An Honest Take: Watching Freeski and Snowboard Competitions

A World Wide League Started By 13 Year Olds

Last night, after a long coding session and getting hyped on season by checking idX, I did what many in my generation consider a meditative practice to fall asleep, fire up YouTube and let that algorithm feed me videos. Soon, I stumbled upon a fascinating league derived from a game that's taken place in backyards around United States: Major League Wiffle Ball. For those that don't know Wiffle Ball, it's a derivative of baseball. For those that don't know baseball, watch this:

Major League Wiffle Ball has been nothing short of impressive for a league ran by it's community members and two people full time

Alright so what's the big deal? Well, check out their YouTube Channel and website and you'll see why. After 400,000 subscribers, 50 million views across all platforms, and 140,000 Instagram followers plus 500,000 TikTok followers (0 idX followers though), they've created an entertainment product based on an alternative sport along with a "home base" to keep people up with the action. Not to mention, a world championship in one of the most famous stadiums in the world: SoFi Stadium.

(some people might need to hit the cage)

(I kid it's Wiffle Ball)

A Brief History Lesson

For those of you that don't know your history, let me give you a little lesson. The modern world today as we know it was spawned from one major movement: The Industrial Revolution. Not only did the Industrial Revolution spawn the ski crew, Child Labor, it brought a huge amount of technological innovation.

Technology brought down the way feudal lords used to rule, and issued a world into the modern way we see it today. Now, was it a perfect harmonious transition, no! Initially, there was a huge wealth gap, chronic hunger, and blatant violation of labor laws, but by the end of the 19th and into the 20th century, Western population, living standards, and purchasing power grew tremendously beyond any economists imagination. Imagine what would happen to a business in that time period if they relied upon manual labor versus a cotton gin or not having a steam engine to keep the lights on?

A League Run By A 18th Century Printing Press

Why does all of this matter?

Just so we make sure we don't alienate this entire mailing list by talking about stick and ball sports and history lessons, I was reminded after I missed the Freeski and Snowboard Big Air at Chur what flaws our current industry today: The FIS Freeski and Snowboard World Tour.

Taking a look at X Games Viewership as a bell weather for measuring the health of freeskiing and snowboarding broadcasts (this is not an article/indictment on X Games; however it's good data to use as it's commonly referred to as the "Superbowl" of skiing and snowboarding) we see some shocking stats.

Holy shit! A -53% percent in decline. And I rounded down!

Now, I get it, there are multiple ways to consume ski and snowboard content: from contests, to idX, and viewing films, and going on other less than ideal social platforms. People even ask is freeskiing and snowboarding a sport. I have one question for the people reading and doubting what I'm saying has any truth: is it any coincidence that films with the highest budget were produced when competitive freeskiing and snowboarding were at it's peak in 2010-2013?

One of the excuses that I've heard is that specific action sports popularities happen in 5-10 year cycles. This is one of the most bs excuses I've ever heard for "I'm doing terrible at my job and I don't care to do anything about it". When I worked for BlackPebble in New York for 4 years, if I heard someone on the say the reason why institutional security trading volume was down because it's "a cycle" for multiple years, they would be out of a job in 6 months.

How about another judged "action" sport like the WSL:
2021-2022 Rip Curl Finals Viewership
2022-2023 Rip Curl Finals Viewership

For a summary: viewership increased from 2021-2022 22% and in 2022-2023 29%. Wow! And not to forget that the freeski and snowboard community participants outnumber the surfing community 2:1.

Imagine if you tried to run any business with an 18th Century Printing Press today? You'd get eaten alive if you did not have a monopoly or a high amount of available capital compared to competitors in place. Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines, because that's currently what is happening with the masterminds at FIS.

A FIS Analysis

Unlike the Major League Wiffle Ball League and the World Surf League, Le Federation International de Ski continues to use an antiquated method of distributing the content people crave: live, unscripted, unknown content in a world of infinite on demand content.

