As a 31-year-old snowboarder in Lake Tahoe, amid the hordes of young, fiercely talented skiers who seem to dominate the mountainscape of Squaw Valley, I can see myself as a sideways-sliding metaphor for the way some view the snowboarding industry. Getting older, with growing responsibilities, I and my crowd have little to teach to the new guard, who are doing just fine as skiers. Sure, there are lots of snowboarders here, but the snowboard crowd simply isn’t as large as the skiers.
But enough of me. There have been several reports and a waterfall of articles in recent years that suggest an older snowboarding industry is stagnating.
A main impetus for the attention was a presentation at the 2012 NSAA national convention and a subsequent report published in the NSAA Journal, authored by Nate Fristoe.
The report noted that snowboarder participation days were down, by 1.5 fewer days during the 2011-12 season compared to 1996-97. Additionally, snowboarders’ portion of all domestic visits compared to skiers topped out at 32 percent in 2001-02, subsequently dropping to 25 percent by 2011-12. Plus, the average age of snowboarders increased from 24 to 27 between 1996 and 2012, indicating a lack of younger snowboarders entering the sport. Another significant factor was the severe gender imbalance; while there is an equal number of male and female snowboarders at the beginner stage, when snowboarders reached the advanced/expert stage, 81 percent were males.
Fristoe’s report was aimed at resort operators, and intended to spur efforts to revive snowboarding’s growth. However, the mainstream media ran wild with it. Articles appeared in The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, Men’s Journal, and many other outlets, claiming the once-cool counterpart to skiing had lost its relevance.
Marketing was blamed in a 2014 online article for Outside by Marc Peruzzi, who claimed the industry was killing itself by only appealing to the young and hip. “Over 30 years old but still get out and shred? The industry lives in absolute dread of you,” he wrote.
Some information from these articles was erroneous. A 2013 LA Times article, for example, reported that “by 2004 snowboarders outnumbered skiers on U.S. slopes.” The errors, and the flood of doomsday reports, triggered a backlash from the snowboard community. The coverage on snowboarding’s decline was challenged in an online Outside rebuttal by former Transworld Snowboarding editor Annie Fast, who claimed the numbers were off, and that fears of snowboarding’s decline were largely misplaced opinion.
Fristoe’s report got people talking, to say the least. Even more than he had hoped. “People in general over-reacted to the report. It’s a complicated dynamic, and there are several natural factors that contributed to snowboarding’s decline that aren’t from any direct action of the industry,” he says.
Can We Talk?
Now, three years later, snowboarding (and snowboarders) has more perspective on the subject. Professional snowboarder Scotty Lago, who won the bronze medal in halfpipe at the 2010 Olympics, acknowledges that the high rate of progression may have left the average snowboarder in the dust.
“I can’t see the decline on the mountain myself, but I think the sport sometimes can have the horse blinders on. It’s hard for the average snowboarder to relate to a 22-foot pipe, street rails, or Alaska backcountry,” he says.
Fristoe sees several factors beyond anyone’s control that contributed to the decline of snowboarding numbers: the natural aging of the sport, as well as the economic downturn in 2008, and the recent lack of snowfall in the West, home to the highest concentration of riders.
Nevertheless, he sees areas in which the industry could improve, especially retaining younger female participants and instruction for young snowboarders, especially those under age seven.
Former pro snowboarder David Benedek, who was a pioneer in freestyle snowboarding through the late 2000s, says he became concerned by a lack of maturation of the sport toward the end of his career.
“Why did snowboarding seem so scared to mature?” Benedek asks. “It’s one of those things where you don’t quite know what’s cause and what’s effect. Is snowboarding beyond the age of 30 such a small market because the industry has missed out on sculpting and marketing that space, or is no one doing that because the market is too small to justify the investment?”
Recruiting Efforts
Several entities, led by Burton, the most influential snowboard company on the planet, are attempting to expose snowboarding to youth via various channels.
