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.
Jake Phelps the loud, hard-living, punk rock, soul of skateboarding, and conscience of Thrasher Magazine for more than 26 years has died according to a March 14, 2019 post on the Thrasher website. He was 56.
“Jake Phelps was 100% skateboarder, but that label sells him way too short, because beyond his enormous influence in our world, he was truly an individual beyond this world,” said Tony Vitello, Publisher of Thrasher. “When loved ones pass we sometimes mythologize about their full lives rich in friendships and experiences. Sometimes we need to talk ourselves into believing it all. It makes us feel better, and helps us cope with the loss. Well, in the case of Jake, the task becomes wrapping your head around just how many lives one person could possibly live. He really did see it all, do it all, and that incredible brain of his could relish every last detail.”
So far his cause of death has not been released. Our thoughts are with the entire Thrasher family. And we mourn along with skateboarders around the world.
Monster Children (another surviving print magazine) and a blue-collar beer company invite you to FOOLS, a two man show by Porous Walker and Todd Francis featuring the artists’ mutual love of irreverence, bad situations, and bodily functions.
Shown will be all new works never before seen by mankind, as well as a large collection of unique, signed and numbered products designed as gifts for the April Fools in your life.
FOOLS launches with a March 21, 2019 opening at 1700 Naud, an evening that will be filled with music, food, laughter, and lamentation. It run until March 28th and is in partnership with Vans. For more details and to RSVP please click this link.
Just as the snowboard industry was getting used to the idea of a future without TransWorld Snowboarding in print, the brand announces that as of March 6, 2019 the entire brand is dead and over. In a post on the site someone explained it like this:
All good things, unfortunately, must come to an end, and effective March 6, 2019, TransWorld SNOWboarding has closed; the 32nd volume of magazines will be our last, and Kamikazu will be our final film. Over the coming weeks on our site and social channels we’ll publish tributes and reflections from the photographers, editors, filmers, and riders who defined the title over the years, so please check back regularly.
According to a Keith Kelly story in the NY Post, what is left of TWSnow will be “rolled into in-house rival Snowboarder” and go digital. So what’s left?
Only three titles — Bike, Surfer, and Powder — will survive with regularly scheduled print editions after 14 titles of The Enthusiast Network were quietly sold to American Media Inc. . . “We always viewed the Adventure Sports Network as an acquisition focused on significant digital scale and unparalleled experiential events,” said an AMI spokesman.
It’s good to see that at least an unnamed AMI spokesman has a plan for the recently purchased titles. We can’t wait to see how this all pans out.
In letters to subscribers that began arriving in mailboxes the week of March 3, 2019, American Media Inc, the current owner of TransWorld Skateboarding and Snowboarding magazines announced that both publications will “no longer be published.” Adding insult to insanity, the company also promised to fulfill remaining subscriptions to the legacy titles with copies of their recently acquired (June 2017) magazine Men’s Journal.
Founded in 1983 by Tracker Trucks owner Larry Balma and Peggy Cozens, Transworld Media built a place where creative kids could flourish mostly undisturbed by outside forces. Aside from helping to usher in the modern board sports era and making skateboarding and snowboarding central to mass youth culture, TransWorld also served as a launch pad for innumerable success stories in fashion, design, photography, music, and filmmaking. Simply put Transworld’s contributions to pop culture cannot be overstated.
When we mentioned to a publishing executive that this must be what it feels like to outlive an era, he replied, “I think the era we have outlived is the era of niche media as corporate commodity. Doesn’t seem to work so well.”
And that is true. Independent action media brands like Thrasher Magazine and The Snowboarder’s Journal continue to thrive in print, suggesting that the end of print at TransWorld may have more to do with corporate greed/overhead than anything else. Then again, we have yet to see anyone under the age of 30 lamenting the news, so there’s that as well.
As for the future, TransWorld Skateboarding will live on as a digital property (the staff has already begun posting “thanks, but we’re still here” to their social media streams) and sources tells us that management is working out the details on how and/or which of the company’s two snowboard brands will be preserved online rolling forward.
We’d be more optimistic about Transworld’s digital future if it weren’t for AMI. Their reputation for always doing the wrong thing (along with their reportedly toxic CEO David Pecker) doesn’t bode well for the brands.
Through all the sadness we are cheered by the fact that these magazines lasted 20 years longer than we thought they would when we first began preaching the digital revolution. Good work. And, as this has all happened before (remember Skateboarder Magazine and Action Now?) we’re looking forward to what the next generation of creative kids will assemble out of the wreckage.
Lately, we’ve been wondering what it’s been like for that small group of action sports media professionals who survived the AMI takeover of The Enthusiast Network. How is working for Trump pal David Pecker?
So far we’ve heard nothing from inside the building, but The Daily Beast posted a profile on March 2, 2019 titled How David Pecker Built His Tabloid Empire on Fear that might give some insight into how it could be going for those who still remain. The old story, written nearly two decades ago, suggests that Mr. Pecker has morphed his management style very little over the past 20 years.
News, dog. News. It’s that time of the week when we corral up all the headlines for the stories that got away into one big ol’ list and post them up. Take a look at what’s been going down over the past few weeks, follow the jump.
Looks like NorCal fullpipe skaters will be waiting awhile before launching any missions to the world famous Glory Hole, as the lake behind the dam is pretty full right now. Sidetone: we laugh every time we see the mainstream media calling it “the Glory Hole.”
As if this whole TEN sale couldn’t get any stranger, a deeper dive into the backstory reveals a The New York Times story from March 2018 that hints at where the money used by American Media to purchase the TEN action sports properties (among other things) may have come from. . . Saudi Arabia.
The intersection of the tabloid publisher [David Pecker, pictured right with The Donald] with the Saudis, enhanced by the White House visit, is a previously untold chapter in the long, symbiotic relationship between the president and Mr. Pecker, which was forged in the 1990s. At the time, Mr. Trump was celebrating a real estate comeback after his casino bankruptcies and was both the subject and the source of much gossip in New York.
One action sports executive wonders if this all might be part of a plan to use actions sports as a way to improve the public’s perceptions of a county that, in addition to various human rights violations, has allegedly murdered at least one journalist:
Sports have been an increasingly viable way for despots to soften their image and market a national brand (Russia/Sochi; Qatar/World Cup; Saudi Arabia/PGA events). . .Doesn’t seem a crazy reach that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, et al. would have interest in creating action/participant sports events, promoting tourism, etc. And these would be cheap and effective markets for this purpose. . . It all does line up: money gets laundered, Pecker gets ass saved, Saudi’s get backdoor to Trump administration, and a bunch of cheap sports/travel media properties run influence campaigns.
Is this really why American Media had interest in a few small circ. action sporting brands? Click the link to read the rest of the story.
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.
