I thought it was odd to see a skateboarding article in the Wall Street Journal this morning. But it’s not about nollies and ollies and nose-grinds or half-cabs. It’s about capitalism ($$$):
The International Association of Skateboard Companies figures 50% to 70% of all the skateboard decks sold are blank rather than branded. “The problem is the blank boards don’t really contribute to the industry. They don’t buy advertisements in skateboard magazines. They don’t support professional riders,” says John Bernards, executive director of the International Association of Skateboard Companies, based in Santa Margarita, Calif…
Mr. Bernards’ group recently published an advertising supplement in skateboarding magazines called “Under Fire,” featuring interviews with pros, brand owners and distributors, to try to persuade young people to stop buying blank decks as a matter of principle. One author called blank decks “bland, unwarranted commodities that support faceless factories that do nothing to support professional skateboarding.”
It sounds to me like the branded decks aren’t contributing to the industry - there is no value-added, whatsoever. Wait - there’s an “International Association of Skateboard Companies? You’ve got to be shitting me. But seriously: blank decks don’t “really contribute” to the industry? No, they don’t contribute to IASC’s bottomline. All the people riding those blank decks are of course contributing to the indusry: they’re buying the clothes, the shoes, the hats, the name-brand socks, the trucks, the bearings, the wheels. Tony Hawk’s video game (all of them). They’re spending money on Vans’ Warped Tour, and they watch the X Games on TV. The people who buy these decks are the industry, present and future.
Fortunately, the “effort backfired.” According to Mr. Bernards, “We got hate mail saying that we are trying to commercialize skateboarding.”
Didn’t your marketing team tell you that in terms of aversion to commercialization and “selling-out,” skateboarding kids are second only to thirty-somethings with mohawks and Sex Pistols bumper stickers? Apparently, you did not get that memo. Bob Denike, president of NHS, a distributor, blames the industry for “[L]osing customers to cheap decks. ‘We don’t keep the product changing and moving forward. When you have a 10-15 year run of no innovation, you leave the door wide open for an issue like this.’”
Anyways, some of the companies, including NHS began a mysterious process called “innovation and differentiation,” hitherto known only to capitalists and Loki, the Norse god of mischief: “[T]he large skateboard brands have begun adding new technology, such as special footplates, air pockets, and layers of hemp fabric, Kevlar or fiberglass to absorb shock.”
To nobody’s surprise, except perhaps Mr. Bernards, the innovators are doing well. Denike, who is “looking at boards made by mixing fiberglass materials with wood and wood laminates,” says that for a new, innovative skateboard deck with a kevlar inlay to prevent fracture, “Sales are rising.”
No kidding. Welcome to the real world.
A couple of weekends ago we had the TV on, and suddenly there was a vert contest on TV. Not even sure what contest. Maybe the Moutain Dew/Virgin Mobile/Axe Body Spray/Trojan Condoms/US Army Vert and Street classic?
Anyway -- the ramp must have been 100 feet wide. The big names were there. It was on TV.
Does anyone actually care? Seriously -- I don't know. Do "average" skaters even pay attention to that stuff? I know I don't.
I watched a little of the vert skating. Very rad. So rad, in fact, that it hardly resembles the vert skating I or any of my friends do. Just a little to rad, too overblown to even relate to. Of course, I just enjoyed doing berts in a parking lot last night on a Loaded Vanguard, so what do I know?
I watch skateboarding on TV sometimes, the biggest thing that stops me from watching more is I never know when it is on and my comcast DVR sucks for finding anything that you do not know the exact name of.
Watching Skateboarding on TV kinda reminds me of baseball....it's just better live or doing it yourself. The only "Skateboarding" that I have really enjoyed on TV at all is Mike V's "Drive" TV show
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by livefortoday2007
It is almost like racism to seperate street skating and longboards.
I like watching slalom on a DVD or some vid clip because I like seeing what other racers are doing.
I've never, though, been hip about sitting in front of the TV watching skate vids, playing skate video games or listening to some network suit drone on about what he thinks of "extreme sports."
If I got time to do that, I got time to run cones or do a little cruising. So I go do it. Maybe I'd watch more on TV if it was at 10:00 at night when I can't go out in the dark?
Well he's the guy that is lonely and miserable cuz he worried about making money and more and more money and he forgot about the people that cared for him.
Anyway to relate this to the skate industry. I mean come on there's a better margin in clothes and shoes than in decks. Come on people, you're smart, figure it out!
__________________
My BLOG to Finance my Longboard Addiction
Well he's the guy that is lonely and miserable cuz he worried about making money and more and more money and he forgot about the people that cared for him.
Well, it's obvious you've never read ATLAS SHRUGGED, no nothing of Objectivism and only philosophical grounding is what Moveon'org and Al Franken spoon feed you.
Well he's the guy that is lonely and miserable cuz he worried about making money and more and more money and he forgot about the people that cared for him.
In the novel he actually worked as a short-order cook because he wasn't just interested in "making money and more and more money."
In the novel he actually worked as a short-order cook because he wasn't just interested in "making money and more and more money."
You should try reading the book sometime.
---
Congrats! You win!
Well close enough. I mean, he invented something awesome, but didn't want it to go into the wrong hands so to speak, well have it be exploited for lack of better words.
__________________
My BLOG to Finance my Longboard Addiction
Ayn Rand meets the action sports industry...
