The East Wins a World Cup

Staging any event is akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle—piecing together disparate logistical details to create a single, seamless entity. The bigger the event, the more puzzle pieces are involved. And in competitive skiing, nothing is bigger than a World Cup race. The World Cup is daunting enough to discourage most resorts.

Nonetheless, when a slot in the women’s World Cup schedule opened for this year’s fast-approaching Thanksgiving weekend, Vermont’s Killington resort and its owner, Powdr Corp, joined the U.S. Ski Team (USST) in jumping into puzzle-assembling action.

The schedule opening materialized two years ago when Aspen, which traditionally hosts the women’s World Cup over Thanksgiving, was granted the World Cup finals for the 2016-17 season. Because FIS didn’t want two events at the same venue in one season, the search began for an early-season substitute.

To many European resorts, this opening in the schedule was like tossing red meat at a pack of famished Rotweilers. For them, the prestige of being a World Cup host can promote major-resort credibility and marketing clout. But the U.S. Ski Team, the national governing body for the sport in the U.S., was determined to keep Thanksgiving weekend racing at home, lest this tradition be broken. That might make it more difficult to reinstate in the future. Question was, where?

A Long-Shot Bid

Enter Killington. The resort’s bid wasn’t quite a shot in the dark, but it was close. A quarter of a century had passed since a Northeastern U.S. resort had played host to the World Cup—Waterville Valley, N.H., was the last, in 1991. And Killington had never hosted an international event of anywhere near this magnitude.

Still, that didn’t stop the Ski Team, Powdr, and Killington from entertaining the idea. The first order of business: making a realistic bid to the International Ski Federation (FIS) to host the event. Killington and the Team began with an assessment of the strengths that Killington could bring to the bidding table. What might give the Vermont resort an edge over any competitors?

For starters, being something of a neophyte in World Cup racing might have worked in Killington’s favor. FIS perceived the long absence of World Cup racing from the Northeast as a hole that needed filling. This, after all, was home to a large ski-racing fan base, as well as the country’s biggest ski retail market. And because it had been so long since the last Northeastern World Cup, no particular resort was the obvious venue choice. Killington was in as good a position as anyone, or as Ski Team CEO Tiger Shaw put it, “Why not Killington?”

Herwig Demschar, a Powdr vice president who is head of the Killington organizing committee, said, “There had been a discussion for years [in FIS’s Alpine Executive Committee] to get a World Cup back to the East.” In addition, FIS has positioned itself in recent years as wanting to expand global ski-racing interest rather than remaining sclerotically Eurocentric. A new resort in a region that rarely hosts fit into that game plan.

Still, geography was only one determining factor, and not necessarily a major one. Atle Skardaal, FIS chief race director for the women’s World Cup, had previously visited several Northeastern resorts, and returned to Killington last September for a closer inspection. He saw several things he liked: “a good hill” (steep and long Superstar, which conformed to FIS homologation standards); good infrastructure, snowmaking in particular; and “good people.”

But it takes more than that to become a World Cup host. It requires a broad amalgam of assets that might or might not be related to racing. A World Cup host’s obligations are spelled out in detail in an 18-page FIS document. As Skardaal summed it up, a host must be able to “put on an event, not just a race.” Demschar, a former U.S. Ski Team coach and a veteran of the World Cup scene, knew well the mandate: create a “festival” atmosphere for a multi-day celebration of the sport.

In that regard, Killington already had much of the necessary infrastructure. Everything, with some minor tweaking, was in place. Killington was, says USST vice president of events Calum Clark, “a good venue without millions of dollars needed for capital improvements.” It is quite possible that Thanksgiving racing will return to Aspen in a year or two—it’s a popular stop on the tour—so pouring a ton of money into what might be a one-shot event didn’t make much sense.

In specifying Killington’s logistical assets, Clark reaffirmed Skardaal’s view of the race hill. He also pointed to a large, flat area at the finish that can accommodate stadium-style seating, a broadcast compound, and VIP and media areas. There was the requisite large bed base, with sufficient conference facilities necessary for everything from ski waxing to team captains’ meetings.

The only downside that Skardaal could think of was that Killington was a long way from major population centers, but that is true of most World Cup venues.

