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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Snowboarding Is The Industry Bright Spot - It's, Well, 'Sick'By Roger Leo 
Americans were almost evenly split between skiers and snowboarders as of the winter of 2007-08, say the statistics. It's too early to have much more than anecdotal and retail sales data from this season as all of us focused on the sliding economy, but it's clear snowboarders did their share of sliding on snow. Greg Johnson of Vail, Colo., Competition Director for the U.S. Open, said snowboarding's appeal seems to lie in freedom and flow. "Racing is a static thing. You're racing against a clock. What they're looking for in snowboarding is consistency over time and watching something develop. Snowboarding is all about progression, moving things forward with a certain style and elan. It's a lot more visual and a lot more kinetic as far as seeing how it flows," Johnson said. "What you have is athletes that love to spend time in the air. That's what it's all about, that moment of suspended motion in space, and doing tricks. A lot of it has been taken from the skateboarding world, the flow and the trick names, adapted to snow, where it's kind of developed its own character," he said. Johnson came to snowboarding later than many. "I started snowboarding in 1984. I was already in my 20s when I picked it up. What happened was the first contest I went to I was already the old guy. They didn't have judges, so the other snowboarders asked me if I would judge. I asked, ‘What should I do?' They said, ‘Pick the winner'." There were no rules. Johnson went back to the community college where he taught, and wrote down his thoughts on judging and rules. One thing led to another, and he served as head judge at the first Olympic snowboarding events in Nagano, Japan. He's been working at the U.S. Open since 1989 in a series of roles that included judge, head judge, technical supervisor in charge of safety, and now competition director overseeing competitive venues and making sure the events run on time. He said the snowboarding economy has been very strong the past few years, but has, like everything else, shown recent impacts from the global economic downturn. "This year snowboarding (competitions) took kind of a big hit, the Air & Style in Europe and the Vail (Honda) Session events didn't happen based partly on economics," Johnson said. The U.S. Open remains the premier event in snowboarding for several reasons, Johnson said, including the huge commitment from Jake Burton Carpenter; fundamental creativity in formats, judging, and course building; and willingness of organizers to listen to suggestions from judges and riders to make it better each year. "It's a pure snowboarding event, not made for TV, not made for marketing. It's made for the riders. It's filmed, granted, put together for a TV show, but that doesn't dictate what happens here as far as formats, as far as anything," Johnson said. "It's a really, really good event." This is the 27th annual U.S. Open, all held at Stratton and beginning in 1982. Many thousands of spectators show up each year to watch the world's best snowboarding. It is the sixth and final stop on the annual Burton Global Open Series. The top male and female riders here take home a cash purse of $100,000, the largest payout in snowboarding. Liam Griffin, Burton Global Open Series director, said the growth in snowboarding since its inception, and particularly over the last 10 years, has been incredible. "As the training gets better, as we are able to build better halfpipes, create better slopestyle courses, have better venues, see improvements on the machinery end, make improvements in equipment for the riders, we've seen the actual level of riding and amplitude of tricks increase," Griffin said. Griffin works on the six Opens that make up the series, which starts in New Zealand, and moves to Australia, Europe, Canada, the Asian Open in Japan, and finishes with the U.S. Open at Stratton. He said the appeal of snowboarding is simple. "At the basic level it's fun. At the competitive level or recreational level, if you're not having fun why do it? For me up here doing my job, if everyone has a good time and nobody gets hurt we've had a really good day," Griffin said. Erica Montgomery was among the 100-plus snowboarders practicing in the halfpipe last week. She would ride down, doing different tricks including spins, grabs, front side wall, back side wall in a smooth flow. Montgomery would take off her board at the bottom of each run through the pipe, and walk back up the deck, watching others take their runs. She paused on one trip to talk about the economics of sponsorship, explaining that in addition to prize money for good results in competitions, some riders are on salary, others get paid stipends by sponsors for good finishes, and still others are given free gear. David Ingemie, president of Snowsports Industries America, said the economy has affected sales of snowboarding equipment and apparel, with New England flat and the rest of the country off 5 percent. He said it's easy to track the impact of snowboarding on equipment sales, with reverse camber boards off the charts, especially Mervin Manufacturing's Lib Techs. The sport's impact on clothing is harder to track, he said, since snowboard clothing - particularly Burton and 686 - is worn widely in all snow sports. "Skis are way down, though here too, New England is better than the rest of the country. Colorado, Utah, and California will be off in double digits," Ingemie said. "We're actually doing pretty well compared to the rest of the economy. We'll be down 1 percent to 1.5 percent at the end of the season in terms of dollars," he said. "The big thing is that, in this economy, people are questioning whether they really have to replace gear. The other issue for the industry is lack of travelers in Utah and Colorado. Utah is probably double digits off in skier days, Colorado - where there's a larger population - single digits," he said. "If we just took New England, we'd probably see a slight increase in sales this winter, or at least no more decrease. We've trumped the economy, certainly in New England. Retail sales were good. Lift ticket sales were good. Remember, too, that last year was a record year, so even if we're off a little bit, we're still good," Ingemie said. Figures compiled for SIA indicate snowboarding among Americans age seven or older who went at least twice a year increased from 3.6 million participants in 1998 to 5.1 million in the winter of 2007-08. Skiers dropped from 7.7 million participants to 5.5 million over the same period. Between the two groups, they posted 60.5 million skier/rider visits to ski areas last winter, a record despite softening economy. What It Means: Ever wonder how much impact one person can have on an industry? Jake Burton Carpenter shows the impact can be huge. It truly began at Stratton and look what he wrought. Snowboarding has become a driving force in the culture and economics of snow sports. As Greg Johnson puts it, "Acceptance is not an issue anymore. Snowboarding has become totally mainstream…" « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Comments
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Posted by: Mary McKhann The Snow Industry Letter | March 23, 2009 09:45 AM
