Sport Marketing Quarterly, 2012, 21, 206-209, © 2012 West Virginia University

Industry Insider:Action Sports Execs

Bill Carter

Interviews conducted by Steve McKelvey, an associate professor and graduate program director in the Mark H.McCormack Department of Sport Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and vice presidentfor industry relations for the Sport Marketing Association.

Over the past decade, few individuals have had agreater impact and influence on the action sportsindustry than Wade Martin and Bill Carter.

Martin is the President and CEO of Alii Sports, aglobal entertainment business that encompassesnational and international action sports tours andevents, multimedia production and distribution, and aconsumer facing lifestyle brand. In 2011, Alii wasacquired by NBC and Comcast as a subsidiary of theNBC Sports Group. Martin was named toSportsBusiness JournaFs Forty Under 40 list in 2005 andBrandweek's 2006 Marketers of the Next Generation.

Martin joined NBC Sports in the fall of 2003 as gen-eral manager of Action Sports. He spearheaded the cre-ation and development of the Dew Tour, whichlaunched in 2005 as the first season-long professionaltour for actions sports. By 2007, Martin had been pro-moted to President and the Dew Tour was recognizedas the most successful series in action sports, boastingthe largest media commitment, largest total viewershipand on-site attendance, and a blue-chip roster of part-ners including Mountain Dew, Toyota, SonyPlayStation, and Nike. That same year, the companyannounced its first major expansion initiative with thecreation of the Winter Dew Tour. In 2008, that expan-sion continued with Martin leading the formation ofAlii, the Alliance of Actions Sports, as the new umbrel-la brand and company. Under Alii, Martin developedand negotiated partnerships with leading properties innew sport verticals, created a media arm (Alii TV andwww.Allisports.com), and opened the Carlsbad,California, office to oversee the creative, editorial, andconsumer products group and e-commerce business,the Alii Shop. In total. Alii manages four propertiesand more than 61 events. Martin earned his MS in

sport management from the University ofMassachusetts Amherst in 1996.

Since 1995, Bill Carter has developed Fuse into thecountry's leading action sports and youth culture mar-keting firm. Over the past two years, the Vermont-based Fuse agency has been recognized with numerousawards, including Event Marketing magazine's GrandEx Award for the year's top campaign; Promo maga-zine's Top 100 promotional agencies; the BulldogAward recognizing outstanding Public Relations; aSports Emmy nomination for Outstanding Broadband;and Outside Magazine's 50 Best Places to Work. In2001, Bill became the first action sports marketer to behonored as a recipient of SportsBusiness Journal's FortyUnder 40 Award. For more than a decade, he has coun-seled many of the most important corporate sponsors,media, athletes, and properties in action sports includ-ing strategy for Mountain Dew's action sports market-ing platform since 1996; on-site activation for morethan 30 Summer and Winter X Games sponsors; PublicRelations for the Association of Surfing Professionals;program development and implementation forSkateboarder magazine, FOX, Quiksilver, Burton, andOrag; and product launch strategies for Gatorade andConverse as they entered action sports for the first timein their storied histories. Carter is a graduate ofGettysburg College (creative writing) and MichiganState University (sports management).

SMQ: A recent SportsBusiness Journal article analyz-ing the state of the action sports industry reportedthat, over the past few years, TV ratings have slightlydecreased and attendance is leveling off. Assumingthis is the case, what do you view as the biggest chal-lenges facing the action sports industry?

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Martin: We are not concerned with the leveling offin viewership or attendance as so many aspects of thesports and market continue to grow. The core fan andparticipant base in action sports is strong and growing.If anything, in the last five years we've lost some of the"curious fans" that were tuning into action sports forthe spectacle or novelty factor. As action sportsbecome more established, there will be less of these"curious fans" tuning in or coming to events, butthat's acceptable to us as long as the core base contin-ues to grow.

One of the challenges, however, is that there are noreal barriers to entry in the action sports world, interms of there being no leagues or governing bodies.There is so much content out there and so many waysto consume it that it has become increasingly hard tomonetize the fan base because it's so splintered andfragmented.

Carter: While it's certainly true that TV ratings andlive event attendance are important barometers ofinterest that fans have in any sport, including actionsports, I don't think it's wise to look at individualmeasures and try to correlate overall health. To me, ithas always been more important to look at the overallconsumption of the sports. Are our fans engagedacross all media, particularly digital and social media?From my perspective, which is generally the perspec-tive of the corporate sponsors we represent, is overallengagement by action sports fans resulting in sales atretail? I don't think we have a problem with overallconsumption of the sports and I certainly don't thinkwe have a problem demonstrating that action sports asa platform results in sales.

SMQ: What are the latest trends in the action sportsindustry?

Carter: To me one of the most interesting trends, inaddition to the global impact of action sports, is inreconnecting with the sport's most adamant—or as welike to call them "core"—fans. I think a lot of the workthat Wade has done, as well as has been accomplishedat events like the U.S. Open of Surfing, has been highlysuccessful in re-engaging with core fans. Core fansdon't always mean the youngest fans, but that relation-ship does often occur. The other major sports, particu-larly baseball and NASCAR, have demonstrated in anegative way what happens when you don't engageyour young fans year after year. Today, those sports, ashas been well-documented, have a major age issue—and again as I see it is in many ways a core fan issue.