Burton’s vice president of global operations, Jeff Boliba, acknowledges that life stage issues, the recession, and adverse weather in snowboarding’s hotbed, California, contributed to the stagnant numbers reported in 2012, along with a society-wide drop in sports participation generally. But he sees growing numbers of young new riders as a positive development.
“A drop in sports participation is a trend [across many sports] but doesn’t tell the whole story. We think the sport is in a very healthy place, and we feel super positive about it,” he says.
Fueled by that optimism, Boliba is developing ways to introduce kids across the world to snowboarding. One initiative involves infusing snowboarding into the traditional physical education curriculum. Boliba led the creation of an indoor introduction to snowboarding skills that could be presented anywhere.
“The powerful part was we could take the winter and weather part out of it,” says Boliba. “The PE component really focuses on core strength and balance, so it applies to any sport or activity.”
Started in 2014 in Vermont, the program was designed for kids in kindergarten through second grade, the under-seven demographic that Fristoe cites. Kids start by standing sideways on throwback boards (simple snowboards made for indoor learning) and are towed around by the Riglet Reel, an attachment with a cord and handle that connects to certain Burton boards.
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“The idea was to develop a program that one PE teacher could do, just like basketball or any other sport, and run it as a curriculum program,” Boliba says.
Following the classroom intro, kids were introduced to snow at nearby Cochran’s Ski Area. Since the kids already had an understanding of the basic function of the board, the results were very positive, Boliba reports.
In addition to the PE effort, Burton has extended its Learn to Ride program to the Burton Riglet Parks, a second means to get kids involved in snowboarding. Boliba estimates that the free global Riglet Park tour, which is just a small segment of the Riglet reach, introduced 10,000 kids to the sport in 14 countries over the 2014-15 season alone.
SNOW Operating LLC, and its Terrain Based Learning program, provide another innovative way to retain beginner riders. TBL utilizes shaped terrain to make the first-timer experience enjoyable. This program is based on a teaching technique developed by Burton. SNOW Operating took the concept and made it practical to implement on a large scale.
“TBL is especially effective at getting first-time snowboarders through that critical first day on snow. Through the use of the terrain, we can get guests ‘making turns’ from day one, but the terrain is actually making the turns for them,” says Hugh Reynolds, SNOW Operating’s vice president of marketing and sales.
SNOW Operating currently partners with 22 resorts in the U.S. and Canada, and cites increases of 45 percent in retention after Mountain Creek Resort, N.J., implemented the program.
“Anyone who has learned to snowboard knows that the first day is typically just brutal. Our goal with a TBL lesson is to maximize the fun and minimize the fear and pain,” says Reynolds. (For more on TBL, see “Beginner Moves,” page 58.)
Yet another Burton initiative: Relax & Ride workshops for women, offered across the country. R&R aims to increase female ridership through a casual approach to instruction, combined with other activities, such as yoga, to keep the interest level high.
“We have seen great enthusiasm from the girls at Relax & Ride. We just want to offer a calm environment to give the girls a chance to progress,” says Gretchen Kielas, who organizes the camp at Squaw Valley.
At $229 for a session (including a lift ticket) for the Squaw workshop, the price point be out of reach for some in the snowboard community. But organizers are hoping programs like these can grow female interest across the board.
And that seems to be happening. “Females have always been an under-represented demographic within snowboarding,” says Reynolds. “Over the past decade, we’ve started to see some nice strides in this area at all levels of the sport.”
New PARTICIPANT Numbers
Fristoe, too, sees gains. “I have been seeing a reinvigoration of the industry in terms of getting people to try it, people seeking creative solutions and trying new things,” he says. That may help explain the stabilization he’s seen in snowboarding’s numbers. “There has been no huge drop-off and no huge growth, which can be seen as success,” he adds.
Other data, notably from SnowSports Industries America’s 2014 Participant Study, highlight other positive signs.
