the whole "blanks are killing the industry" thing...

[pyrate]

would the industry survive if a company started selling blank or minimal boards with almost no pro models aimed at a lower pricepoint market?

what about if a company started marketing blanks directly to skaters in magazines saying things like "who needs a pro's name on their board"?

would the industry be able to survive if a company started selling uncut blanks that you could cut yourself into any shape you want?

assuming all this were to happen should skate mags take their advertising $$ even though their product is supposedly going to kill the industry?

should the big companies try to compete by offering comparable products, or should they stick by their pros and demand consumers buy the higher $$ pro decks?

should the big companies start to get rid of their pros?

should shops be able to sell their own model boards that are blanks with only a small shop logo or sticker and are kids killing skateboarding by buying them?


if you think you know where im going with all this youre right.
all this stuff happened. blockhead, basic and other companies sold blank or minimal boards and were quite popular, naked skateboards marketed uncut blanks for 1/2 the price of a normal board, thrasher and other mags seemed to have no problem publishing those ads alongside the big company ads, some of the big companies like powell and SC stopped making pro models and instead sold team decks with minimal graphics and when possible new construction techniques, and most shops sold blank decks with a sticker from the shop on them.

that all happened in 1990-1993 and sparked an almost identical debate at the time. but the industry survived then and it will now. saying that without pros to look up to and pro models to buy kids wont skate is truly backwards logic. more people started skating this past year cause of pharrell and his whole image than any pro with skills out there. kids are gonna skate no matter what and the industry should simply go with the flow and react to what consumers want, not tell them what they want. thats guaranteed to alienate them and cause a backlash against the big companies.

as long as kids skate there will be a skate industry, but as long as the industry fights change it will stagnate. remember, the skaters on the street have and always will steer the industry, not the pros or CEOs. telling those kids their wrong and killing the industry by skating for them selves and not to support their fave pro is only gonna make em laugh. and rightly so.

thats my rant, and im sticking to it.

[Dizi]

I agree. Even if Tony Hawk was never born, I'm pretty certain I would still be riding a Loaded with Abec-11 wheels.

[Directive0]

I agree with you man, but at this point, I really couldn't care less what happened to the industry. Sink or swim.

I know the older guys will caution that a market disruption makes it harder to get gear, find places to skate, etc. I really don't care. I will keep doing what I'm doing and I'm not going to try to justify it in some big picture sense.

[pyrate]

just to clarify... if you like a pro or company and want to support them by buying a pro board thats great!
but if you buy an identical product for less because you want to skate and dont care about pros/co.s or cause your poor you shouldnt be blamed for killing the industry.

everyone who skates is supporting the industry IMO

and unless everyone stops skating altogether there will always be a skate industry. hell all these chnese manufacturers and shop's with blank decks are still a part of the industry anyway, arent they?

[chicagolongboards]

Thanks to the internet, and companies like roarockit, you can learn to build your own decks quite easily. Does this mean that you are killing the industry by not supporting the core shops, OR the big companies, and their pros, by not giving them your money?

It's a new world thanks to the internet.

[Partyboypowell]

To be honost, with a bit of investment im sure anyone who loves skating could press there owen decks (i know i can)... just aslong as the wheels and trucks keep coming im happy

EDIT: yeah the roarockit kit

[skategeezer]

it's interesting, but what used to take months or even years now takes but weeks on the internet...rocco decimated the big 5...but it took him quite some time

I met him in 1987...with Mike V in toronto...I could tell he was an evil genius...

in 1988 he officially launched SMA/World

by 1989 he was already legendary
by 1991 he had the big 5 on the fence
and by 1992 it was all over...

can you imagine if Rocco had the internet at the time?

yikes....

[rawls]

Earthwing Mike, you bring out a very good point, but what you weren't aware of was that price point boards/wheels have always been there. I dont mean mainstream plastic loose ball garbage. In the 70's, Ampul was a huge price point marketer. right smack in the mags, in the solid wood days, Shops brought from ampul and many other warehousers and put their own shop logo on them, or sold them naked. In the late 70's as the boards, blank uncut boards also came around, once again advertised right in the magazines. In the 80's, it also happened, and "naked board" was one of the companies even in the mid 80's that provided uncut and pre-cut replicas.

