by The Editors on January 7, 2009
On December 10, 2008 Blacks Leisure announced they were giving the UK distribution rights to O’Neill back to O’Neill Europe and later mentioned they would find a buyer for their 57 Freespirit and O’Neill boardsports shops. Well, according to a story in the Blacks Leisure the company was unable to find a buyer for the stores.
“The reality is in the current market people aren’t prepared to do a sensible deal,” Neil Gillis, chief executive. . . . He said the fashion of wearing clothing inspired by skateboard and surf culture appeared to have passed. Instead of selling the division, Blacks is preparing to convert the stores to its main brands at a cost of £150,000 a store or £1.5m for the first tranche to be completed this year.
Blame it on skate and surf fashions. Nice.
[Link: Financial Times]
by The Editors on January 6, 2009
Just a little reminder regarding January 21, 2009 and the Crossroads Retail Show and kind of wondering what this means for ASR and skateboarding if Crossroads becomes more successful.
[Link: Black Box Distribution]
by The Editors on January 6, 2009
Stephen Sprouse was a graffiti artist and designer who did some work with Louis Vuitton artistic director Marc Jacobs back in the day. Sprouse died in 2004 but that hasn’t stopped the fashion house from bringing out a new Stephen Sprouse collection this week. And nothing says street fashion more than a skateboard.
For the launch, the luxury goods company is also creating two limited edition pieces, which will only be available at the SoHo location: a Stephen Sprouse graffiti skateboard replete with a hard case monogram skateboard trunk, and a Stephen Sprouse “Roses” T-shirt. The company hopes to sell three graffiti skateboards with trunks for $8,250 each, and 70 T-shirts for $250 each. “I don’t expect them to last very long,” Lalonde said. “By Friday, there probably won’t be any more left.”
Then again, nothing shouts “I’m a slave to fashion” more than owning a $8,250 skateboard that comes in it’s own Louis suitcase. . . As a well-placed friend of ours said: “Sad to say, but after they sell all three boards (prob in 3 mins) they will be the second biggest skateboard company in the world next to Sector 9!”
[Link: Women’s Wear Daily]
by The Editors on January 5, 2009
Note to action sports marketing people: if your web designers build an amazingly beautiful site, with boss photos and flossy graphics and then the first thing people see when they visit is a progress bar counting down while a big, honkin’ flash movie loads. . . you need to hire new web designers. It’s really that simple.
For even more fun follow the jump to see what Plan B Skateboard’s site looks like on an iPhone.
[Link: Plan B Skateboards]
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on January 5, 2009
With a publication as smooth and clean as The Skateboard Mag you’d think that everything would be all digital and tech. Apparently not, according to a Kevin Wilkins post on Bob Kronbauer’s Clubmumble.com.
For each new issue of The Skateboard Mag our map goes up on this chalkboard. It’s in my basement, 36 floors beneath the surface, in Lincoln, Nebraska . . . First, with my knuckles, I erase inside all the old squares. Then I draw in new arrows and labels. I think I learned this on-the-wall method from Grant. After that we usually go back and forth a few times, adjusting what pages go where. There’s a similar set-up in our Solana Beach office, but they use grease pencils on glass and erase it with some kind of huffer’s delight.
Sometimes a little analog action can dull the sharp edges of the digital world and put a little soul back into this whole media dealio. Not that we would know anything about that.
[Link: Clubmumble]
by The Editors on January 5, 2009
In a story titled 5 Cash-Rich Companies Being Given Away Motley Fool writer Morgan Housel says Volcom may be one of the stocks that Warren Buffet refers to as “a one-foot bar I can step over.”
Is retail dead yet? As a whole, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some stores that stand out from the pack. Volcom might be one of them. While other apparel veterans like Quiksilver (NYSE: ZQK) and retailers like Macy’s (NYSE: M) are saddled with long-term debt, Volcom has kept its balance sheet spotless. . . . But with a bulletproof balance sheet and a well-known, powerful brand name, the main catalysts that typically shove recession-prone industries into the graveyard are nowhere to be seen with Volcom.
Apparently, being a millionaire is that easy.
[Link: The Motley Fool]
by The Editors on January 5, 2009
The entire energy drink market has blown up right under Gatorade’s oblivious nose and the only time they ever seemed to take notice was when Salman Agah attempted to launch and market Skaterade.
Now it appears that someone has kicked the sports drink company in the nuts because they’re diving in on action sports like bums on a bottle, according to a story in Sports Business Journal.
The brand signed a multiyear deal with [Chaz] Ortiz that sources valued in the low to mid-six figures annually. He will be the cornerstone of Gatorade’s action sports campaign and will be featured alongside its marquee athletes, including Derek Jeter, Dwyane Wade and Peyton Manning. . . . The brand also signed smaller deals with snowboarder Ellery Hollingsworth, a 17-year-old from Darien, Conn., and BMX star Nigel Sylvester, an 18-year-old from Queens, N.Y. The athletes will be featured in Gatorade’s action sports campaigns, which are being planned. Terms of those deals were not available.
That fact that Gatorade never had any bull balls or caffeine in it always made it a favorite around here anyway. And for Chaz, the “mid-six figures” shouldn’t be so bad.
[Link: Sports Business Journal via Skatedaily.net]
by The Editors on January 4, 2009
It’s been a long time coming but it looks like ESPN has finally begun to treat action sports as a part of their sporting news mix and not just some kind of fringe “X” thing out on a site by itself. Starting today EXPN is gone and in its place is ESPN Action Sports at http://espn.go.com/action/.
The new, nicely uncluttered subsection of the ESPN.com site is reportedly much more Google friendly and will be bringing “shitloads of traffic, bro.” It was supposed to have its own promo on the homepage of ESPN.com but we couldn’t find any and the new section doesn’t currently have an RSS feed (it should be up by the end of the week according to inside sources). A link to the Action Sports page is, however, listed under the ALL SPORTS menu in the main navigation of the ESPN site (three spots from the bottom of the list behind Rugby and just ahead of “bassmaster.”) Apparently the nav is ranked by importance to the average ESPN.com visitor.
While we don’t exactly consider “rally” an action sport, the new index does give each of the sports their own sub-sub homepage which will technically allow visitors to deep link straight to the content they’re interested in. Still, this “segregated part of the whole sports world” idea does result in a page with a couple snowboard stories right next to a big promo for the Gridiron Playoff Challenge.
Guess some things will never change.
[Link: ESPN.com/action]
by The Editors on January 2, 2009
Rally driving is apparently the new black skateboarding. Thanks, Ken Block. For the rest of the Subaru/DC uniform follow the jump.
[Link: The Motor Report]
by The Editors on January 2, 2009
The engineers are at it again. This time with a “No Snowboard” designed by John Dingley.
The rider leans in either direction to get the thing going (as demonstrated in motion below) and the slight curvature of the tire allows for turning just like you would with a normal skateboard. Right now maximum speed is a somewhat pedestrian 7 mph, but Dingley estimates that a Segway-matching 12 mph is possible with better gearing.
Click here to see it in pointless action.
[Link: Engadget]
