Few have been more mired in the skateboarding industry than Alien Workshop founder Chris Carter. Last night (April 26, 2011) at the IASC Skateboarding SummitShop-Eat-Surf.com’s Tiffany Montgomery interviewed Chris. It was only the second interview he has ever given. Chris tells the whole story of his start in skateboarding, founding Alien Workshop, selling the business to Burton, and how he’s working to keep the brand relevant in a changing market.
It is long (over an hour) but if you care about skateboarding you should watch it.
[Editors’ Note: it only took us eight minutes to realize the table and chairs were ruining the shot. It gets better at the nine minute mark. Sorry.]
Fuel TV announced today that its founding father CJ Olivares has chosen to step down to “pursue opportunities more closely related to the action sports genre to which he remains passionate.”
“CJ has worked tirelessly to make FUEL TV live up to its original mission of providing unique, male-oriented sports and entertainment programming with a distinctive voice,” said FOX Sports Media Group Chairman David Hill. “We thank him for his creativity and dedication, and appreciate his commitment to the action sports world in which he has unparalleled expertise. He will be missed.”
Olivares was the action sports heart and soul of the cable channel.
“It has been my honor and privilege to lead a team of dedicated and talented professionals at FUEL TV these last eight years,” offered Olivares. “As the network continues to evolve, I realize that my passion remains the action sports that were FUEL TV’s core and I now have the opportunity to explore the emerging possibilities in the expanding action-sports entertainment landscape.”
Kind of makes since now that Fuel is reportedly pulling away from some of the more core content and getting more into MMA and motorsports. Follow the jump for the official word from Fox. [click to continue…]
Former Volcom Director of Sales Donavon Dartez has jumped over to the Quiksilver mothership as the new senior vice president of sales, Americas for DC Shoes, according to a post on Footwear Business Update.
Prior sales positions in the apparel and accessories industry include Fossil and Stussy. Overall, Donavon joins DC with over 15 years of experience in sales in the action sports apparel industry. . . In his new position, Dartez will report directly to DC America’s President, Anton Nistl at the company’s Huntington Beach headquarters.
And to think, we used to know people who worked at DC. . .wait, does Ken Block still work there? Or is he just a sponsored Gymkhanaer?
For the next two days, online shoppers can get product from Matix and Hurley at pretty much wholesales prices thanks to Jackthreads.com.
The “members-only, online shopping club that curates top-tier street, skate, surf and contemporary men’s fashion brands” is helping some major labels blow out core shops by moving some of their fashion failures at rock bottom prices. Nice, huh?
As one of our readers said via email:
“The strategy of big brands selling great product at wholesale to the public is the demise of the specialty retailer. Without the positive health of the specialty retailer (aka local surf shop) the brands will not have an authentic platform to tell their story.”
Guess the majors will have to rely on their “company stores” to get them through. Welcome to the aughts.
ABC News has a profile of Jake Burton in which he talks about his business, the legacy of Craig Kelly, and where he believe snowboarding is right now. It’s the same old story, but Jake does add this:
“I think the sport is in a very good place right now,” Burton said. “It’s not about having the latest goof rack on your BMW or how good the food is at the hotel you’re staying at. It’s about just getting out and shredding and having fun with your friends and as long as that remains at the core of the sport, it’ll continue to do well.”
We know that’s not exactly how the high stakes world of big business snowboarding functions (as Jake well knows), but for those actually out on the snow we couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
Westlife Distribution LLC, the parent company of 686 Technical Apparel has formed a strategic partnership with Canadian-based NRI Distribution Inc. to provide “boutique, turn-key fulfillment services . . ; E-Commerce solutions; and finally a variety of brand support services” in the US of A.
“The combination of being both a manufacturer who successfully runs a US warehouse and one that globally utilizes 3PL facilities, gives us a unique perspective for this industry on the needs of a growing company,” states Westlife CFO/COO, Douglas Sumi. Adds Michael Akira West, President and Founder of Westlife, “Our core competencies are creating quality products and services, while quickly implementing it into the marketplace. We’ve been providing backend services for boutique companies for years. Now we’re excited to team up with a proven leader and do it on a larger scale. ”
Haggling over the Mavericks big wave contest is continuing even though there was no contest this year, according to a story in the San Jose Mercury News.
Sponsor Barracuda Networks decided to pull out of the event even though they had reportedly agreed to a three-year deal.
“Barracuda Networks has decided to redirect our efforts and attention to other projects. We wish everyone involved in the event in the future the very best,” company Executive Vice President Michael Perone said in a statement. Barracuda had agreed to a three-year sponsorship deal for the contest with the surfers, but no contracts were signed. Surfable winter waves never materialized this year, so the contest was called off.
Jay Moriarity’s family has also requested that his name be removed from the contest going forward.
Everybody seems to be making money off Jay’s name,” said Doug Moriarity, Jay’s father. “It sounds like it’s just becoming a big business again — Barracuda was saying the surfers can’t run it, they don’t have the experience.”
With the stability of their financial empire in question and their plans to move and/or sell the Sacramento Kings NBA team it would seem that the Maloofs would have bigger things than skateboarding on their minds. But when the whole novelty of their skateboarding event hinges on “money”, then the prize purse is pretty important.
“The skating population has grown tremendously in Washington D.C. and right now it lacks the number of skate parks needed to support this growth,” said Joe Maloof, founder of Maloof Money Cup and owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. “Our intent is to build a skate park for the community like we did in New York City. We’ve been in talks with a number of cities to host Maloof Money Cup and figured what better place to expand in 2011 than our nation’s capital.”
It didn’t take The Street League’s Rob Dyrdek long to respond to the Maloof ante up with a prize purse boost of his own pushing TSL’s purse up to $1.6 million, according to a story on MSNBC.com.
“You have to understand that despite what it looks like from the outside looking in, street skateboarding is 80 percent of action sports,” Dyrdek said. “There’s 15 million participants in action sports, and 10 million of them are street skaters. It has its own self-sustaining market where it never really needed mainstream contests. But now it’s sort of this dance, which really comes between Street League and Maloof Money Cup, where they came in as I was developing this, and then that just sort of drove it up, which I think is incredible for the sport.
Incredible for the sport? We’re not so sure. Seems what would be better for skateboarding would be for everyone to work together toward one unified street skateboarding title. But then, Dyrdek and the Maloofs would have to work together. And it doesn’t seem that either enjoy sitting back while someone else makes the decisions–especially with so much money on the line.
The Motley Fool’s Seth Jayson takes a look at Volcom stock today in a story titled, Is Volcom Going To Burn You? In it he looks specifically at Accounts Receivables and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) to attempt to see the future of the company.
AR that grows more quickly than revenue, or ballooning DSO, can also suggest a desperate company that’s trying to boost sales by giving its customers overly generous payment terms. Alternately, it can indicate that the company sprinted to book a load of sales at the end of the quarter, like used-car dealers on the 29th of the month. (Sometimes, companies do both.) . . Why might an upstanding firm like Volcom do this? For the same reason any other company might: to make the numbers. Investors don’t like revenue shortfalls, and employees don’t like reporting them to their superiors.
Jayson doesn’t say that’s what VeeCo is doing, just that the numbers are interesting. If you understand any of this, click the link for more.
