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Snowboarding is a huge business
Date: 3/17/2006
by Mark Oberg
There was no bigger star at the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics than Shaun White, the 19-year old gold medalist in the Men's Snowboarding Half-pipe. Known as the “Flying Tomato” for his wild shock of red hair, White captured the nation’s attention with his high flying aerial maneuvers and engaging, off the cuff persona.
More than anything, however, White and his male and female snowboarding teammates impressed upon the public consciousness what ski hills have known for years: Snowboarding is huge. In her decade at Spirit Mountain, Brianna Johnson, marketing director, has seen snowboarding go from a niche sport, to one that competes directly with traditional skiing.
"If you take a snapshot of the hill on any given day, the ratio (of snowboarders to skiers) is probably 50:50,” she says. "If you'd have taken that same snapshot 10 years ago, I’d say it would have been 35:65.”
In fact, the National Sporting Goods Association’s 2004 Sports Participation Study found that for the first time, the number of participants identifying themselves as snowboarders outnumbered those as alpine skiers. In addition, Snowsports Industries America, a national trade association representing the winter sports industry, estimates participation in snowboarding has tripled since 1998 and snowboarding has become a $500 million industry.
The growing popularity of snowboarding provides an opening to savvy small businesses operators like Ben Olson, Jack Boyd and Nicole Neally. Recognizing room for another local shop, they opened Damage Board Shop in Duluth.
“It certainly helps out the business side of things because everyone’s watching this on TV,” Olson said in the waning days of the 2006 Winter Olympics. Not afraid to drop a name, he adds “it’s cool in some ways to see guys like Danny Kass — who we’ve known forever — and see his attitude,” says Olson, describing the 2002 and 2006 Olympic Silver Medalist in the half-pipe. “He’s just out there doing his thing.”
Johnson and Olson agree snowboarding will get a significant bump from its Olympics exposure.
“Like anything else you see in the Olympics, you watch snowboarding and get dazzled by how spectacular these athletes are,” Johnson says. “You start to think, ‘hey, I could take this up.’”Johnson points to the local example set by Duluth native and 2006 Olympian Mason Aguirre.
“Kids now know that they could come out to Spirit Mountain and compete in our competitions and end up on the U.S. Olympic Team one day, just like Mason did years ago,” she says.
Johnson and Olson are wary of the all the attention, however, and its ultimate effect on the snowboarding and the culture its nurtured.
“One of the fears was that by going Olympic, snowboarding was going to become too mainstream and wouldn’t be cool anymore. But, like Shaun White told a reporter in Torino, it’s really bringing a lot more attention to the sport, giving it a lot of credibility and people are taking it more seriously,” Johnson says.
Ski facilities themselves are talking snowboarding more seriously. Snowboarding, once regarded with disdain at major ski areas, and in many places outlawed, has become a major revenue source. Spirit Mountain created Terrain Park eight years ago to quench the thirst of snowboarders who needed special areas to maneuver and perform the jaw dropping tricks Olympics audiences witnessed in February. Through additions over the years that now include a Superpipe, Terrain Park has become widely regarded as one of the Midwest’s best.
“Just this last year in December we had the USSA Revolution Tour come through. The USSA specifically called us and sought us out because of our terrain park’s reputation,” Johnson says.
That competition was a qualifier for the world championships, in which the U.S. snowboard team was chosen.Terrain Park also presents shops like Damage with ample opportunities to sponsor events at Spirit Mountain, opportunities Olson says are essential for business.
“Now that we have a shop we’ve had four or five events like rail contests and half-pipe contests. We also put up a wall ride in the Terrain Park where we had a contest. It’s great to work with people you know and respect,” he says.
That relationship with local board shops helps all parties succeed, Johnson says.
“We have a big event at the end of March that is sponsored by all of the local shops called the Duluth Board Shop Series. It’s really great from our point of view to see all the shops working together to put on the this event for their customers, because ultimately their customers are our customers,” she says.
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