First off, I am responding to this as Jim Gray, a skater first and foremost, and owner of Abc Board Supply, a skateboard manufacturer, not as Jim Gray who is on the board of directors of IASC, or in any way on behalf of IASC. I am but one of what was 7 on the IASC board of directors, and now there are 11 that have just been voted on.
As with any organization and with anything that involves many different people, there will be many different opinions, and I do not hide the fact that my opinions do not always mesh perfectly with the rest of the board of IASC or the rest of the industry for that matter. Having different opinions helps keep things in balance and hopefully the opinions all of the skaters that are showing up here on the Slap boards will influence things for the better in the future and will get the industry to listen to what’s being said and clean up some of it’s dirty laundry.
First thing, because IASC as is taking a lot of the hits about this issue and I do believe in what IASC is supposed to stand for, I want to point out some of the other good things that IASC is doing before I touch upon the whole blank issue or respond directly with my opinion on your opening statement in this thread.
IASC as an organization is working on a lot of awesome things that will give back to skateboarding. Our Public Skatepark Development Guide that was just finished in conjunction with Skaters for Public Skateparks and the Tony Hawk Foundation will give advocates all over the world necessary tools to fight to get public skateparks built. I am very proud that we have gotten this finished and over time it will help many, many skaters get lots of great places to skate. We have also worked on lobbying the government to eliminate pad laws and stop harassing skaters unfairly at skateparks and are going to step up our efforts in 2007. The annual Go Skateboarding Day event created and promoted by IASC has helped skaters bond throughout the world and be a stronger force because of it. This stuff is good for skaters and is all spearheaded by IASC members.
In direct response to the thread to IASC board companies, I’d just have to say that I am stoked to see skaters starting to say the truths in public that have only been whispered for many years. Yes, most independent skate shops don’t make shit and yes there are many pro’s that shouldn’t be pro, don’t do demo’s, don’t compete, and haven’t done shit for years. I am still wondering why anybody bought shit with their name on it in the first place, because many never even proved that they can hold their own against other pro’s except in their video part, and that doesn’t prove much to me. Videos are great entertainment but I like to see who is really the best, not just who appears to be the best. That’s part of why it continues. If nobody bought stuff from guys who didn’t earn it, then the industry would have had to clean up years ago. That’s no excuse for the problems, but it definitely does contribute, and all skaters are going to have to decide if they want to be part of a change or sit back and buy into a dysfunctional promotional system for years to come.
The bottom line is it will only change if skaters are vocal about it and call bullshit on bullshit. I started my company 16 years ago and at the time I knew it was ridiculous to have 200+ pro’s with their own models when it’s just not possible for 200 guys to be so influential to have people flooding into the stores to buy product with their name on it. It had become way over the top and every sponsored guy had a model out, and it was just beginning. I used to say stuff like “imagine if every bench warmer in the NBA had a signature shoe”. It’s easy to see how funny that would be if you walked into a shoe store and saw 500 signature shoes, but my statements fell on deaf ears, because everyone was making money and forget to look at the long term, and now it’s here to bite back. So, that’s what we ended up with in skateboarding. I think we came pretty close to 500 guys with signature models, and I think that’s pretty embarrassing for skateboarding. What started as a way to sell some more boards because some pro really attracted a lot of attention to his company by kicking everyone’s asses competitively for the most part has slowly eroded to something that was handed out to every team rider as a sort of pat on the back, welcome to the team statement. The problem is that many if not most of the guys getting boards didn’t truly create sales for the brand, they were just good skaters. I knew it when I got my first pro model that I didn’t mean as much as many of the other pro’s, but at 18 years old, who is going to say know to getting a pro model? Nobody will, and no it’s gotten way out of hand.
Now a brand has little option but to follow this ridiculous path, because it’s almost impossible to stand out against the infiltration. Some of us want your help to straighten out the skateboard industry and are very happy you are all being vocal about it.
Only you skaters can make it change. The power has always been in the hands of the skaters, but many didn’t even know they had that power, but if you’ve been reading all these post’s I hope it’s becoming clearer.
I have been told by many people that I should resign from the IASC board to disassociate myself with this issue, but I don’t quit that easy. Instead, I hope to push harder to make the industry face some of its issues that I believe are the underlying problems that have led to this whole problem so I am going to push to get those items on the IASC agenda to see if I can get the industry to clean up some of its shit.
