The United States Snowboard Association has filed suit against Go211.com owner Action Sports, Inc. after they say the company failed to pay the USSA a “$175,000 sponsorship fee, plus a 30 percent share of the defendant’s advertising rev according to a story in the Salt Lake City Tribune.
Alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment and trademark infringement, the USSA is asking a U.S. District Court for Utah judge to award the organization monetary damages and to stop Boston-based Action Sports from displaying USSA-affiliated materials. . . . Action Sports President Sean Aruda declined to discuss details of the case, but said, “we obviously have a much different view of the facts … This is just a business disagreement they chose to escalate. . . “We’re disappointed their attorneys took this action, and we’re confident it will be settled amicably,” he added. “We would love to continue doing business with them.”
On the heels of the news that Transworld Skateboarding scribe Ben Kelly (pictured right) was promoted to the position of editor, comes the announcement that former ESPN Skateboard blogger Josh Brooks has been hired as associate editor.
Ben Kelly rolls into the promotion after working as acting editor since the death of Transworld Skateboarding editor Eric Stricker in September 2009.
“I am honored to carry the torch for former editor and dear friend Eric Stricker, and am excited for the new challenges that lay in front of me with this transition,” said Kelly. This new role enables me to engage in new opportunities through strategic edit planning, while maintaining a strong connection to our reader through the various content projects in which I am involved.”
Brooks, a former employee of drug maker Genentech, is apparently happy about his move to Transworld.
“It’s gone through many changes, but TransWorld SKATEboarding—started in 1983—has had a long history in skateboarding,” said Brooks. “It has always covered all facets of skating. . . . I’m honored to work with Skin Phillips, Ben Kelly and the rest of the edit crew to carry on that history, bring a new perspective to the amazing skate photos in the mag and improve the content on the web.”
Have to admit that we’re kind of surf filmed out, but it is good to see people like Joe G working diligently to keep if fresh. Stab magazine interviewed Joe on his new “concept experiment” for Globe.
You can watch “a rad surf part” everywhere these days and to me almost everything looks the same. I want the video tests to be what I see as an audiovisual experiment – something a bit different. Maybe an alternate music video for the song. Maybe something trippy that just so happens to have a few surf clips in it. Dunno. We’re basically just bored with a lot of the things we usually see in surf and like to try different takes on it.
Back in the day we had a certain Australian newsstand distributor connection who used to send us monthly packages of Aussie mags. One of our favorites was the dirty, packed newsprint version of Tracks (particularly the letters section). In this age of gloss and digits something has been lost. Luckily, a guy in the UK named Daniel Crockett is bringing newsprint surf magazines back with Kook.
Global contributors include Cyrus Sutton, Mike Black, Mark Leary, Ryan Heywood, Kassia Meador, Tom Haskett, Kate Czucsman, Andrew Kidman, John Eldridge, Jim Newitt, Alex Rowse, Michael Fordham, Ollie Banks, Mark Dickinson, Rob Royal, Seamouse, Ryan Tatar, Ryan Lovelace and many more.
Kook is only 20 pages and costs close to $5 bucks an issue, but that’s a small price to pay to bask for a moment in a forgotten time.
After using an “n-word” in a Stab Magazine website story about how black surfers are better than white surfers (specifically Jamaica’s Icah Wilmot) got people talking (via Cyrusisboard.com) and lost the magazine a “coveted advertising relationship,” Stab’s Jed Smith says he has now experienced the “first significant self-examination” of his writing career.
After speaking with Icah’s father Bill Willmot, it appears Jed has turned things around and apologized.
I am ignorant of the sensitivities that surround race today. I am white, privileged and grew up in an era in which white-black relations were not the defining racial issue (hence my use of the word Negro, a term that after recently reading the Malcolm X autobiography, I legitimately thought was politically correct). I have no right to proffer stereotypes, whether they were intended to be satirical or not, and I am sorry. Sorry.
Apologies are hard and Jed did a great job with this one. We just hope he can get past this, lesson learned, and then remember that his ignorance is also one of his greatest gifts. The world has enough “thoughtful” old surf writers already. Seriously.
In all this Olympic snowboarding hoopla we totally spaced on the complete redesign and relaunch of our favorite independent skate news site Skatedaily.net.
According to a post on Monday, February 15, 2010 Bryce Kanights says they’ve finally done it:
We’ve booted our old publishing platform to the curb and today dawns a new era for SKATEDAILY.net, you, and your friends, and our collective community. As you can see, our site has received a much needed face-lift with larger type, larger images and an extensive of stack of archived data that you have all been asking for. Bear with us as we still have some tweaking and modifications to handle on the site. All the same, with the data migration process at almost 90% complete, you can now utilize SKATEDAILY.net’s “Search” window to locate a particular news post about a skater, city, event, or organization. Guaranteed, if we’ve posted something newsworthy about what you’re searching for over the past six years, it’s in there.
It’s been a long time coming, and it looks good. Check it out when you have the chance.
The Sponsorhouse story is an odd one. They started out trying to get kids to pay them money for the possibility of “getting sponsored”. Then in January of 2008 the company decided to change it’s name to Loop’d saying they were going to be the myspace of action sports. When they did, we made fun of them with a post titled Action Sports Gets Loopy.
Now, only two years later, they have changed their name again. This time to Hookit.com. Apparently, they were forced to change it after they “got caught in a Loop (aka Legal battle).” according to their website.
“We are really excited to finally roll out our new brand name and logo, and want to make sure all of our members and brand partners know that we are still the same company, offering the same products and services,” said Scott Tilton, CEO of Hookit.com. “We’ve had tremendous support during the transition and now we can solely focus on innovating new features for our members and partners again.”
We have to agree. The new name does explain exactly what they’re doing. . . Follow the jump for the complete press release. [click to continue…]
Fox Cable Networks is in advanced discussions on a deal that would sell its action sports channel Fuel TV to Viacom, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the talks. . . The sale was expected to close late last year, but the parties are still negotiating an agreement. Talks began last year when the companies discussed entering a joint venture around Fuel TV, but subsequent discussions led the parties to negotiations on a complete sale of the channel. Sources say Viacom will pay a sum in the low to mid-nine figures to secure the channel.
Great. If this goes through maybe MTV will finally add Parkour to the Fuel TV mix.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (which runs February 4-14, 2010) will feature three skate films this year: Bones Brigade Video Show, Mission to Toyland, Skatopia: 88 Acres of Anarchy. Bones Brigade Video Show/Mission To Toyland
7 Feb (Sun) 7:00pm Santa Barbara Museum of Art
9 Feb (Tue) 1:00pm Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Skatopia 88 Acres of Anarchy
9 Feb (Tue) 10:15pm Metro 4 Theater
12 Feb (Fri) 9:30pm Victoria Theater
Need a better reason to visit Santa Barbara? We didn’t think so.
Skatebook 6 is out featuring Heath Ledger as Skip Engblom on the cover and 33 pages of Logan Kincade aka Griffin Collins Photos, Frame Grabs & Polaroids. As usual it looks like an amazing collection of all things skateboarding. Follow the jump for some samples or click here to buy one for yourself. [click to continue…]
The United States Snowboard Association has filed suit against Go211.com owner Action Sports, Inc. after they say the company failed to pay the USSA a “$175,000 sponsorship fee, plus a 30 percent share of the defendant’s advertising rev according to a story in the Salt Lake City Tribune.
