Although Scott Brash is on top of the Longines World Ranking list, the British show jumper is not nominated as possible BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In an interview with Horse and Houng Brash sated he's not frustrated about not being nominated. "I focus on my job and it's up to people outside of the sport to take notice." It's an endless frustration of most equestrians, our sport doesn't get enough recognition in the general (public) media. This ensures almost never equestrians or jockeys are making the line up. The general question remains: "Why aren’t the top equestrians household names? And, why aren’t the horses household names?” Today, fans want to engage the stars of the sport. Today, fans want to follow their favorite athletes every move on social networks. Today, fans want to know what the athlete represents, what they like and how they live their lives. And, as trends are shaping up, the sports that don’t support that won’t be here tomorrow. However the first step is with the media and federation to make the sport more accessible. Media should focus on more than sport, they should embrace new technological innovations and report on the general news related to the equestrian. Big organisations (Longines Masters, Longines Global Champions Tour, etc.) already innovate in their media approach, but it is also up to the readers to be open to it. The biggest role to play is by the federation though. The federation should take steps to make the sport more noticable, invest in the equestrian media and work together for a marketing plan. Further it might be time to rethink the sport, without throwing away the historical and social values of it. Our sport (depends the discipline of course) has a very theoretical background and in fact boring to follow , but exciting to experience. Why not take examples of other (more popular) sports and try to find a symbiosis? On the part of organisations it is up to the OC to offer a sportive program that opens up to the general interest. To conclude we like our sport, we like the efforts of rider, organizers and even the federations. But it might be time to organise a big debate to discuss the future of our sport.
