28 transworldbusiness.com

It wasn’t that long ago that a pro snow-boarder could stand on the podium at a contest and feel confident that

their sponsorships were solid and long term outlook positive. Or alternately shoot with an established film crew, have photos published, celebrate the fall movie release tour and call it good. It’s not as straightforward anymore. The industry dream job is experiencing a moment of instability and change. Indicators of unrest include brands like DC, Quiksilver, Burton and K2 downsizing their teams, a rider upheaval that was exacerbated by Nike Snowboarding’s exo-dus, which left a top tier team including Olympic star Sage Kotsenburg and icon Nicolas Muller joining the hunt for a new sponsor (albeit with a generous timeline to work with). Add to that top backcountry pro Jussi Oksanen opting for retirement following another stellar backcoun-try part. And what to make of 2014 Olympic gold medalist Iouri Podlatchikov still without a board sponsors and no longer signed with Quiksilver?

WHAT’S THE CURRENT STATE OF PRO SNOW-

BOARDING FROM A BRAND PERSPECTIVE?

Brian Cook, ThirtyTwo global brand director, thinks there are opportunities for up and coming ams, but noted that he has been fielding more outreach then ever from established riders looking for sponsorship. Cook, who looks to the skateboarding industry as his model, says, “I’m signing riders on to long term contracts, but

not overpaying people,” referencing what he considers inflated salary expectations brought on by Nike. Over In the athlete agent realm, Steve Ruff, VP of Action Sports at WMG agency, is seeing suggestions of a trend toward some companies reducing their investment in riders, noting that, “In general you’re seeing it not just in endemic brands, but corporate brands and drink brands are doing a recalibration even in mainstream sports—it’s much tougher.” Blue Montgomery, CAPiTA president and before that longtime pro snowboarder, summarizes the upside and downsides:“There are more oppor-tunities [for riders] to be seen and break into the scene as an up-and-comer these days due to the amount of content being cycled through all of the snowboard media outlets,” he says. Montgomery adds, “The tricky part is where to go from there. There are more riders looking for financial support than there are companies able to offer it.”

The current climate for riders is that there are opportunities for exposure, but in general money and sponsorship opportunities are tight. Riders who want to stay in the game would be smart to focus on the exposure opportunities, with a goal of building and promoting them-selves in the long term.

RIDERS & CONTENT

The biggest exposure opportunity beyond hammering on social media is creating and

releasing videos (which you can then hammer through social media). Riders are becoming content creators en masse. On snowboarding websites you’ll find an endless scroll of rider series webisodes—Scotty Lago’s The Lago Edits, Elena Hight’s Hight Hopes, Pat Moore’s Blueprint, John Jackson’s Air Time; crew series like FrendsVision, SLC-based Lick The Cat; Devun Walsh, Iikka Backstrom and gang’s Get Outta Town Project; the Finnish trio of Heikki Sorsa, Eero Ettala, and Lauri Heiskari’s Cooking With Gas series; rider-driven movies like the Pathology Project led by Bryan Fox and Austin Smith, MFR’s mission-driven The Little Things movie, and on and on. Monetizing the content beyond sponsor buy-ins is difficult, and making videos costs money, so it’s rarely a moneymaker for riders. But what they are accomplishing is giving visibility to their existing sponsors, who often fund the content—not to mention, they’re building their own personal brand awareness and fan base.

You could argue that there’s too much con-tent being made, but riders are undaunted. Zak Hale shows up in webisodes around the web—Lick The Cat edits, Park City park edits, that crazy Ken Block Monster truck edit at Baldface Lodge—all the while filming with Burton for his annual part. But he wants to do even more, and it’s not because he’s feeling heat from his sponsors. It’s his own desire to stay in the mix. “For a pro snowboarder these days, the internet

has such a short attention span. I feel it’s better to push out content all the time,” Zak says. “You have to find and make your spot as a snowboard-er now; there’s so many people doing the same thing.”