This blank board thing is not about the fact of buying a board and therefore not supporting the market. this is a control issue, in which the controllers are trying to make rules concerning their profit capability. What they are leaving out of the whole picture is the FACT that the mainstream market and the IASC venders have perpetuated a situation in which no product growth or innovation has occurred. they even acknowledge this very situation. What this does is open up numerous opportunities, as time goes on (and its been 15yrs!) for copycatters and such to get into the market.

the next thing is that in doing so, the IASC and mainstream market are saying that the pros are all that matters. support the pros, and skateboarding will continue. Its as if the consumer is not a skater at all. there is no performance criteria, no selection criteria, you must buy a pro board or it dies.

I think this whole argument needs to be taken to the next level and get the IASC and mainstream to explain how lack of innovation and design stagnation, therefore allowing market saturation and drops in profits, which are forcing and promoting cookie cutter processes and marketing, has now become the consumers fault.

Gentlemen, the CASH COW has left the building.

the big thing is what can be done by the IASC to correct the problem. this is what the eventual argument is. so far, all they can do is chastise the buyer, hahahahahaha. what a joke. no talks about marketing performance, no talks about offering a true low cost quality deck, no talks about suppliers and remarketed or cookie cutter operations.

Gentlemen, this aint about skaters making up their mind on products that have equal performance at a lower cost.

this is about a major oversight on behalf of the market for not knowing how supply and demand works.

In no place, is it the consumers' fault for allowing a market to fold. whats funny, the market is not folding. People are skating and out looking for best bang for the buck equipment. thats a booming market, not a death. the mainstream does not want you to skate and make performance based decisions. they want you to support pros!

[pyrate]

bravo rawls! well put.

[Dizi]

I don't think the cash cow has left yet. "Support the Pros" is just an attempt to minimize profit loss. These guys are making huge bank.

[msk]

should shops be able to sell their own model boards that are blanks with only a small shop logo or sticker and are kids killing skateboarding by buying them?

The two biggest advertisers in the 70s were Val Surf and Kanoa Surf, both of which usually took out 2 or 3 page ads in every issue of SkateBoarder and Skateboard World. Both also offered decks with their logos that were virtually identical to the brand name boards that they carried. I knew lots of people that couldn't afford a real Sims TaperKick that bought the identical Val Surf deck for about 2/3 the price...

saying that without pros to look up to and pro models to buy kids wont skate is truly backwards logic.

When I first started skating, I wasn't even aware that there was such a thing as a professional skateboarder (I was only 7, and skateboarding had just died out about 2 years earlier). It was about 7 or 8 years after I started that I first heard of that, when Skateboard magazine first came out, soon followed by SkateBoarder.

The biggest, and fastest, growth that skateboarding has seen occurred around '74-'75, when skating went from being almost non-existent to about as popular as it is now. There weren't any magazines yet, no pros, no videos, no extreme sports cable networks,yet somehow millions of people got the idea that they wanted to skate. It was almost entirely driven by the advent of skateboards that actually worked, and the idea that skating was fun.

Conversely, 5 years later, skating took a sudden and dramatic downturn at a time when the number of pros, and pro models, were at the highest point they'd ever been up until then...

[MrCokesNSmokes]

^^^^ This post, right up here? By msk? This outta be mandatory reading for the IASC dudes.

Msk= Pure Genius.

Dude, send this over to someone's e-mail at www.skateboardiasc.org. Seriously.

[rawls]

this whole thing is not about boards or hardgoods. Its is about the mainstream market and media using pros as vehicle to achieve sales. the real profit generating tool is the pro skater.

the consumer can look like and skate the same board that Joe-Pro skates. this is the ultimate fallacy. However, this is the mainstream market. the IASC and mainstream are basing their market on mallboarders, not skateboarders.

the mainstream market is associating skating as something the pros do, and the consumer has the ultimate gift of being able to look just like the pro.

the consumer's use of the ability to skate, on his own accord, is not even part of the equation.

I think the mall boarders definitely outweigh the real skaters, but the real news is, they aint skating, the real skaters are skating. Once the mall boarders see that real skaters dont need expensive pro/branded boards and wheels, then they buy the blank stuff, and local shop stuff too. this is the state we are in. the mainstream consumer is taking note of what the real skaters are doing.

ONCE AGAIN THE MAINSTREAM CAN ONLY FOLLOW, they cannot lead. this equally applies to the mainstream market, because they supply the mainstream consumer. Mainstream can only react.

