probably on a boat or at the event.
The truth is that the younger generations have moved on. The hydros are just not that exciting to watch compared the everything else that is available to them.
If the local stations can’t sell enough advertising, it means the local business community doesn’t think people are watching and won’t support it with their marketing dollars. This isn’t about “not caring.” It’s about revenue, and there just isn’t enough of it to be made by broadcasting the hydros all day.
Times change. Hydroplane races aren’t good for the environment. We hurt the earth when we can’t change during global warming, and sea life too.
I have lived in Seattle all my life (58 years) and Seafair parades have not been very good at all and the hydros at lake wa. ont.v. were lame, kiro steve raible and pat oday that was the best. its just been abust for seafair of late and the t.v. covrage stunk.
We loved it back in the Slo Mo and Bud days, it was huge, but it has kinds become a lesser event for us. For us it all comes to how Seattle has changed and is just another reason we cut the TV cable and chose to get news from other ways. The major TV Media is one of the many reasons we are so divided and I am not looking to start an internet fight on that… please.