Considering there were so many direct replies I decided on just like giving an overall opinion.
1. I do not think Nike or Adidas will ever stop sponsoring athletes. Their image to a degree is based upon athletes, but they will be far far fewer. Like Nike/Jordan is trying to get out from Zion, Tatum, Luka, and a shitload of role players they have signed in the last few years. If these guys are doing this to basketball superstars like that, it’s gonna trickle down to skating.
2. Nike and adidas if they actually have a legit pro model, not a colorway, goes through the process of creating an entire manufacturing process to produce the shoe. Nike if they realize a pro won’t return on investment the development of that process and what not, why in the fuck will they make pro models? So pro models will become almost non existent, and for future top pros I bet at most people will have colorways. The market has been going this way for a long time, and All the big boys have been fairly stingy in original shoes for a long time and moving towards colorways(see Nora, Diego Najera, Miles, etc. for adidas colorways as a random example).
essentially I see far fewer pros, far fewer market investments(like polar, events, contests, etc.), and pro models becoming nonexistent with at most colorways/material variations of staple skate shoes on the big boys.
I think this will leave a mass part of the market out of a job as a pro skater, and realistically the shoe companies had been funding the whole industry. Like pros essentially are surviving and being able to create media for a living at the highest level because they have no job responsibilities. It’s impossible to be a world class skater and work a 9-5 at the same time compared to people who don’t.
I think this means either one of two things, either the skateboard industry funds itself in creating means to support itself, ergo creating their own shoe or clothing brands, or we end up with rob dyrdeks version of reality with like 10-20 pros who actually make a living and a shitload of money, and then every other skater in the world. Instead of the current ecosystem we have.
I think Nike(well I’ve heard stuff too), but I think they are gonna drop shops like adidas. Vans I don’t think will ever drop shop shoes but that’s for a different reason and a tangent to this convo. If shops use street money(non skater money) to survive, which a shitload do although hardwoods lately has exploded so it hasn’t been bad because of that but eventually the market will stabilize given the lifecycle of the product for a street money consumer, and shops will have to support themselves on soft goods to street consumers, and frankly other than vans, which people can buy cheaper elsewhere, what in the fuck do skate shops offer other than lakai and sole tech these days? I mean shit is bare.
I think In order for shops, and therefore the skateboarding industry as a whole to survive, we are going to need people to step up and develop skater owned shoe brands in America or else the entire industry including hardgoods, literally fucking everything will die(kind of like how the NBA as a whole is coupled to TV ratings), unless manufacturers go direct to consumer. The issue with that is manufacturers unless they are fucking dumb realize that the North American market is coupled to shops. Like a local skate shop literally creates a scene in a metropolitan area. Like hardwoods manufacturers might want to go direct like that, but literally the amount of skaters in cities will die unless u live in Cali or NYC.
So then the question becomes well who will be able to create skater owned product that drives people into shops? People who have brand image and identity. Like if Nike or Adidas is this dumb with skating, they will fucking shit the bed because I don’t think they realize that skate shops influence their market to the degree they do, or at least I’m willing to make the gamble and say they don’t understand the severity in their miscalculation if they try to downsize their programs. Since if they let the skate shops take over the market again, Nike and Adidas will never control the market again.
I agree that from a skateboarding perspective and how with shops brand identity matters, but from an e-commerce perspective it does not. Nike bills their entire company with how they treat their basketball players, as does adidas with them and soccer. If they use this same strategy with the skateboard market it’s going to bite them in the ass big time, hence why I said I genuinely would be shocked if we don’t see dudes like TJ and what not start their own companies.