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Many, many years ago the sports that are common today would have been considered extreme. The idea of going down a hill with two pieces of wood strapped to your feet in the dead of winter probably seemed pretty crazy but today that is simply known as skiing. So as many sports become mainstream what qualifies as an extreme sport as extreme?
To earn the title Extreme Sport a new sport either has to be invented that is dangerous or a traditional sport has to push the bounds of the traditional. Many new sports that are created seem extreme. However, to earn the title the sport has to have an aspect that is considered dangerous. No sport would earn the title if many people were able to perform the same thing. Therefore an extreme sport has to also have a level of expertise to make the sport more difficult. Sports like skateboarding are so difficult because there is a level of danger to performing the stunts as well as a level of professionalism by the people who are performing.
Things like bungee jumping and sky diving would have been unthinkable decades ago, but now thousands of people perform them every year. As more and more people get involved in doing something extreme, the sport must then take on a different and more difficult edge to still be considered extreme. For example, jumping out of a plain is not enough for some people, they have to jump out of a plain with skies on and ski down a hill. Extreme sports much maintain a level of difficult that the vast majority could not do.
