a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
Firstly, a confession. I sometimes get so overwhelmed by what is going on and what I am doing, that I forget what day it is. Yesterday I thought it was the 4th of July. When it comes to math, I am a total basket case. Don’t get me started on the subject of bookkeeping.
But numbers and dates are important and I spend a huge amount of time thinking about dates as they relate to change.
Specifically, I have a theory about change within skateboarding and I call it the 7+4 theory. Here’s how it works
There are certain catalysts (somebody or something that makes a change happen or brings about an event) that have taken place within skateboarding that are so enormous that they stand as a marker. If we start in 1974 (the year that urethane wheels really started to hit) and add 4/7 years, an interesting pattern emerges.
Here goes
1974 – Urethane wheels hit
1978 - skateboarding is HUGE
1981 – Thrasher hits (74 + 7 = 81) (skateboarding in a slump)
1985 – skateboarding is HUGE again
1988 – World Industries is started – Rocco is the joke of the industry
1992 – the entire skate industry is shaken…world industries is the #1 company!
1995 – X Games hit (skateboarding in a slump)
1999 - skateboarding HUGE again
2002 – the film Dogtown and Z Boys is released to wide acclaim
2006 – vert and Longboarding grow – older skaters return – a lot of changes occur but they are not formally documented in the skate media
Now if you take 2002 and add 7 years, the next catalyst should hit in 2009. Except that it came 6 months yearly. Hey, I told you I wasn’t great with numbers.
Yep, that Billabong acquisition of Sector 9 is a key turning point. The following comes from the skull and bones forum from a gentleman who goes by the name Buck Toff:
“I think this corporate move is important, not for the companies involved, or even so much for longboarding specifically. What it represents is that the skateboard industry dynasty built almost entirely on street trick skating for the past 16 or 17 years is finally crumbling.”
That’ a sweeping statement, but I believe it is true. This deal represents vastly different things to those who work in the skate industry.
If you work at a skate company where the focus has been street skateboarding, this deal might freak you out somewhat. Billabong has huge marketing resources and they will no doubt be able increase the awareness of Sector 9 longboards. Significantly increase. Let me step back for a moment and say something blunt to these street companies. For years I heard “there was no market” and “these things aren’t skateboards.” I kept telling folks “if there is no market, why is Sector 9 selling so many?” The other thing I found (and continue to find) is that as soon as I let fellow skaters try my longboards, they are hooked. They want to know where to buy one. For something that many in the skate industry ignored and even mocked, it’s great to finally feel some validation. No one is laughing now. Well, that’s not exactly true. There are still some folks that think this is all one giant kooky deal. You know what? I don’t flipping care and neither do the millions of people who enjoy skateboarding (in all its facets).
Will Mystery or Toy Machine start making Longboards? Hard to tell. The fact is that most street skateboarding companies have a distinct reputation as being street companies. Sure, they can make completes (like World Industries does with Speed Demons) but the fact is that if they want to play in this world of Longboarding, they must be careful not to jeopardize their brand name. Chances are you will see shortboard companies try and emulate what Sector 9 has done, but I sense it won’t amount to much. There are three other paths:
A company like Mystery (Black Box distribution) starts up an entirely new company devoted to Longboarding. That requires a great deal of money and effort. Resources at many short board companies are tight right now and the payoff may or may not come.
A street company BUYS a Longboarding company outright. This is not a bad idea and it could work. But then again, if you are emerging Longboard brand, why sell out now when the market is just getting heated up?
Do nothing but keep selling street skateboards. This is probably the strategy that most will adopt. The fact is that street is still the dominant part of skateboarding – but it’s become increasingly difficult to compete. Blanks and shop decks are two problems. But I sense the biggest issue is the enormous marketing budgets that are required to keep the engines rolling. There is a lot of clutter out there in the land of street skateboarding. To cut through the noise, you need an enormous amount of money and power. That now generally rests in large corporations like Billabong, Burton, Nike, Quiksilver, the skate shoe companies and the gang that owns World Industries. To put it another way, street hardgoods companies are getting hit from below (very small, local skate companies, blanks and shop decks) and above (huge multinational corporations). It’s a tough slog.
My counterparts at the other skate magazines have ignored the growth of Longboarding.
In fact the silence from the print skate media on Longboarding has been deafening. Yes, they deserve acknowledgement for the following:
Slap: featured Tony Hawk riding a Gravity Longboard on the cover,
SkateBoarder: published a slide sequence of Sergio Yuppie
Transworld: the buyers guide does have a Longboard section in it
So, it will be interesting to see what they do now. They are going to have to tread carefully on this. If the inject variety into their magazines, they might upset the vast majority of readers looking for mostly street skateboarding. Then again, this Billabong deal is big and it will have reverberations. They might have to slowly tip toe around the elephant in the room (as they have done for years) but my gut tells me that elephants have a way of stomping around if they don’t get their way. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t? Not a position I’d like to be in.
