Bloomberg Businessweek June 10, 201917skateboarding and its rule-breaking ethos within
the sporting prestige of the centuries-old
Olympiad. Take uniforms. While companies have
sponsored skate teams in extreme sports competi-
tions such as ESPN’s X-Games, Olympic-style team
uniforms haven’t been part of boarding.
“It is what it is,” says Gary Ream, chairman
of the World Skate Skateboarding Commission,
which is in charge of producing the street and
park terrain events at the Tokyo Games. He won’t
say what the standards will be for competitors but
acknowledges that there will be rules regarding
what can be worn. “They will be wearing some-
thing showing their team and country,” he says.
The marketing potential of skateboarding
hasn’t gone unnoticed by sports apparel giants
Nike Inc. and AdidasAG, which are looking to cap-
italize on the sport’s youthful edge and broaden
the exposure they’ve gotten by sponsoring the
U.S. and U.K. Olympic teams, respectively.
At the Tokyo Games, the Nike and Adidas logos
may well predominate at the Aomi Urban Sports
Park, a special venue set up for skateboarding andBMX bicycling. Adidas declined to comment, and
Nike didn’t respond to emails seeking a response.
Not so for niche skater brands. California-based
Vans, now a unit of VF Corp., built a reputation as
a supplier of shoes and gear for skateboarders that
helped turn it into a multibillion-dollar business.
The brand even sponsors a professional tour. But
Vans and others like it will struggle to be seen at
the Tokyo Games as the Olympic committee works
hard to prevent giving exposure to nonsponsoring
brands. Ream expects such branding restrictions to
apply to individual skateboarders, too.
The inclusion of skateboarding has also
raised concerns about drugs, with the U.S. Anti-
Doping Agency testing skaters in anticipation of
the games. At least one competitor, Cory Scott
Juneau, has accepted a six-month suspension
after testing positive for the main active ingredi-
ent in marijuana, the U.S. agency said in January.
“The strength of skateboarding is that it has been
a very protected environment, created for kids by
kids who have expressed their desires through the
sport with no adult intervention,” Ream says. “With
the Olympics, you can look at this as now we are
entering the adult world.”
There’s already some very adult money in skate-
boarding. American Tony Hawk, considered the
sport’s richest star, has a net worth reported to be
as high as $140 million by Money Inc., which fea-
tured the 20 richest skateboarders on its website
last year. The next wealthiest on the list is Jamie
Thomas, also from the U.S., with $50 million.
Hawk and Thomas made most of that money
by selling their own branded gear and, in Hawk’s
case, video games. Managing their own busi-
nesses sets skateboarders apart from many other
athletes, who typically take paychecks for repre-
senting big global sports brands. Skateboarders
“have always figured out how to be on the edge
with video and music to promote themselves,”
Ream says. “That’s how this sport has grown from
its earliest days, with skaters themselves creating
their own media.”
Skateboarding competitions involve doing a
series of so-called tricks, which can be ideal for
short videos that fans can spread fast on social
media, says Shawn McBride, executive vice pres-
ident of sports at Ketchum, a communications
and branding house. “That’s been really critical
for engagement, and it’s going to continue to be
critical,” he says.
McBride says the Olympics is moving especially
quickly to increase TV viewer engagement, mar-
keting speak for luring consumers to interact by
sharing video clips or personal messages related Brown goes through
her moves at a skate
park in Oceanside, Calif.○ WhiteP
ICS?