Shaun White Olympic Snowboarder
2010 us Olympic snowboard halfpipe team, left to right: Kelly clark, Gretchen bleiler, hana teter, Scotty lago, louie vito, shaun white
Gretchen Bleiler Half pipe
United States Snowboarding Team
Since I was around 10 years old I have been a dedicated skiing. My family and I travel every year to a different ski slope in the New England area and I have even been on several ski trips with my high school to Austria and Italy. After spending so many years committed to the skiing sport I never thought I would have any interest in learning to snowboard. Last year for the first time my sister and I had a snowboarding lesson for the whole day and I loved it! It is a very different kind of experience than skiing and I loved the thrill and excitement of the sport. I chose to write this blog on the United States Snowboarding Team due to my newfound interest in the sport. I want to learn about the sport at the professional level and all of the sports marketing efforts behind it.
I want to start off with a little background information about the sport itself. Snowboarding was originally inspired by skateboarding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the United States in the 1960's and became an official Winter Olympic Sport in 1998. The ultimate goal of the US Snowboarding team is to get its riders on the Olympic podium. The US Snowboarding team is the most successful international snowboard program over the past ten years. Since the sport became an Olympic event in 1998 the US team has manages a total of 14 Olympic medals, including the historic men’s half pipe event in 2002 and a best in the world performance of seven medals in 2006.
There are four different snowboarding styles: Halfpipe, slope style, snowboard cross and alpine snowboarding. Half pipe is the most recognized of the styles that has a long track record of success in the U.S. Olympics. A giant pipe is constructed at the resorts that is carved out and used with man-made snow creating a 22-foot deep pipe. Snowboarders on the half pipes are judged based on the execution of their jumps and tricks as well as the difficulty of the stunt. Half pipe as an Olympic event was started at the beginning of snowboarding entering the Olympics in 1998.
Slope style is a freestyle ride down a slope that is filled with rails, hips, jumps and tabletops, which allow snowboarders to do their specific tricks which catching big air. The landing, difficulty, execution are judges. Slope style however is not yet an Olympic sport, however is very popular and some day may be an event.
Snowboard cross or SBX became an Olympic event in 2006 and was rated the most action packed event in snowboarding. A special snowboard cross is built where teams race in groups of four, riding obstacles full of jumps, rollers and turns.
Alpine snowboarding involves a few different snowboarding formats, which include parallel giant slalom and parallel slalom. Parallel giant slalom however is the only one that is an event in the Olympics. Alpine snowboarding was the only original snowboarding event in the Olympics in 1998. In parallel giant slalom the snowboarders race head to head side by side. Parallel slalom is the same however the snowboarders are competing on the slalom courses.
Throughout the rest of this blog I intend on tracking the development of the current United States Snowboarding team on issues related to sports marketing, including opportunities and threats for the team. I plan on reviewing all three of the snowboarding style events in the Olympics that are examples of how the sport is marketed to the public. I will also follow news stories and monitor individual athletes including Gretchen Bleiler explaining their own individual success stories that are related to sports marketing. I will study the proud sponsors of the US Snowboarding team, some of which include Sprint, Visa, Burton, Audi, Bud light, Delta and TD Bank and how these partnerships are supporting each other.
I want to study how the team markets themselves and the advertising and promotional efforts used to generate awareness and support for the up and growing sport and team.