Using a current analysis method of rating sports leagues I've devised a method called "God Save the Steeze" to see where we are at and compare FIS to Major League Wiffle Ball:

Not bad for a 2 man crew versus *checks LinkedIn* 10-50 employee organization! Meanwhile, the WSL has 51-200 employees and a technology group that is lead by people that went to MIT and Yale. We're getting there FIS!

(Is this platform helpful for anyone who is just getting into park skiing or snowboarding?)

On second thought

Credit Where Credit is Due

Now for the larger ski and snowboard competition scene, we're seeing some major strides. Natural Selection, X Games, and Dew Tour has taken it upon themselves to livestream D2C for FREE while creating amazing story lines around athletes.

According to Alex Hall on the Low Pressure Podcast, freeski viewership has increased 50%. It's a major stride going from 7 to 10.5 viewers (we know all about that with our DAUs at idX).

‍Our fearless freeski and snowboarding warriors at FIS decided to take action and have launched FIS TV, and have expanded their broadcasts to Outside TV, skiandsnowboard.live for people in the US, and Peacock.Along with that we're getting world class commentary from experts Tom Wallisch, Todd Richards, Tricia Byrnes, and Jon "DC" Oetken on NBC/Outside streams.

‍This is a far cry from 3 years ago when were using VPNs and navigating foreign languages. The only problem is unlike Major League Wiffle Ball, Street League Skateboarding, and the WSL, you have to pay, and in this day in age 🤔.‍

I mean, who doesn't want to see suggested videos for conspiracy theories, war, and crypto content while watching skateboarding!

Doing some quick math here, if you're in the US and wanted to see every FIS competition plus qualies, you would have to pay $49 for an Outside subscription, $8.99 x 6 months for a skiandsnowboard.live subscription, and Peacock for $5.99 x 6 months, you are looking at $133.88.

That's a half day pass to PCMR!

Ultimately, in a world of free access to watching sports where revenue is being generated by brand and streaming partnerships, this is not acceptable.

‍Also, sorry if you're in the US and want to see the Stubai Zoo in the wild!

We at idX are trying to help as one of our values is growing freesking and snowboarding, and I'm 69% sure we'll see some change directly from us to help live viewership this year (what we were working on all summer). If you have any ideas, want to help, comments, or think I'm off base here email me here: brendan at idx.style

PS. Shout out to everyone from Canada on this email that has free access to cbc.ca. They are they real MVPs.

Be The Change You Want To See In The World

I'm not going to give you my opinion on what subscription/pass you should buy to watch these events, but all I'm saying is that if you have your significant other with you, there is nothing better than saying to your significant other let's Peacock and Chiil so we can watch Eileen Gu cork 9 blunt, then Dusty Henricksen launch a trip 14, and wrap it up with an episode from the Office for a nightcap. You can't say that with the commentary that was happening for the most part on skiandsnowboard.live 🤮!

We're putting together a spreadsheet that can be found here where we're going to do a comprehensive deep dive on where to watch each competition here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AlIw1LN-8a8vjPd1krrM8y9rb_2Vnxavv9by8sOBJ5g/edit?usp=sharing.

So that we don't do what started this email, missing a Big Air Chur event.

‍The Link Again

‍If you made it this far, congrats! Message us @idx.style on Instagram for an idX pin or respond to this email!

Back to the Good Stuff: idX Devology

ICYMI, we dropped a new map (@ https://ride.idx.style/map) that actually works and loads where you can view every trick around the world that's been uploaded on idX. Check it out and check out our halloween edit!

An Important Annoucement

When the OG Fortnite Map dropped today, Bonezone @ Brighton is happening, and MAGMA 3 and Child Labor's Why Not comes to the SLC tonight

Past Emails

Big news on the way next week! Gearing up for the winter for sure 😤
‍Back From The Dead: Halloween 2023 - 10/31
‍Too Hood To Be True: A Summer Recap - 10/27
‍idX Financial Biscuits Outlook - 10/20
‍The idx Roadmap of Ski And Snowboard Dreams - 10/13
‍From Dawgs to Ditches, We Back! - 10/6

misfit_skier in the header with the Rainbow Rail gold
idX Headquarters

Change the game, don't let the game change you. Emails Coming On Fridays
✌️ - Brendan

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