Before You Let the Ski Show Use Your Pond, Read This

I grew up water skiing with the MinAqua Bats Water Ski Show. From the time I was old enough to hold a rope, I understood two things: water is where the fun is, and fun has a way of humbling you fast. I once came home from a day on the water with broken ribs. You learn quickly that when you decide to ski around the buoys, or fly off a jump...gravity is undefeated.

So when I sat down to dinner last night with a couple of friends who had recently purchased a commercial building, I was all ears when the conversation turned to water skiing. The pond on their property happens to be where a local water ski show performs, and my friends had generously agreed to let the team use it. Access to the pond, parking and seating for spectators, the whole deal. In fact, they may have even sponsored to get their company logo on the ski jump. It's exactly the kind of community goodwill that makes Wisconsin (and Minnesota, the birthplace of waterskiing) special.

And I loved hearing it. Water ski shows are one of the best things about this part of the country, and almost nobody talks about them.

Wisconsin: The Show Ski Capital of the World

Most people who visit Wisconsin think of the Packers, ice fishing, Friday night fish fries, and Old Fashioneds. But ask anyone who grew up on a Wisconsin lake in the summer and there's a good chance they have a memory tied to a water ski show.

Wisconsin is home to approximately 40 water ski show teams, more than every other state in the country combined, and has earned the unofficial title of "Show Ski Capital of the World." Nobody is entirely sure why Wisconsin dominates, but the leading theory is that after World War II, lakefront resorts in northern Wisconsin started organizing ski exhibitions to entertain guests, shows grew in complexity as neighboring teams tried to outdo each other, and the tradition took root.

The sport itself traces back to 1922, when an 18-year-old named Ralph Samuelson strapped himself to two pine boards on Lake Pepin in Minnesota and got towed behind a motorboat (his boat only had 24hp!). He attracted a crowd from day one, which tells you everything you need to know about show water skiing.

The movement that formalized show skiing in Wisconsin came from Tommy Bartlett, a radio broadcaster and showman who saw a traveling ski exhibition and couldn't let it go. He founded the Tommy Bartlett Water Ski and Jumping Boat Thrill Show in 1952, and within a year it had a permanent home on Lake Delton in Wisconsin Dells. Over its 67-year run, more than 30 million spectators watched one of its 18,700-plus performances. The show became one of the anchors of what is now a $1.2 billion tourist industry in the Dells. One of the things that changed the spirit of the Tommy Bartlett Water Ski Show was the decision to require paid admission. Water ski shows have traditionally been community events, family-friendly entertainment supported by donations and a simple pass-the-hat approach. Trying to turn something as pure and accessible as water skiing into a ticketed attraction never felt quite right, which is why many longtime fans weren't surprised when the show ultimately closed in 2020. Perhaps someday a local ski club will bring it back in the spirit it was originally intended.

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, the spirit of show skiing is alive and well.

The Min-Aqua Bats of Minocqua (My alma mater ski club, circa 2003) have been performing on Lake Minocqua every summer since 1950, three shows a week, June through August, making them the longest consecutively running amateur water ski show club in the world. The Wisconsin State Water Ski Show Championships, launched in 1967 out of Wisconsin Rapids, is the largest and longest-running competitive show ski tournament anywhere on earth. Today it draws 30 teams and thousands of spectators to Lake Wazeecha every July.

Shows run all summer long across the state: the Muskego Water Bugs on Little Muskego Lake (Wednesday nights, free admission, five-time national champions), the Kwahamot Water Ski Club in Tomahawk, Southern Wakes United at Lauderdale Lakes, the Rock Aqua Jays in Janesville, the Badgerland Water Ski Show Team in Waukesha, and many more. These are community institutions built over decades by families, volunteers, and athletes who spend their summers in the water for the love of it.

I grew up in that world. I know what it takes to make a pyramid work, how fast the rope has to go before a jump skier actually gets air, and exactly how you feel lying on a dock trying to breathe with broken ribs while your teammates are still out there doing double flips. I would not trade a single minute of it. The only limit to the show's acts are your own courage.

When Fun Gets Airborne, Risk Comes With It

Here's the thing about show water skiing that the casual spectator doesn't always appreciate: the sport has always pushed into territory where the margin for error is very small.

Back in the 1990s, the Min-Aqua Bat Water Ski Show included not just on-water acts but aerial acts, skiers going into the air off jumps, using kites, and performing maneuvers at speed with nothing below them but lake water and gravity. In one instance, a skier caught the wrong bit of wind mid-air and the result was an injury to the skier and spectators in the stands. That story never made a lot of national headlines, but people who were there remember it. Needless to say, the kites are a thing of the past.