Women snowboarders are no exception to the struggle, even though this is the area of snowboarding that’s seeing the most growth (the 2014 SIA Snowsports Intelligence Report shows a 37-percent increase in junior girls snowboard equipment sales last year). Leanne Pelosi, founder of Runway Films, has always been at the forefront of the content game, and continues with the release of her own self-pro-duced full-part this fall. Going into this season she says, quite frankly, “All the backcountry girls in general are scratching for support.” Feeling the crunch herself, she hypothesizes that riders could find themselves in more of an ambassador role (think lululemon), where riders are repping the product and finding support from the brand for specific projects. It’s not unrealistic con-sidering that even the hot new girls Too Hard film crew, led by Rookie Of The Year Danyale Patterson, is relying on Kickstarter to fund their next video project. More power to them.

MODERN RIDER PATHS

As constant awareness becomes a goal, some riders have really raised the bar. Mark McMorris is an example of a well diversified rider. He has a successful series, McMorris & McMorris on

MTV Canada, which drove his social following through the roof; as the “it” rider going into the Olympics pitted against Shaun White, he generated huge mainstream headlines and magazine covers, and landed on the podium at X Games, 2014 Winter Olympics, and the Burton US Open. Then to check the final box, he headed into the mountains of BC to shoot for the Oakley Snowboarding For Me movie. There was likely more, but that’s the definition of covering all the possible bases.

Alternately, consider Jeremy Jones whose pro career goes back to 1991. Jeremy has focused on making opportunities happen and in the process has become one of the most high profile snowboarders in the game. He spearheaded his collaboration with TGR for the Deeper, Further, Higher trilogy, launched Jones Snowboards, and founded his mission-driven non-profit Protect Our Winters, all of which have upped his profile dramatically and made himself all the more valuable.

It’s not to say that riders need to attain Donald Trump level business mogul status.There are less dramatic ways to stay in the game during tough times. One path is to persistently stay the course. After losing his board sponsor-ship two winters ago, Fredi Kalbermatten was just picked up by Lib Tech. When we asked Lib Tech for their reason for adding Fredi (the only hardgoods signing story this fall other than Jake Welch to Ride Snowboards), Lib Technologies

Co-Founder Pete Saari responded, “Fredi came to us in the most graceful of ways—he backed our stuff for well over a year before we were in a position to do anything with him and delivered incredible results. He made himself family in an authentic way by having an incredible work ethic, great snowboarding, being genuine, and giving before he asked for anything.” With Lib Tech currently focused on resetting its Europe-an distribution and program, adding Fredi was a no-brainer.

Now consider Bryan Iguchi. At a time when the industry and his career as a freestyle pro was booming in the 90s, he created his own one-man recession by moving from the spotlight in Cali-fornia to the then “backwoods” of Jackson, Wyo-ming. He lost the support of his sponsors, but undaunted he kept at it and focused on learning and progressing in the backcountry. Look again 19 years later, and Bryan has an inspiring part in Volcom’s Mr. Plant and a strong career in snow-boarding again with Volcom. Bryan says, “When I moved to Jackson, I had a vision of the riding I wanted to do and the snowboarder I wanted to become. I never expected it to come around like it has.” Follow your passion, kids.

The wrap up: There’s no guarantees. Stay true to yourself, stay at it, and take advantage of direct access to fans through content and social media. Best case scenario is that it’s rewarding—all of what that encompasses is a little up in the air at the moment.

THE STATE OF PRO SNOWBOARDINGEvolving Role Of Athletes As Content Creators And Redefined Marketing Strategies Reshape The LandscapeBy Annie Fast

“THERE ARE MORE OPPORTUNITIES [FOR

RIDERS] TO BE SEEN AND BREAK INTO THE SCENE AS AN UP-AND-COMER

THESE DAYS DUE TO THE AMOUNT OF CONTENT

BEING CYCLED THROUGH ALL OF THE SNOWBOARD

MEDIA OUTLETS. THE TRICKY PART IS WHERE TO GO FROM THERE.”

—Blue Montgomery, CAPiTA President

(LEFT) Zak Hale on the grind in Minnesota.

(MIDDLE) A collage from The Pathology crew: Austin

Smith and Bryan Fox’s project. PHOTOS: BRYAN FOX

(ABOVE) Mark Sollors sending it in Whistler backcountry.

29

TWBP-150021-FT-Stateofsnowboarding.indd All Pages 12/15/14 2:10 PM