[skategeezer]

so now, it's spiralling...

[rawls]

This is not street versus oldschool or long boarding, or racing thing. this blank board thing is happening within its own little circle. Implosion.


IASC and the mainstream are saying," We gave you everything you needed to look like a pro. We gave you videos and new graphics monthly. You did not even really have to skate, we did it for you. Why are you guys bailing on us? dont you know this is going to kill the industry?" NOT

[Slim]

Naturally, Rawls and MSK have very good analysis of the situation. They've seen several cycles of the skateboard industry and have a longer view forward than most of today's current skate companies.

While we can blame the mainstream companies for many things, I'm not sure the growing trend of the "boutique/garage" skate company that has arose as an alternative has turned out to be a fully positive thing. With all these companies starting up in the last five years or so to sell to the old school skater or the longboard skater, we've strengthened the situation where a skate company is not a manufacturer, but simply some guy who picks up his phone and orders stuff from a woodshop or wheel shop and has his company's name screened on it, putting yet another middle man in the sales chain between manufacturer and skater (and thus either raising prices skaters have to pay, or lowering profits for the manufacturer and skate shop owner).

I support these new companies for the alternative designs they provide, but from a purely socio-economic standpoint, you know, the larger picture of the impact the skate industry has on our society, I have to say that older company operations like Powell or Fausto's operations (indy, thunder, real, anti-hero, krooked, spitfire, etc. etc.), that manufacturer the bulk of their own items themselves, may have been a better model.


What I want to preserve is:
1) the skateboard industry remains one owned and operated by skateboarders themselves
2) manufacturing remains in the usa
3) outstanding, creative skaters be rewarded and able to make their living from skating and therefore dedicate all their time towards pushing the limits of what we can do on skateboards and serving as an inspiration to other skaters
4) that there are as few middle men in the chain between manufacturer and skater as possible. this means "companies" need to make their own stuff and sell their own stuff.

My fear is that if "blanks" continue to take over is that buyers will not be able to identify which blanks are made in the usa and which are imported from china (they are supposed to be labeled but no one is obeying this law). We will be welcoming non-skating kook businessmen to simply pick up the phone, order X number of decks from some Chinese woodshop and sell them here in the USA. Not my idea of good times.

[animal chin]

Just give them a reason to spend more money on a skateboard...make it better, make it remarkable, and unspoofable.

If charmin is that much softer, i'll spend more for the charmin. If I don't have enough cash, I will just buy the storebrand toilet paper. But my ass still likes the charmin better, no matter what.

[bpz]

Just give them a reason to spend more money on a skateboard...make it better, make it remarkable, and unspoofable.

If charmin is that much softer, i'll spend more for the charmin. If I don't have enough cash, I will just buy the storebrand toilet paper. But my ass still likes the charmin better, no matter what.

The man nailed it. Why spend so much more on a pro deck when the only difference is how it looks? A blank board performs just as well, I'm not going to money. Brian puts out a product unlike any others, which is why he gets my money.

[Roodog]

Man all this BS make me wish I was 12 again. We had a decent group that skated together almost everyday and no one ever got so damn analytical over what people were riding. Some guys had Santa Cruz, Powell, etc... decks with tracker, indies or gullwings and other guys had Variflex completes from Caldor's, but we all had as much fun. Remember when #### was simple?

I dont think anyone has to worry about blanks ruining the "industry." There is just too much concern for "style" these day, and Im not talking about skating with style. Dude actually pick decks by their graphic. I when top get a new street deck the other day and asked for something 32x "just under 8 wide" and the kid in the shop was confused by my question. I said thanks and walked out.

As for Animal Chin, I too am trying to give him my money Sofa King. He just wont put that damn 38 on the market though! Gotta agree with you Sofa, Earthwing puts out some of the highest quality decks and slide wheels available.

[Xgecko]

the whole blanks thing is rather funny to me but then the last popsicle board I bought was 5-6 years ago (and I bought 4 Natural Koncepts Canadien Beasts), mostly because the WB's were just too short for my taste, it was hard to find a park board 33" long. Now days? well fter I noodles the last of my NK's I discovered Gravity have been very pleased with what I have used for park riding. The thing is the mainstream doesn't make boards that I want but then that's the problem for most people here. Hell you can't even buy the actual boards that guys like Hawk and Way ride!