It’s official, Jamie Slater and his Authentic Brands Group of zombie brands (which now include Volcom, Airwalk, Vision Street Wear, and 47 others) has purchased the softcore skin and sports magazine brand Sports Illustrated from Meredith Corp for $110 million dollars, according to a story on Variety.com.
Under terms of the deal, Authentic Brands acquires the rights to market, develop and license Sports Illustrated and its kids’ edition as well as its swimsuit and “Sportsperson of the Year” franchises, along with the magazine’s photo archive. Meredith will pay a licensing fee to operate the editorial operations of Sports Illustrated in print and in digital for a minimum of two years. Editor Chris Stone and Publisher Danny Lee will continue to lead Sports Illustrated at Meredith.
So, Meredith is selling the brand and then paying to run the print magazine into the ground while ABG gets to re-animate Sports Illustrated by slapping it on all kinds of products until no one remembers what SI was all about in the first place. Chalk that up as another win-win for ABG.
We were saddened to learn that pro snowboarder and all-around smile maker Jason “J2” Rasmus died surrounded by family and friends on May 26, 2019 following a battle with cancer. He was 46.
Designer Aaron Draplin visited him near the end and offered up many good words about Tooz’s life and times. Here are a few of them.
Hitting all our favorite skateparks on the road from the Seattle to Mammoth, Phil Hansen, Brandon Reis, Austen Sweetin, Denver Orr, Tucker Andrews, Ryan Paterson, Matteo Soltane, and Zebbe Landmark roll to Holy Bowly 7, one of the craziest snow sculpture parks Snowboy Productions has ever built. Check it, then you decide.
Twenty-four-year-old snowboarder Tucker Shivers died Wednesday, April 24, 2019 while snowboarding on Colorado’s Pikes Peak, according to a story in the Colorado Springs Gazette.
The 24-year-old Colorado Springs man died living out his dream Wednesday after falling while snowboarding above Glen Cove on the eastern face of the mountain, said Patrick Kerscher, El Paso County Search and Rescue operations director. He was snowboarding in a couloir east of Little Italy, Kerscher said. “He had a helmet on, and the helmet was broken, so we do suspect there was head injury,” Kerscher said.
Our thoughts are with Shivers family and friends. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with expenses.
All the headlines, no comments. Scan them, click them, read them, or just ignore them. A couple of these stories are worth reading and we’d point them out to you, but, well, that would take more time. You’ll just have to hunt them out yourself. Cheers.
American Media LLC, the company that purchased a gutted Adventure Sports Network in January 2019 has apparently sold the National Enquirer (and a couple other tabloids) to Hudson Media. for $100 million, according to a story on WWD.
James Cohen, part of the family that founded Hudson News Distributors, is buying the U.S. and U.K versions of the gossip magazine from David Pecker’s American Media LLC (recently renamed from American Media Inc.), which acquired the title 20 years ago. The $100 million deal also includes two other tabloids, Globe and National Examiner. . . Pecker — whose friendship with President Donald Trump and the use of the Enquirer’s coverage to aid Trump’s candidacy and perhaps even his personal vendettas has come under intense scrutinyover the last year — wrote in a statement that the group of magazines actually pull in $30 million in profit annually.
Not sure what this really means other than Snowboarder, Skateboarding, and Surfer Magazine are no longer siblings of the politically embroiled gossip rags and AMI is a little less in debt — only $355 million now. Ouch.
It’s hard to believe, but it appears that eventually every dead fashion brand ends up in Jamie Salter’s hands. So it should be no surprise that he was able to add Volcom to his arsenal of 50 zombie brands which also includes Airwalk and Vision Street Wear.
“We are thrilled to have completed the purchase of Volcom,” said Jamie Salter, Chairman and CEO of ABG. “For nearly three decades the Volcom family has created one of the most iconic brands in the skate, surf and snow markets. During the last few years, the brand has been consistently gaining traction with broader audiences around the world while staying true to its core. We could not be happier to finally get to work with this team.”
Yes, this is an over-simplification of the deal which includes the creation of a new operating group run by Todd Hymel and the current Volcom management of which ABG is a minority partner, but hey at least Vee-Co is out from under the French and zombie brands live forever.
For the official word and no mention of how much ABG paid for Volcom (last time it sold for $607 million, this time we’re guessing much, much, much less) please follow the jump.
At this point see skate, snow, and surf headlines in our sleep and though we don’t seem to have time to snark this batch up, we still want them in an easy-to-scan format. So here they are as of March 25, 2019. Click the link for all the headlines you should have seen in the past few weeks (in no particular order, sadly) and enjoy the news.
Justin Khoshnevis, a 31-year-old snowboarder from Los Alamitos, California died Tuesday, March 19, 2019 after going out-of-bounds at Mammoth Mountain, according to a story on KTLA.com.
Around 3:50 p.m. Tuesday, a 911 caller reported seeing someone fall from the cliffs above Twin Lakes, which is across from Tamarack Lodge and north of the popular backcountry chute “Hole in the Wall,” according to a statement from the Mono County Sheriff’s Office.
Some have mentioned that he had come down Dragon’s Back and may have been trying to ride Hole In The Wall, but was not in the correct zone. “Officials urged skiers and snowboarders to never ride alone through backcountry areas and to have the proper equipment. They should also have a plan and know the route.”
Twenty-four-year-old snowboarder Tucker Shivers died Wednesday, April 24, 2019 while snowboarding on Colorado’s Pikes Peak, according to a story in the 
American Media LLC, the company that purchased a gutted Adventure Sports Network in January 2019 has apparently sold the National Enquirer (and a couple other tabloids) to Hudson Media. for $100 million, according to a story on 
It’s hard to believe, but it appears that eventually every dead fashion brand ends up in Jamie Salter’s hands. So it should be no surprise that he was able to add Volcom to his arsenal of 50 zombie brands which also includes Airwalk and Vision Street Wear.
