My freshman year of high school I was determined to follow in my brother’s footsteps by running cross country. And just like him…I quickly developed shin splints and had to cut my first season short due to a stress injury. This is what pushed me to join an activity that would shape my life and development as a person. I decided to join my high school’s rowing team purely because I heard it was good exercise and a low impact activity, meaning I could do it while my injury recovered. I had no intentions of actually rowing when racing season came around. Little did I know that I’d stick with it not only through winter season, but past the covid lockdown that came that spring. Since then, I’ve gone on to win two Scholastic National Championships, State Championships, set school records, receive several Division 1 offers, and ultimately choose to continue rowing for a club team in college because I truly love it so much. However, it definitely wasn’t love from the start. Joining in winter season meant getting on the indoor rowing machine everyday rather than being on the water. The rowing machine (which we call an erg) is hard, and I hated it with a passion. Greater than my hate for the erg, however, was my competitive spirit. If I’m being honest, what kept me going was my individualistic mindset of just wanting to beat everyone else, especially at their own sport. What I found through this though, was the extremely strong sense of community within rowing, which re-geared my sense of competition from wanting to just be the best, to wanting my boat and boatmates to be our best.
Now 5 years into rowing, I’ve immersed myself pretty well into the global rowing community. As you would expect, a lot of the content I am suggested on social media is rowing related. The other day, I saw an advertisement that sparked my interest. It was an Instagram ad for a rowing machine with a built-in gaming system, called AVIRON, which read, “You don’t need to be a rower. To be a rower.” Interested, I decided to search up the company’s website. The tagline was “AVIRON makes rowing addictive”, ok, well, I find it pretty addictive as is, but I understand that most people don’t. I continued to the “Why AVIRON?” statement, which read, “We’ve injected the addictive elements of gaming into your rowing workouts to curb boredom and drive motivation,” and further comparing to video games, stated that AVIRON was “taking all the best parts -the visuals, the supportive community, the sense of achievement- and plugging them into rowing. Ultimately, transforming a tedious chore-like workout into an adventure.” Hmm. This did not sit right with me. Although those are qualities that are somewhat unique to gaming and make video games enjoyable, they are also qualities that already exist in rowing. This statement, along with the many “rowing is boring and hard” ads, takes a bit of a stab at rowing. For the visuals point, I understand, we get incredible scenery rowing on lakes and rivers, but that is missing on the indoor rowers and is not something that the regular gym-goer would get out of rowing. However, for supportive community and sense of achievement, I do not think that those require “plugging” as they are extremely prominent aspects of rowing, even if you’re not racing a boat.
In looking up the founder of the company, Andy Hoang, I came across an interview with Fitt Insider where he said, “Everyone knows rowing. It’s not new. What we found was the rowing machines out there haven’t changed in a long time … and really caters to a very niche group. We wanted to bring rowing to the general public, and make it more accessible for more people.” I really appreciated the sentiment of wanting to widen the rowing community, as rowing is pretty niche. But if this is actually a goal of the company, they aren’t doing a great job at achieving it. They continuously advertise rowing as a boring, hard, tedious, plain, and just not a fun activity. I do not doubt the benefits of this platform for those aiming to get a workout out of it. However, their marketing suggests their platform to be an upgrade to rowing, and an extension of the rowing community. AVIRON has set up tents at regattas (rowing races) to let competitive rowers test the machine. But as they said themselves, they redesigned the rowing machine to be more accessible for a general gym-goer rather than a rowing athlete, so it doesn’t really cater to the rowing community. I think a machine like this has a place in the general fitness and gaming community, but not in the sports-specific space.
That being said, I definitely think that sports and video games can work together. The same day that I saw that AVIRON ad, HOCR posted that they were doing a collaboration with a company called EXR gaming. The Head of the Charles Regatta (HOCR), hosted on the Charles River in Boston, is the largest 3-day rowing competition in the world and is extremely well-known within the rowing community. I am extremely grateful to have been able to compete in it the last three years, but even for those not racing it is a major highlight of the year for the rowing community. It is pretty much the biggest get together we have as a global sports community. It is special in that there are a ton of divisions/categories/age groups, so unlike the technically bigger competitions like the Olympics or World Championships, you can participate without being on a country’s national team. EXR gaming collaborated with HOCR to create a virtual rowing community. It is an app that connects to a standard rower and allows you to join 3D worlds with others to explore different rowing spots like famous race courses, or scenic bodies of water. There are also virtual competitions as well. Where the competition here differs from that of AVIRON is in the use of a standardized rowing machine and competition based off of rowing metrics/data that we actually use in the sport. What I mean by this is that in AVIRON you may be using the rower to race a virtual car against others and you go faster by “going harder” or moving back and forth faster (which doesn’t actually equate to rowing faster in a real boat), while in EXR you’re rowing on a virtual course and your boat speed is dependent on your time split per 500m, which is a metric we use to measure actual boat speed. EXR translates gaming into a more realistic sports experience.
As the gaming, fitness, and sports worlds continue to overlap and connect, I think it is important that the distinction is made between general fitness and sport. New gaming platforms looking to join these spaces should put a lot of consideration into what role they can play in these communities and understand that they are not one and the same.
-Alex G
Sources:
Hoang, Andy. “Why Choose AVIRON?: Everything You Need to Know.” Aviron Active, http://www.avironactive.com/why-aviron/.
Salty Lemon Entertainment. “The App That Makes Indoor Rowing Fun.” EXR Game, exrgame.com/.
Vennare, Joe. “Interview with Andy Hoang, Founder & CEO of Aviron.” Fitt Insider, Fitt Insider Podcast, 28 June 2022, insider.fitt.co/141-andy-hoang-founder-ceo-of-aviron/.
New Media: Storytelling in Literature, Films, and Games 
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