Accidents happen in show skiing. They happen in every sport. The difference with a ski show is that the risks are distributed, skiers can get hurt, boat drivers can make mistakes, structures like ski jumps and stands can fail, and spectators watching from shore or the bleachers can be in the path of something that goes wrong. Fun inherently carries risk. The question is not how to eliminate it, but how to manage it responsibly so the sport and the show survives to the next generation.

Back to My Friends and Their Pond

So here is where my dinner conversation got me thinking in insurance mode, which, occupational hazard, I cannot turn off.

My friends did a genuinely wonderful thing. They bought a commercial building with a pond and said yes, the local ski show can use it. Spectators can come onto the property to watch. I think they should keep doing it.

But the question I found myself asking was: did they ask for a certificate of insurance from the ski show?

Because here is the reality of being a property owner who invites the public onto your land for an event you do not control.

Premises liability follows the property. Under Wisconsin law, when you own or control a property and invite people onto it, even as a favor, even for free, you take on a duty of care. If a spectator trips over uneven ground walking to the pond, slips on a dock, or gets hurt by a piece of equipment that was not yours, you could still be the first name on a lawsuit simply because it happened on your land.

The stands are a real exposure. Are there bleachers or stands at the venue? Who owns them? Who set them up? Who inspects them before the public sits down? A loose board, an unlevel section, a sharp metal edge that someone brushes against, these are the kinds of claims that nobody anticipates until they are dealing with one.

Crowd flow is a hidden risk. People bringing lawn chairs across an open field, families with small children, older spectators navigating uneven terrain, beside a pond, this is a premises liability scenario that any insurance underwriter would immediately flag.

What if the ski show does not have insurance? Who owns the boat? Good ski show teams carry general liability insurance. USA Water Ski, the national governing body, has insurance requirements for sanctioned events and boat operators. But a community show using a private pond may or may not be under a sanctioned structure. If something goes wrong and the ski show does not have adequate coverage, the property owner becomes the first party everyone looks at.

What My Friends Should Do, And What Anyone in Their Position Should Do

None of this is a reason to say no. This is a reason to do it right.

1. Request a certificate of insurance from the ski show. Ask them to provide a COI showing their general liability coverage. At minimum $1 million per occurrence is a reasonable floor for a public event, $2 million is better. Ask to be named as an additional insured on their policy for events held on your property. Any club with real insurance should be able to provide this in a day.

2. Check whether the municipality is involved. If the local city or county is providing parking, road access, or any infrastructure that funnels spectators to your property, understand whether there is a separate liability arrangement in place and how it interacts with yours.

3. Are there any other vendors coming to the show? Get certificates from them as well. From Food Trucks to Port-a-John Rental companies.

4. Instead of a cash donation, consider donating toward the show's insurance. If the ski show is running on a shoestring budget and cannot comfortably afford proper liability coverage, offering to cover that cost accomplishes two things: it protects you, and it protects the sport. Getting your company name on the jump is nice. Making sure the show can keep skiing for the next 25 years is better. (Most skiers are just worried about where their next 5 gallons of boat gas is coming from!)

Let's Keep This Going for Another 75 Years

Show water skiing in Wisconsin is one of this state's great underappreciated traditions. It is free most nights. It is performed by families, and high school and college students who do it because they love it. It is the same spirit Ralph Samuelson had in 1922 on Lake Pepin, performing in front of whoever showed up to watch, to try out the trick you just learned that afternoon playing and skiing with your friends.

I want it to still be here when my kids have kids. I want the Min-Aqua Bats still on Lake Minocqua in 2050. I want the Wisconsin State Championships to keep running on Lake Wazeecha for another 60 years. I want some kid in Muskego or Tomahawk or Lauderdale Lakes to break their ribs on a jump one day and spend the rest of their life telling the story with a grin (instead of a lawsuit or liability insurance claim).

The way we protect that future is by making sure that when something goes wrong, and sometimes something will, there is a proper insurance structure in place so that the accident ends the season, not the sport, nor the event.

Fun is worth protecting. Make sure everyone involved is covered.

One more thing. The Fourth of July is the best show of the year. Every skier on that team is amped, they have been practicing all season, the crowd is at its biggest, and everyone wants to show their absolute best stuff for that show. As I used to say when I was the ski show announcer: when you take your family to the show this Fourth of July and they pass the hat, dig deep into your hearts, and into your pockets. These shows run on volunteer time and community support. That dollar in the bucket is what keeps the Min-Aqua Bats on Lake Minocqua and the Water Bugs on Little Muskego Lake going for the generations to come.

Toby Hartman is a co-owner of MM Insurance Associates. He has spent a lifetime on the water and has the broken-rib story to prove it. If you have questions about event liability, commercial property insurance, or how to protect your business when community activities happen on your land, reach out to the MM Insurance team.