The recent proposed WATL ruleset change has got a'plenty of feathers ruffled and jimmies rustled, and plenty of the uproar looks pretty justified. Whether it's current throwers who are frustrated by the different rulesets for pro/amateur or the addition of new killshots, throwers are crying foul.
But all sports, until they are a hundred years old or so, go through some pretty dramatic changes before they land on an agreed-upon, understood gameplay. I guess unless you're looking at sports that are already wacky enough to start with like Curling - which as far as I know has maintained its proud history ever since some Canadians got bored while ice fishing (I have no idea about the history of curling, it was just the first thing that popped up in my mind. Don't @ me).
HOW EV ER: I think there is a consideration that WATL or, to a similar extent at times, IATF, can lose sight of. This being, of course, the danger of changing too much too quickly. Losing your current player-base while chasing after a new one can absolutely happen, and it's a great way to destroy the building of a relatively new sport/hobby/way to get your sweet, sweet money (if you're at the top of the pyramid scheme known as axe throwing).
Having some experience with fringe sports that struggled/continue to struggle with building their base and legitimacy, I can speak to this. When a "new" sport wants to move past being shown only on ESPN Ocho, consistency is key. Put another way: if your sport changes too often every few years, you won't gather a deep, rich following that gains players at a rate equal to attrition of players. Reason being that a sport can lose the interest of new/amateur/hobby players, and then you've just got a bunch of old-heads who are "pro" level steering the ship. So you end up with an incestuous sort of group that is so unapproachable that most people won't think about trying to join in (or will make their own thing up that is close enough). Does that mean that WATL and IATF should just leave their rulesets and standards alone forever? Even when most throwers are robots and we have space shoes?! No, of course not. But the hill I'm standing on is this: Decide what you want your standard league thrower to look/be like, and set your changes based on that. If you want your standard league thrower to be someone who's been throwing for 10 years, rarely misses, and doesn't care if the sport is growing or not, make your ruleset meet what's best for that player.
If you want your standard league thrower to be someone who has been throwing for less than 2 years, is getting a little better (but isn't there yet), and tells their friends that throwing is easy to learn and hard to master, same deal.
And lemme be clear: I'm not making a line-in-the-sand claim that the new nightmare that is the WATL rules or the sure-to-happen-at-some-point nonsensical IATF rule changes are killing the sport, but I feel like a lot of the changes are pushing more to satisfy the needs of the top players, and not doing much for increasing interest in the sport.
My evidence is circumstantial. I see throwing houses going up for sale on Facebook more often than I'd expect. My own Mead Hall I throw at pulls in 2 or 3 new throwers every 6 months or so, but not much more. And I'm left to wonder: is the leadership of WATL and IATF considering how rule changes that make entry into the sport more difficult affect the sport 5, 10 or 20 years down the line, and does that really even matter?
This latest post poses some really excellent questions that I hope people of influence have considered… and if they haven’t, they need the link to your blog.
I wonder though, that people who are new to the sport accept the tile rules as they exist in the moment and move forward with the “This is how I leaned” mentality…I did when I got into throwing. it wasn’t until a few seasons in did I start to notice some facets of the game that made a better sport for only the top people in the game, and a seemingly impossible mountain for even the most diligent amateur (meaning anyone who doesn’t throw all day everyday)