The Future of Skateboarding

You know what’s crazy? My dad was born in 1935. This was before WWII, before plastic existed (think about that, is anything today not made with plastic?), before drugs as we know them today, and before skateboarding. Skateboarding wasn’t even on the horizon.

If you’ve seen Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox rips the orange crate off that kid’s scooter and rides it around and “invents” the skateboard, that time period was when my dad was already in college.

My dad was already in his fifties when skateboarding got anywhere close to what it is today (I’m talking the late 80s).

In the late 80s skateboarding was popular. Then it waned, and then it came back in the mid 90s and enjoyed a surge of popularity. Even though skateboarding slowed down in the early…what are we calling this decade? The tens? Even though skateboarding slowed down over the past few years, it wasn’t like it went backwards, as in the early 90s, it just didn’t grow as fast as it had been. It was still bigger during this last slowdown than it was at its peak at the end of the 80s. And “bigger” is quite an understatement.

I remember in the late 80s/early 90s that skateboarding was rarely on TV, if ever. Maybe once ever other year they would show something to do with skateboarding on TV. Most skateboard companies made videos on the big, clunky VHS camcorders. Blind even edited their first video on one of those things.

I remember skating down at Venice Beach circa ’92 and meeting up with Tony Hawk’s accountant. He wouldn’t tell me how much Tony was making but bragged that it was six figures. Today, Tony Hawk makes over $20 million per year. I saw it on some TV show, so it must be true.

Skaters are being featured on Cribs and other TV shows, Bam is hanging out with Jessica Simpson, more kids stepped on a skateboard last year than played baseball, and the bottom line is that there is a bottom line. Skaters and those in the skateboard industry are actually making money. And unlike other upturns in the industry, this one appears to not be going anywhere. Here are a few reasons why:

Public Skateparks. There are thousands (yes, as in multiple thousands) of public skateparks in the US and more being built all the time. Yes, most of them are junk and should be torn down and rebuilt, but kids still skate them from sunrise to sunset while most baseball diamonds and basketball courts remain empty 23 hours per day.

Those cities that are building public skateparks in an attempt to keep skaters off of public property are in for a rude surprise, because all it’s going to do is create a new generation of skateboarders, who one day will figure out that the parks are junk and will then be on public property in much larger numbers.

Old Skaters. I don’t mean pool skaters, I mean old skaters with kids. When I was growing up skateboarding was what you didn’t want your kid to do because it seemed like a dead-end activity compared to legitimate sports like football or boxing. My dad was pretty cool about it and even helped me build a ramp in my backyard, but a lot of parents didn’t let their kids skate. My band teacher once told my dad to saw my skateboard in half. Then I quit band the next year. Ha.

But today, the kids who were skating 15-20 years ago now have kids that are 5-15 years old, and do you think they’re telling them to go play baseball? No, they’re totally supportive of skateboarding. Even the guys who didn’t skateboard but wanted to are supporting their kids in skateboarding. When I go to the skatepark these days I see soccer moms dropping their kids off. Except their kids don’t play soccer at all, it’s just skating.

One factor also encouraging parents to let their kids skate is the culture.

Skateboard Culture. I was at the skatepark two weeks ago and ran into a woman that I know from my business circles. She told me that she likes letting her 14-year old skate because she feels it’s a self-confidence booster for him. He also plays lacrosse, but when he play lacrosse if he messes up the kids swear at him or make fun of him.

That kind of stuff doesn’t happen much in skateboarding. If you don’t make a trick you’re not letting anyone down except yourself. If you make a trick everyone else is happy for you and shares in your success. Sure, it’s not this way all the time, but for the most part skaters are supportive of each other and want to see each other progress, or at least have a good time.

Rather than being part of a team that’s competing against another team you’re a team of one, and you’re competing against yourself. If you land a trick you win. But everyone knows you have to try things a lot before you land it, so if you don’t land a trick 50 times in a row no one cares because everyone’s been there except for Paul Rodriguez, who has never actually fallen down skateboarding or missed a trick. What? You say he fell down in Yeah Right? Not so, that was some creative film editing there.

You can do it by yourself. Why do you think basketball is now bigger than baseball or football? Just think about what it takes to go play baseball. You’ve got to have enough people for two teams. Even more so with football. With basketball you can play with two people, and you can ever do some stuff by yourself. You ever seen someone playing football by themselves? No, you haven’t, because those people are rounded up and put where they can’t hurt others.

But hey, with skateboarding you don’t need anyone else at all, ever. Sure, it can be fun to do with others, but PJ knows you can get plenty good skating by yourself. So I say look for skateboarding to be larger than basketball someday.

How Big Will it Get? That’s the question, isn’t it? How big will skateboarding get and will something be lost if it becomes as big as basketball? Will skaters be wearing uniforms and competing in the Olympics? Snowboarding is already there. I wonder if basketball players from 1920 would feel like today’s basketball players are sellouts. I don’t think so, because I don’t think basketball was ever the sport of outcasts like skateboarding has been.

I do believe skateboarding will get bigger and bigger over the next 20 years. I think we’re just seeing the the beginning of things to come.

As skateboarding becomes more and more popular it will be forced to become more acceptable to the mainstream. There may not be much we can do about it except do our own thing. The great thing about skateboarding is that no matter how big it gets, you’ll always be able to have fun without having to conform. You can wear whatever you want, be whoever you want to, and no one can force you to be anything else.

Even at the pro level they won’t be able to force much because in order to force people to conform they need to have a venue that pros choose to be part of. For example, they could start saying that in order to enter contests you have to wear a uniform. I doubt this will ever happen, but for the sake of the example we’ll go with it. The reason this type of thing would backfire is because you don’t have to go to contests in order to be successful as a pro. You just need to be in videos and magazines, and there will always be various types of magazines, and anyone who is pulling tricks is going to be in at least one of them.

Ok, nuff said… I’m starting to ramble.