Business model replaces love for sports
MUNICH — Riding on a bike while holding his surfboard along its side, Georg Rausch is sporting a black wet suit as he heads to enjoy the wave. He casually parks his bike and walks down with his surfboard to meet his friends and fellow surfers, waiting for his turn before leaping on the board and into the water to ride along a single wave in a narrow river channel just below a bridge.
Rausch, 29, is a river surfer. He's been surfing the wave, located in the center of Munich near the Ludwig Maximilian University and the Englischer Garten, for three years.
Onlookers on the bridge and to the sides of the river snap photos and watch in awe as he gracefully glides from one side of the river to the other before wiping out. He floats just a little down the river before pulling himself out of the water so he can get a place in line to do it all over again.
Is Rausch endorsed by Under Armour or Nike? Is he getting paid for being a part of what has become one of Munich's largest tourist attractions?
No. Rausch purely started to surf the wave in the Isar River out of joy.
"I had just moved to Munich, and I'd surfed before — real waves — and so it's just a fun thing around here in Munich," Rausch said. "You can just go for a surf before work or something."
Though surfing the wave is fun for Rausch, he is still very aware of the potential dangers and the risk he takes every time he leaps with his board into the river.
"The problem is that the wave just works because of the rocks behind the wave," Rausch said. "There's, like, four to five lines of rocks."
What's the worst that's ever happened to Rausch while river surfing?
"Seven stitches on the head," he said.
Why has this dangerous hobby attracted crowds of people every afternoon and continuing participants of the sport? Sriderke Schulzet, one of the few females who surf the wave, thinks it has to do with the identity of the city.
"It's in the middle of the city, and Munich is kind of conservative," Schulzet said. "Surfing is not conservative. It's the total opposite, and people don't know it, and they want to see it. It's special."
After spending the first of two weeks in Munich, I was drawn to how much the conservative people in the city embraced the river surfers. However, after I attended the last FC Bayern game of the regular season, I realized that it had everything to do with the passion and love of sport that Bavarians exhibit.
I watched in awe as fans chanted from start to finish in the Allianz Arena, whether their team was losing or not. If someone had made a bad play or gotten a yellow card, it didn't matter; the fan support was unwavering.
Walking through the Englischer Garten, I see a group of teenage boys kicking around a soccer ball. I walk a little further and I can watch a guy try to walk along a tightrope that's been knotted between two trees. Once he's gotten his balance, he tries to play with a soccer ball on the tightrope.
As Munich looks to host the 2018 Winter Olympics, the city is driven by its pure love of sports — not the money or fame that surrounds it. If it wins the bid for 2018, it will be the only city to have hosted both a Winter and Summer Olympics.
With the current controversy in American college sports regarding if athletes should get paid since they generate tremendous revenue from a business standpoint, I can't help but think about the river surfers in Munich.
When did American sports stop being about loving the game and become a business?
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that they didn't watch professional basketball or football because there's no heart in it and it's just a business, then I'd be a wealthy girl.
Now I'm starting to question if college athletics is headed in the same direction. Are players on any given team playing out of joy, or are they playing because they know it gives them opportunities for fame and fortune?
Part of the reason fans of college baseball rallied behind the South Carolina Gamecocks in their journey for a National Championship was the quirkiness of the team. Whether Scott Wingo was leading an "I bet you won't get crunk" chant or Patrick Sullivan was guarding the spirit stick, it was obvious that the members of that squad were having fun the entire way.
When the human element is removed from sports and it becomes just a business, the surfer loses control of his board and slams into the rocks that caused the wave to begin with.
Sebastian Laxa, who's been surfing in Munich for four years, said it best: "I do it not for the tourists. I do it for me because it's fun."
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