Monday, March 2, 2009

The Official Demise of Competitive Longboarding?

According to the ASP's website, it is so. A few weeks back, both the men's and women's world championships were "Tentative". Now, nothing. It surely comes as no surprise to the boys and girls that have been involved in the scene over the past 5 years, but it's still a sad sight.

The surf industry as a whole is suffering. The king of surf clothing over the last 15 years, Quiksilver has been reporting record quarterly losses. And longboarding hasn't been legit in the eyes of the big-money sponsors since the late '90s. Oxbow made a push over the last two years to return the WLT to a level of respectability, but they're pretty much going it alone. They had talked about expanding the tour from two to possibly three or four events in 2009, but as of right now, talks are nil.

As the national economy teeters on the brink of Depression (depending on whom you talk to, we're already there), it's natural that most every industry would suffer. But in one viewed as a luxury and/or recreational, it hits pretty hard. Luckily, everyone still needs t-shirts, slippers and boardshorts, so most of the big companies are pretty safe. But in longboarding circles, where the sponsors are mostly boards and accessories, the dollars flowing are becoming fewer and fewer.

It should be a telling next 6 months.

2 comments:

mikenjamie said...

I don't understand. you use your site (which i like) for political agenda, but when someone else thinks differently, you take it down? what's up with that? you make some pretty bold claims, but when someone challenges you, you just erase it and ignore it? how does that help anyone?

Chasen Marshall said...

Hey mikenjamie,

In response to your deleted response response: my reasoning was that it seemed you were using the "comments" section as a soapbox, making claims that deviated greatly from the subject of my post. Plus, when I tried to look up your info and there was nothing, let alone an individual blog or anything, I figured you were just jumping from blog to blog, posting your political opinions. I am completely open to opposing points of view, but if you're going to make a point, associate it with the post you're commenting on.