Look at the history of the skateboarding industry... the best skaters used to be so popular they could flip the industry on it's head (Rodney, Carroll just two examples of many) because they had the board sales/credibility to take their fans with them into their own brand. People try it constantly on a smaller scale. But they were also smart enough and took the risks to pull it off.
When you start involving multi-billion dollar corporations in skate sponsoring, no singular skater can pull off anything like that. The whole idea of "core" thus becomes a relic of the past until all of the major pros and best skaters in the industry completely stop wearing Nike, Adidas, and any brand/company that has a total net worth that's of astronomical value, such that it's impossible to bankrupt them of either all their money or credibility as a skateboard-related company.