I know I’ve rambled on too long as it is, but those who care, some of the things I believe and will fight to make happen are:
1. Fix Pro Skateboarding so maybe a pro model will mean something.
It’s a long term deal, but if Pro skateboarders just continue to be tapped on the head by the Pro Fairy instead of having to compete to earn the title and prove they deserve it, then the problem of way too many pro’s will never go away, and companies will continue to try and use them as the only focus of their efforts and not focus on making better products and rewarding the most talented and deserving.
Ok, so haters go ahead and hate, contests are gay, blah, blah, blah, and I don’t entirely disagree, but contest formats can be modernized and tweaked, but avoiding them just prolongs the problem and keeps the waters muddy. But, the bottom line is that even when competition is the main way someone earns their way in, there will always be exceptions to the rule and style and skill will never be entirely controlled by contests. For example, Gonz did not win every contest he entered, but he did do well enough in a few to prove his skills to everyone, and his skills, personality and artistic style have allowed him to remain a strong force in skateboarding many, many years later. So, those who have the skill to become legends will be able to overcome the competitive system, but that would be the exception, and the rule would be that most would have to prove their skills in competition and fade away as new generations came up and had younger fresher skills. That’s how it worked with all the other previous generations and it worked just fine. Guys like me and guys from my generation like Lance Mountain, Neil Blender, came up and chased off the generation before us, and a couple years later we turned around and got chased off by the Tony Hawk’s, Lester Kasai’s, Chris Millers, Ben Schroeder’s, etc…. Well, I did, but Lance still is holding his ground to this day. It’s just natural evolution. Now, instead of having exceptions to the general rule, almost everybody is living like they are the exception, and there are no rules, so no one truly knows who earned the title or still deserves the coverage, sponsorship, and respect. With this current system we can’t get rid of the guys who are just clogging up the system, because we have no system to flush them out, and I am going to keep pushing to make that change.
Everyone and anyone has a right to make or have a pro model, but if people really knew who to most talented skaters were, then those are the pro models that would sell, and we wouldn’t have such a watered down marketplace and skaters might feel it was worth it to pay a few extra bucks to support a pro who was really amazing.
If we really knew who the best skaters were, there products would sell the best and we wouldn’t be in such a confusing time. After time, if magazines gave proper coverage to those who really earned it, eventually people would only buy boards with those guys’ names on them anyway. Now, the consumer has really no way to know who is best, other than convincing themselves they know by the videos they see. This makes most boards relatively equal in value, and that includes equal in value to a shop board or a blank. If the industry refuses to fix this, they might as well just sell blanks.
2. Force companies to label their products where they come from.
There are laws against not labeling your products with their country or origin and many people in the skateboard industry are not following those laws, so the consumer doesn’t know if he’s buying a board from China, Mexico, or America. This just further ads confusion to the whole issue of what you are buying. Is that blank from America, or China? Did that shop board come from a reputable factory or just some toy factory somewhere? Does that company makes its own decks and if not, where are they coming from?
Some people won’t care at all, and some people do. I get yelled at every time I bring this up (mostly be people who are importing all their stuff) but I don’t really care. I think the consumer deserves to know what they are buying and they should be the ones who get to decide if they care where it came from or not.
By staying on the IASC board and pushing for change, I can hopefully help make things better, but by quitting I’d just be asking for the bullshit to go on forever.
I hope you skaters who really love skateboarding for what it is will do your part to push the industry to change itself for the better. Stay vocal and maybe that’s what will happen. Sit back and watch, and the BS will continue forever. If you want something to happen, you can be part of the solution, or just sit back and support the problem by doing nothing. Only you can help make changes in skateboarding, and because you are here reading this, I assume you love it enough to do something about it.
Thanks for taking the time to read and whether you agree with me or not, at least you care enough to be involved. Skateboarding itself will live long and prosper no matter what happens to the skateboard industry!!!
I don’t often have time to write this much stuff or get this directly involved, but I will do my best to answer any questions you guys may have that I can do without getting into trouble for it. I’ve been reading the boards and there is so much confusion about where boards come from etc…… that it just trips me out. Like Canadian Maple. I think most skaters think most of the wood comes from Canada, but I know that almost all of what we use is North American Hard Rock Maple and comes from the US. It’s pretty funny to see how far off base some of this stuff is that get’s talked about. I’ll do my best to tell you the truth if you have a question—I am a skater first, and business guy comes after that.
Thanks again,
Jim Gray, Abc Board Supply
Topic: A statement from an IASC member (Read 5326 times)