As much as anything, it was Killington’s snowmaking prowess that probably sealed the deal. In recent years, FIS has been plagued by cancellations, postponements, and race relocations in Europe due to snow problems. Even a race last November in Levi, Finland—north of the Arctic Circle—had to be rescheduled due to a lack of snow. With state-of-the-art snowmaking to assuage FIS concerns about early-season snow, Killington had a decisive ace up its sleeve.

The finish area will include grandstands, hospitality areas, an "Expo Village," beer tent, and the all-important TV broadcast area.

Pulling It All Together

When the FIS Alpine Executive Committee gave its official nod to Killington last October, work began on assembling the pieces needed to make the event happen.

An event this big requires a large number of collaborators. The Killington organizing committee includes representatives from Killington, Powdr, the U.S. Ski Team, the local business community, sponsors, and others.

While the event is happening at Killington, it is, in many ways, not a Killington event. The race and festivities are under the aegis of FIS, which has a say in almost all aspects of event organization. And Killington president Mike Solimano recognized early that the resort, in entering major-event territory, needed help. So he looked to “bring in experts to guide us—people with World Cup and Olympics experience.”

“It is amazing how complicated it is,” Solimano concedes. Issues of complication arise where Killington might not normally encounter them in organizing the dozens of smaller events it hosts annually—as in the matter of sponsorship, for example. Killington and Powdr have their go-to sponsors, FIS and the U.S. Ski Team have their sponsors, and there are sponsors specifically linked to the event. Inevitably, there are potential conflicts. For example, Audi is a World Cup title sponsor, while Jeep is a Killington partner. Says Solimano: “There are rules for sponsors—certain things we can do, and certain things we can’t.”

Further complication comes in an area where Killington typically has it nailed: snowmaking. Killington might have the expertise and equipment to make great recreational snow or superb terrain parks, especially in challenging early-season climatic conditions. But World Cup race snow is a different animal.

FIS and Ski Team snow technicians will join forces with Killington snowmakers to make sure the snow surface is close to bulletproof ice, the World Cup standard—but one that is usually anathema to the Killington team. Water injection might be used to help ice up the snow, and chemicals might be added to keep the snow frozen if temperatures are near or above freezing. Such measures can raise environmental red flags, and as Clark says, “we have to be extremely conscious of environmental controls.” Once the World Cuppers are gone, the Killington surfacing crew will then face the unusual task of converting the World Cup course to what Solimano calls “retail” snow.

Costs and Benefits

Any event, of course, can be costly and disruptive, exponentially so for a major event like a World Cup. Solimano expects that $250,000 in added snowmaking costs alone could be necessary. He hopes that regular skiing business on the holiday weekend can proceed mostly uninterrupted; Killington’s multiple base and parking areas will help in that regard. If not, hosting the World Cup could dent the usual Thanksgiving revenues.

Which brings us to that all-important question: why do it?

It’s a hard question to answer. “We wouldn’t normally pick Thanksgiving, because it is such a volatile time,” says Solimano. “But we thought it was an awesome opportunity.”

He admits that “it is not a money maker to support racing,” and revenue from ticket sales, resort-owned lodging, and event sponsorship isn’t likely to come close to covering the resort’s event costs. Much of the event-generated revenue finds its way into the pockets of other stakeholders, such as FIS (TV rights, etc.) and local lodging properties, with little or no gain for the resort there.

But the prestige of hosting a World Cup has significant marketing value, especially on an international scale. That calculation is well understood in Europe, but quantifying any marketing return on Killington’s investment in World Cup racing will be tricky. “It is the million-dollar question,” says Solimano. “Nobody knows. We aren’t even sure if we will be able to do an ROI.”

Of course, Killington and Powdr will try. After Thanksgiving, after the pieces have fallen into place and business-as-usual resumes, Killington and Powdr will convene to determine if the money and effort were worth it.

But on one point, almost all parties involved agree: the return of major-league ski racing to the East is fundamentally a pretty picture for the U.S. ski industry in general. If the weather cooperates, the World Cup could generate tons of TV exposure and kick-start the season. The value of that? Priceless.