Emulating Dangerous Sports - True or False

The implied message here is that Cliff Bar feared that unwitting people, or at any rate, folks not up to the challenge, might look at what Potter and Honnold et al are doing (or were doing) and would be encouraged to try it themselves and die terribly in the process.

For this to be a viable theory there must be some evidence that somewhere, at some time - either in BASE, highlining or free soloing - people have tried to ape the feats of their heros and have died in the process.

What are the examples of this happening in the three disciplines just mentioned? I am not asking for a speculative argument, however well reasoned, but rather for concrete evidence to validate the notion that anyone has actually died trying to be someone they were not or from trying something they would not otherwise have tried without seeing the Honnold vids and so forth.

A Letter to the Climbing Community
Over the past few days, there’s been a heated dialogue about our recent decision to withdraw sponsorship of several climbers. We’ve watched, listened and been humbled by the conversation, and wanted to share with you where we are on this topic. Our hope is that we can provide clarity around our climbing sponsorships and to demonstrate our continued commitment to supporting this great sport and the climbing community.

Climbing has been a part of our company’s DNA from the beginning. Over a year ago, we started having conversations internally about our concerns with B.A.S.E. jumping, highlining and free-soloing. We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go. We understand that some climbers feel these forms of climbing are pushing the sport to new frontiers. But we no longer feel good about benefitting from the amount of risk certain athletes are taking in areas of the sport where there is no margin for error; where there is no safety net.

As such, going forward we will not be sponsoring climbers who are primarily recognized for free-soloing, B.A.S.E. jumping and highlining. This change in sponsorship approach did not come without great debate.

Ultimately, this decision came down to a sense of responsibility to our own story, what we endorse and the activities that we encourage – which is largely reflected in our sponsorship of athletes. This responsibility extends to adventurers of all types – climbers, outdoor enthusiasts, as well as children.

We have and always will support athletes in many adventure-based sports, including climbing. And inherent in the idea of adventure is risk. We appreciate that assessing risk is a very personal decision. This isn’t about drawing a line for the sport or limiting athletes from pursuing their passions. We’re drawing a line for ourselves. We understand that this is a grey area, but we felt a need to start somewhere and start now.

This is a new path for us and we haven’t been perfect in the way that we’ve communicated or executed the change in sponsorships. For that we’re sorry and take full responsibility. Climbing has been a big part of Clif Bar’s history and we remain as committed as ever to the sport that we love.

 The Clif Bar Team

If Cliff Bar and others would say, We can't with a clear conscience keep feeding money to people involved in sports so risky that the top doods keep getting killed (re: BASE, etc) - I could totally agree with this.

while the later is a cheap scare tactic that has no empirical evidence to back it up whatsoever.

Perhaps a better question is: How many of you out there have been duped or encouraged into doing dangerous shite that you never would have done otherwise save for trying to emulate your "heros?"