by The Editors on March 19, 2009
A group of six snowboards planned to hike Japan’s Mt. Kurodake on the north island of Hokkaido to cap off the 2009 season of snowboarding, but when a storm came and they got lost, their plans changed according to a story told by Chris Holmes to the Times Online. His first quote kind of explains the situation.
“I’m a relatively inexperienced snowboarder so I didn’t want to go on,” Mr Holmes, 34, told The Times from his home in Hokkaido where he is still trying to get feeling back into his icy cold feet. . . Three of the group continued on to the peak and returned safely to base camp later that evening. But the other six who descended earlier were less fortunate. . . The men and women from New Zealand, Australia and Holland became so lost and disorientated trying to navigate their way down the steep mountainside they were forced to dig a snow cave and sleep huddled together on a bed of pine leaves as the temperature dropped below zero.
Another lesson in backcountry snowboarding from the “inexperienced.”
[Link: Times Online]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
A guy surfing at a beach on the New South Wales far south coast didn’t get munched by a shark today, but his surfboard did.
Andrew Edmunds from the Far South Coast Surf Life Saving branch says the size or species of shark is not known. . . “The male surfer didn’t sustain any injuries in the incident, but his board was damaged by the attack, by the shark,” he said. . . “The type of shark is unknown.”
A little bite of foam seems to keep them from coming back.
[Link: ABC.net.au]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
A new surfboard created by a renewable products cooperative called Eden Projects in the UK is made with 50 percent renewable materials (including some wood from a fallen Balsa tree), according to a story in the Telegraph.co.uk.
Describing the creation as “revolutionary”, Eden’s retail director, Mark Beeley, said: “At last we are able to offer surfers the chance to own one of the most sustainable surfboards in the world, available right here in the UK.” . . . Mr Beeley said 15 per cent – 20 per cent of the foam core was made from plant-derived material and a resin was developed from linseed oil to coat the board.
[Link: Telegraph.co.uk]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
Casey Wasserman’s march to own a majority stake action sports media moved forward today as the founders of GrindTV announced that they were being rolled into Wasserman Media Groups’ Sportnet to form a new company owned by Wasserman’s Sportnet in partnership with Softbank Capital.
“By joining forces with Sportnet, we now have access to deep sport-specific communities on sites such as Wetsand.com, Motocross.com and Skateboard.com. We are committed to leveraging these complementary online properties to create the leading action sports media company for fans, marketers, and the industry,” said GrindTV’s CEO Erik Hawkins and COO Greg Morrow. . . . “The combination of GrindTV and Sportnet creates a clear market-leader in the exciting action sports segment,” said SoftBank Capital Managing Director Eric Hippeau. “We have been behind GrindTV from the very beginning, and its always exciting when a portfolio company takes flight.”
And then someday, when all the deals are done someone might actually discover a profitable revenue stream.
Follow the jump for the entire release.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
Thanks to Lewis Samuels and Surfline for perfectly capturing the jockification of surfing in a snide way. It may take for hell and a day to load each page, but for those who want to know what one surf writer thinks about each of the guys on the ASP WCT there’s no better place than The Surfline’s 2009 ASP World Tour Pow3r Rank1ngs Presented by Rip Curl. Here’s what he said about 17th place Kelly Slater:
It’s obvious to everyone that by losing to Julian, Slater has erased two decades of competitive dominance. We can now safely equate Kelly to Cheyne Horan, who finished runner-up four times riding unconventional equipment. Yes, Kelly won the Billabong Pipe Masters riding similarly unconventional equipment, and there were those nine titles… but that was then, this is now. The once infallible Slater, who has never lost a heat in his life, dug his rail twice in chest-high windchop and failed to catch an imaginary second scoring set wave that never came through. So clearly, he’s no longer the best surfer in the world.
Smell that? That’s sarcasm. . . though we can’t say we disagree with the “unconventional equipment” comments.
[Link: Surfline.com]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
A Del Mar, California surfer out for dawn patrol this morning noticed six bulging burlap sacks along the railroad tracks near the end of 11th street in Del Mar, according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
As he continued to walk toward the water, he came across two men lugging a seventh sack and he asked what they were doing, Reynolds said. . . .The men said something in Spanish, dropped what they were carrying and ran. The surfer called deputies, who later found an eighth sack closer to the water, Reynolds said. The sacks were filled with 80 plastic-wrapped bundles of marijuana, Reynolds said.
