Yes, I have attended the UVM Winter Carnival. Multiple times. It does get a nice crowd for a ski race. I have also attended many other carnivals in the East that have very little crowd interest. For example, pre-pandemic, I was at the St. Lawrence Carnival at Whiteface. The only people at the finish were the racers parents and maybe boyfriends/girlfriends of the racers. Whiteface was very busy that day, and the skiers there had for the most part zero interest in what was going on. On one chair ride up, a couple noticed the race course. One said "Wonder what's going on over there" The other replied "Probably a high school race" That is the state of ski racing for the vast majority of people in the U.S. that actually participate in skiing as an activity.
Look, I know where you are coming from. I love ski racing. I have spent most of my life in it either as a competitor, coach, or official. It has been pretty much my life for over 50 years.
Compare that to this:
A friend of mine, who is a Penn State alum, invited me to a home game this past season vs Minnesota. He tells me "You better get a room in State College months ahead of time". So I drive down to State College, PA for the game. There must have been 500,000 people in State College that weekend. Nearly 110,000 people in the stadium for the game and it looked like another 200,000 people tailgating in the parking lot. It was totally insane and that is an understatement. That is when you realize nobody cares about college ski racing, for that matter, any ski racing at any level, in the U.S.