Ok, what happens if you own/work at a Longboard company? Well, this deal validates things. A $600 million company just wrote a hefty paycheck to your biggest competitor. By the way, Sector 9 is not just the biggest Longboard company in the world, they are more than likely the biggest skateboard company in the world – based on hardgood sales. This is significant, but I am digressing. Billabong’s announcement that they purchased Sector 9 got picked up and broadcast around the skateworld. Hell, even skatedaily mentioned it! The fact is that when a company like Billabong puts the hammer down, it sends reverberations throughout an industry. You don’t think Quiksilver or Nike will sit up and take notice of this? Of course they will. That’s how corporations operate. If a competitor makes a play into a new market (ie Longboarding) then they must see VALUE and DOLLARS in that market. This is a signal and as I have told many people, this is all just a warm up for what is about to come. I predict good things…for lots of companies and for skateboarding in general. That’s what has happened with EVERY catalyst.
As an aside, if you ask people what a billabong is, most have no clue whatsoever. The answer might surprise you.
From wikipedia:
Billabong is an Australian English word meaning a smallish lake, specifically an oxbow lake, a stagnant pool of water attached to a waterway[1Billabongs are usually formed when the path of a creek or river changes, leaving the former branch with a dead end.
There is a heavy duty metaphor here – and for those of you who are puzzled, I will explain.
Skateboarding changes because it gets stagnant. It takes many paths, but eventually, one path emerges and folks milk the hell out of it and then things dry up. It happened in the 80’s with vert and it’s happening now with street. We need diversity within skateboarding. Longboarding has injected a healthy dose of variety within skateboarding and one of the key architects of this change has been Sector 9. Billabong, a company who is no stranger to diverse acquisitions (they own Element, Von Zipper and Nixon watches) recognized this and is setting sail on a new course. Pretty ironic isn’t it?
If you don’t want to wind up like a billabong (small and stagnant) you must think and act like Billabong.
Re: a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
In spite of how evolved the 'kickflipper' shape is, it has certainly become stagnant.
Outside of skateboarding I doubt there's been a time in history where consumers been graced with such diversity.
Put the two together and the idea that you can present a consumer with only variations of the one board, is quite frankly doomed to failure. Yet that's exactly what mainstream skateboards are.
Hopefully this will lead to more skaters realizing they have a choice, "hey they're different - so what else is out there"?
__________________
It's "skate or die" not "skate and die"—Wear a helmet, use what's in it.
Re: a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
skategeezer - Love your posts every time. You have an interesting perspective on all of this. The whole 7/4 thing sounds nuts, but the rest of the post made a boatload of sense.
Truthfully, having been involved in a buyout like this multiple times, Billabong is just going to buy Sector 9 and tell them where to send the check. Sort of a pimp/prostitute kind of arrangement. Sector 9 will be able to use increased funding for larger promotional projects but will truthfully remain the same for the most part. They will probably have some IT and HR functions within Sector 9 eliminated for centralization withing the parent company. But that is just the way these things work...
C
^for some reason there is a "g" that i can't edit off of "within", please pardon the technical error. It isn't a spelling thing.
Re: a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
I bet they have the same global holding companies though. That is the only way to steady the brand across countries and continents. I doubt they would just purchase part of it and have another part be able to use the brand or devalue it for that matter.
Interesting thought though. SEC papers on the deal should be available once it is all complete and filed.
Re: a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Warren
Now to stir the pot a bit on the Sector 9 / Billabong deal - IN CANADA . . . .
Billabong Canada operates as a separate entity from the US - and Sector 9 has a separate distributor for Canada.
I am wondering if Billabong Canada will take over the distributorship of S9.
Doubt it - but it might happen to streamline things a bit?
Just a thought.
ive been wondering the same thing, i think it might be nice, i think our sector 9 wheel prices are way to high..... they havent changed in 3 years, even with the huge dollar change
Re: a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
Seven years is an important span:
7-14: Grade school before high school.
11-18: The "teen" years before college
13-20: when most people discover and learn to appreciate the opposite sex.
18-25: College and grad school OR Apprenticeship and Journeyman.
It would be intersting to know if these same age spans in any way correspond to the demographics affecting the various "eras" of skateboarding?
I know in my case I turned 14 in 1975. Seven years later it was 1982 and everything was different than I had ever known about skating. What's coincidental about that is 1983 (just a few months later) is when I graduated college and had the independence to do something in regards to skating more than just my neighborhood or college campus. Unfortunately, by that time there was nothing there.
The Up Series consists of a series of documentary films that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old. The children were selected to represent the range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the explicit assumption that each child's
a blog post that I wanted to share...more on that billabong/sector 9 deal...
