It was only a matter of time before old media sports titan Sports Illustrated felt the bite of digital publishing, and that time was yesterday according to a story in The New York Post.
As news of the impending cuts circulated, about three-quarters of the staff signed a petition calling on SI’s new owner, Authentic Brands, to rescind its 10-year licensing deal with digital publisher The Maven, headed by Jim Heckman. . . “The Maven wants to replace top journalists in the industry with a network of Maven freelancers and bloggers, while reducing or eliminating departments that have ensured that the stories we publish and produce meet the highest standards,” read the petition, which was first reported by NPR.
Why is this interesting to us? Well, Mr. Salter was involved with Kemper Snowboards, co-founded Ride Snowboards and, in addition to Sports Illustrated, currently owns Airwalk, Vision Street Wear, and most of Volcom. And if things keep going in this direction he will eventually own everything. Yes, he’s seems to have a knack for reanimating profits from dead brands.
Each fall weather predicators from The Old Farmer’s Almanac to The Weather Channel send out their predictions for the coming Northern Hemisphere winter. AccuWeather is no different. And this year they’re going out on a limb predict snow for winter. Yep, not to worry. Winter is coming.
In short they’re calling for near normal in the West. A bit below normal in the Northwest, milder for the midwest and not till January for the Northeast. Oh, and the weather will be mild in Florida this winter, if you didn’t already know that. For more of their vague, overly generalized winter details, please follow the jump.
Rip Curl, today (September 30, 2019) announced that they have sold the company to New Zealand camping gear company Kathmandu for a whopping $350 million Australian dollars, according to a story in the Daily Mail.
Kathmandu, headquartered in Christchurch, is buying 100 per cent of Rip Curl for $350million, it told the Australian Securities Exchange on Tuesday morning. . . The acquisition will create a $1billion outdoor recreation company.
Kathmandu? If I ever get out of here, that’s what I’m gonna do. Oh, sorry. Ah, we’re right happy for the Warbricks and Singers, but it is sad to see the last independent surf fashion rat launch a massive swan dive off the sinking surf industry ship. We are, however, looking forward to Rip Curl canteens and camp chairs for lounging on the slopes of Mt. Cook. For the rest of the story, please click the link.
Wondering what’s going on? Looking for a clue? Follow the jump for a whopping 28 skate, 15 snowboarding, 30 surf, 13 fashion, and 12 business story links that rose above the noise last week. Yep, it’s all there — even that one about the death of vert skating. [click to continue…]
The commercial entity that owns half the action sports clothing industry (Boardriders and their brands Quiksilver, Billabong, ROXY, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element “and others”) announced yesterday that they are “launching a multi-year growth agenda and repositioning. . . key executives.”
A quick read-through of the release resulted in exactly one data point that even remotely interested us and it is this: Kevin Meehan is leaving RVCA. Of course, the way they said it is epic: “Kevin Meehan has decided to take the opportunity provided by this transition to pursue new opportunities.” Congrats, Mr. Meehan.
The rest of the news can best be summed up by this quote from the boss.
“The long-term strategy for Boardriders has always been to build a solid foundation by integrating the Billabong acquisition onto a common back-end platform, to continually improve our operations through more disciplined business practices, and to achieve significant synergies that could then be invested back into the brands,” said Boardriders CEO David Tanner. “After a decade of headwinds and restructuring, Boardriders now has that strong foundation and is ready and able to invest strategically at scale in our brands, our people, and these targeted growth initiatives.”
Right. You know all that bad stuff that’s been happening for the LAST 10 YEARS? That’s all behind them now, and everything is looking up, up, up. If that doesn’t make you smile, follow the jump for the rest of the release.
On July 9, 2019, two former C3 Worldwide workers, Cooper and Pius, departed Seattle on a bike packing trip. They’d already quit their jobs, gotten a sponsorship deal from Coal Headwear and hit the road. Their destination? Baja. On the way they planned to surf, clean-up some beaches and document it all along the way. So far, they’ve made it to Newport Beach, California and things appear to be going well. So well, that it seems their surge in popularity has brought their website coastalsifters.com to its knees. But that’s okay; you can follow their latest adventures on Instagram in the meantime right here @coastalsifters.
Former Salomon/Bonfire and Patagonia marketer Tyler LaMotte is the new chief brand officer at Jackson Hole Resort, according to a story in the Jackson Hole News and Guide.
“It’s great to come back and be able to experience this place and get so close and be able to do all the things that we love to do,” he said. “One of the main draws and attributes was the fact that, you know, there’s only one Jackson Hole.”
For the rest of the story and a pretty detailed dive into where he’s been and how Tyler ended up in Jackson, Wyoming, click the link.
Please excuse us while we clear out a bit of news that’s been piling up around the place. Some is new, some is old, and a bit is so old it’s beginning to stink. But we’re not going to let that stop us from posting it as a reminder of some of the news that went down while we were gone for the summer.
Thanks to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association it has been shown that drinking sodas (like the brands that sponsor skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing events) is bad for your health and increases your changes of dying sooner rather than later, or as they put it there is an “association between soft drink consumption and mortality.”
In this population-based cohort study of 451, 743 individuals from 10 countries in Europe, greater consumption of total, sugar-sweetened, and artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality. Consumption of artificially sweetened soft drinks was positively associated with deaths from circulatory diseases, and sugar-sweetened soft drinks were associated with deaths from digestive diseases.
In other words, rather than trying to encourage people to drink more, we should encourage them to drink less. That’s the main reason why we’re not into seeing action sports brands partnering with caffeinated, carbonated, high fructose corn syrup poison peddlers. Drink water. Duh.
It was only a matter of time before old media sports titan Sports Illustrated felt the bite of digital publishing, and that time was yesterday according to a story in The New York Post.
Rip Curl, today (September 30, 2019) announced that they have sold the company to New Zealand camping gear company Kathmandu for a whopping $350 million Australian dollars, according to a story in the 
The commercial entity that owns half the action sports clothing industry (Boardriders and their brands Quiksilver, Billabong, ROXY, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element “and others”) announced yesterday that they are “launching a multi-year growth agenda and repositioning. . . key executives.”
Former Salomon/Bonfire and Patagonia marketer Tyler LaMotte is the new chief brand officer at Jackson Hole Resort, according to a story in the 
Thanks to a new study published in the 
