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Elemental Athletes Drive to Connect Aerial to Mainstream Media

It’s Time for Aerial Arts to Get Its Spotlight!

If you’ve spent any time in the aerial world, you’ve probably heard some version of the same line: “aerial is too niche”. Networks won’t greenlight a docuseries. There isn’t a “big enough” audience to justify the investment. It’s a story aerialists have been told again and again.

Yet every time you scroll around, you find us on stage with recording artists, at the Super Bowl, on Saturday Night Live, at Coachella. Aerial isn’t hiding in the shadows, it’s already part of the biggest stages in entertainment. The talent, the visibility, the audience appeal are all there. What’s missing is a platform built for aerial athletes, on aerial’s own terms — not just a few seconds of screen time backing someone else’s act.

Elemental Athletes exists to change that.

Elemental Athletes is a group of aerial instructors, performers, competitors, students, and advocates working toward one goal: bringing competitive aerial to ESPN and other mainstream media. Their approach isn’t to wait for a gatekeeper to notice aerial, instead they are doing the work to bring the community together and make the numbers, the demand, and the sport’s reach impossible to ignore.

From Background to Main Event

There’s a difference between being seen and being centered. Right now, aerial shows up as a striking visual behind someone else’s act. You know, a few seconds of silk, hoop or pole work in a music video, a halftime show, a festival stage. It’s proof the audience is captivated. What it isn’t, yet, is a platform where aerial athletes are the story, competing on their own terms, in front of a crowd that showed up specifically for them.

That’s the gap Elemental Athletes is working to close.

It’s Been Done Before

Aerial wouldn’t be the first “niche” sport to break into mainstream broadcast. ESPN currently dedicates televised time slots to sports like World Chase Tag, Pillow Fight Championship, and World Knife Throwing — sports that didn’t land on TV by accident. In each case, a small, determined group of people believed their community deserved the same recognition as any other sport, and pushed until broadcasters had no choice but to pay attention.

Aerial belongs in that same conversation — alongside gymnastics, cheerleading, and figure skating, sports that blend athleticism and artistry and have long since earned dedicated competitive coverage. The audience appeal is already proven every time aerial shows up on a mainstream stage. The question now is whether the community mobilizes to turn that visibility into a stage of its own.

Why This Matters for Athletes

This isn’t just about getting aerial “on TV.” Greater visibility translates directly into:

  • More opportunities — competitions, sponsorships, and platforms that don’t exist yet
  • More representation — for a sport that’s still fighting to be taken seriously as one
  • More paid work — for instructors, performers, and competitors across the globe

The people behind this effort aren’t outsiders looking in. They’re instructors, competition coaches, performers, and studio owners already embedded in the aerial community, working alongside brands and producers to make the case for aerial’s place in mainstream sport.

How You Can Help

You don’t need to be an aerialist to make a difference here. You just need to believe aerial athletes deserve the spotlight they’ve earned.

Every signature adds to the case that this audience is real, engaged, and ready to be seen. Let’s make our voices heard and bring aerial arts to the forefront where they belong.

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