This is the second time this year that a surfer has discovered weed in Del Mar and reported it. Wonder how many loads have gone unreported?
[Link: San Diego Union-Tribune]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
We kind of laugh when we see that Nike lumps Hurley and Converse under the header “Other Businesses” along with Cole Haan, Nike Golf and Umbro when it releases financial reports. But either way, while profits at the mother ship declined 47 percent it looks like the “other businesses” survived the storm.
For the third quarter, revenue for the Other businesses, which include Cole Haan, Converse Inc., Hurley International LLC, NIKE Golf, and Umbro Ltd, increased 1 percent to $592.2 million compared to $587.4 million last year with the group posting a third quarter pre-tax loss of $344.1 million versus pretax income of $106.1 million for the same period last year.
None of this is really comparable though because they didn’t have the same “other businesses” last year that they have now. How’s that for insights into the business. Apparently, someone in the “other businesses” is doing just fine. We’ll assume for entertainment sake that it’s Hurley. Good job, Bob.
[Link: MarketWatch]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
This Saturday night March 21, 2009 Whistler’s Blake Jorgenson Gallery is hosting the opening party for OG snowboard photographer Dano Pendygrasse’s show Odds And Ends from an Unusual Life. This week Pique News Magazine profiled Dano and got behind the man behind the lens.
While there are plenty of Whistler residents who have been around for the long-haul, witnessing the town’s evolution from a garbage dump into a world-class resort. Dano Pendygrasse has been busy capturing the transformation of the community – more specifically, the snowboard community – from behind the lens of his camera.
If we were in Whistler this weekend, we’d be there.
[Link: Pique Newsmagazine]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
Hitwise, a web metrics company that tracks the web use of 25 million Internet users world-wide, has answered a question many have been asking lately: which skateboarding website has the most traffic? (Click the graphic to see it full sized)
Since Vans entire website shouldn’t technically be listed as a skateboarding site when they are in so many markets (music for instance), we’ll pull them off the top of the list and that leaves us with The Berrics. Based on Hitwise metrics it appears that the Berrics got 9.12 percent of all skateboarding traffic on the Internet for the week ending March 7, 2009. Yes, it was the Battle at the Berrics finals week, but they are so far ahead that we’re not so sure that matters all that much.
Where did the skateboard media sites end up? Well, Transworld Skateboarding finished just ahead of Concrete Disciples Skateboarding by .19 percent with 2.88 percent at number 9 (8 not counting Vans. 7 not counting DC Shoes for the same reasons as Vans). No one else was even in the top 10.
For the rankings of the rest of the skateboard media sites we had to go to Comscore. The list below is the number of unique visitors to each site for the month of January 2009. Please note that this list is not the top eight skateboarding sites, but simply the unique visitor numbers for the media sites we requested.
- Theberrics.com – 83,000
- Skateboarding.transworld.net – 65,000
- Skateboardcity.com – 42,000
- Skateboard.com – 29,000
- Thrashermagazine.com – 29,000
- Skateboardermag.com – 21,000
The numbers obviously don’t line up that well with the percentages listed by Hitwise, nor with the numbers these media outlets are promoting to advertisers. But that doesn’t mean everyone is lying.
Because of the relatively small size of traffic relating to skateboarding on the web, it is difficult for all of the metrics providers to perfectly nail traffic numbers, but for comparison sake, we believe the numbers are at least representative of the sites’ rankings.
Where does Slapmagazine.com line up in all this? They are not listed by Comscore and we only had access to the top 10 places on the Hitwise skateboarding list.
It appears that according to Hitwise and Comscore metrics TheBerrics.com is officially kicking ass even if there is no real way to figure out exactly how much of a beating the established skate media is getting.
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
Nike, Inc. is releasing its third quarter fiscal 2009 financial results today, March 18, 2009, at approximately 1:15 p.m. PT, following the close of regular stock market trading hours. Following the news release, NIKE management will host a conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PT to review the results.
We’re not sure they will go into much SB, 6.0, or Hurley detail, but the whole think can be listened to live on the web at www.nikebiz.com/investors. An archived version of the call will be available through midnight, March 25, 2009.
[Link: BusinessWire]