Martin: At an event and media level, we are seeingsome of the individual sports/events pulling away fromthe action sports "package." Street League is entirelyfocused on street skateboarding, the World SnowboardTour continues to grow, and the Red Bull Signature

Series is a collection of amazing single sport events.This is definitely a sign of the maturation and growthof all of these sports.

SMQ: What factors do you see as most important tothe future growth of the action sports industry?

Martin: Continuing to provide access (skateparks,camps, etc.) and infrastructure at the grassroots level.The television and big event exposure will continue,but the growth of the sports will happen at the grass-roots level as the pool of fans and participants grows.

SMQ: The growth model for most sport leagues andproperties is to add events. However, in April it wasannounced that the Dew Tour was going from foursummer and three winter events to a total of threeevents. What factors precipitated what a recentSportsBusiness Journal article described as a "whole-sale reinvention of the property?"

Martin: The hardest thing for those outside of theaction sports industry to understand about this marketis that it's constantly changing and evolving at everylevel. Every sport or league is evolving "outside theropes" (i.e., from a business perspective), but actionsports are constantly evolving "inside the ropes" aswell—the sports, the competition formats, coursedesigns, etc. We are dealing with a completely differ-ent animal and one in which change and evolution is anecessity.

We take the role that the Dew Tour plays within thebroader action sports industry seriously. And, whatthe industry wants and needs today is very differentfrom what the industry wanted and needed eight yearsago when the Dew Tour was created. As the individualsports have grown it became harder for the Dew Tourto serve as the pro tour across eight different sportsand disciplines ... one size no longer fit all. That iswhy we decided to move to our new "grand slam" for-mat of Dew Tour Beach, City, and Mountain. Webelieve the grand slam approach—meaning three big,important, and premium events—was what wouldserve the industry the best today. And I wouldn't besurprised if that changed again in another seven years.

SMQ: What is specifically being done to add valueto these three Dew Tour events?

Martin: Our focus is fewer, bigger, better. We haveredirected the resources that were going against sevenevents and are now going against three events. Ourgoal is to create the three best events in action sportsand we have invested against everything from the on-site presentation, the content production, marketing,prize money, music, etc. And the good news is so farit's working. The Ocean City event was by all accountsthe best Dew Tour ever held.

SMQ: How is consumption of action sports differentfrom more traditional sport-related tours and leagues

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that are based on accumulation of points to crown a"tour champion" (i.e., WTA, NASCAR, PGA/LPGA)?

Martin: We have found that they are entirely differ-ent, which is a big reason why we changed the formatof the Dew Tour. We believe action sports fans wantto consume great, unique, innovative, high-qualityevents and content. Crowning a year-end champion isnot as important as seeing the best in the world com-pete in a unique, premium setting. Again, we believetoday it's more important to keep evolving the sportsand events than it is to provide a fixed, tour structurethat crowns a champion.

Carter: It's so much about how action sports havechanged since both Wade and I began to make it ourprimary career paths in the late '90s. However, onething that has changed very little is the importance thataction sports culture and its fans place on noncompeti-tion elements of the sports. Of course, this is of greatimportance to Wade and his team too, even while he ofcourse needs to focus on the competition element ofaction sports. I have more of a luxury of paying atten-tion to developing strategies that tap into the noncom-petition aspects, such as the importance of film, video,photography, and general lifestyle elements. One needsto look no further than stars such as Laird Hamilton insurfing, Tony Hawk in skateboarding, and TerjeHâkonsen in snowboarding to see that some of the mostimportant figures in action sports have either nevercompeted, have long been retired, or rarely compete.

SMQ: In 2010, Rob Dyrdek of MTV reality show famecreated the Street League. How has this impacted theDew Tour and action sport tour industry in general?

Martin: As mentioned earlier, the growth andstrength of action sports as a whole has allowed indi-vidual sports and disciplines to grow as stand-aloneentities. That's a good thing and Street League is a per-fect example of that. That said, I've always disagreedwith Rob's approach around athlete exclusivity. Thisdoesn't benefit anyone—the athletes, events, sponsors,or fans. We as an industry need to worry about grow-ing the pie. If we do, there will be enough for everyone.We believe events like the Dew Tour, particularly in itsnew format, will only benefit Street League. No differ-ently than the Masters supports the PGA Tour and viceversa, we believe the same symbiotic relationship canexist between Dew Tour and Street League. And fortu-nately it looks like that's where we are headed as we willhave all of the top street skaters in San Erancisco thismonth for the Dew Tour.

Carter: I have said many times before that any eventthat legitimately provides an opportunity for athletesto further their careers and earn a living should beembraced by the industry. All of us who want to seeaction sports continue to grow need to balance our

own individual interests against the interests of theathletes, corporate sponsors, broadcast partners, etc.There is a place for Street League, just as there hasbeen a place for other new events that have been devel-oped in the last 15 years.

SMQ: What do you see as the future in terms ofinternational expansion for the Dew Tour and actionsport tours in general?

Martin: It's something we are beginning to look at alot more closely. There is clearly opportunity interna-tionally with action sports. But, we are just starting towork with Pepsi to explore the right model andapproach for the Dew Tour.

Carter: In addition to the global initiatives thatWade and his team have enacted, certainly ESPN'sapproach to three additional X Games competitionsaround the world provide a boost of energy interna-tionally. Collectively every one of these efforts sends amessage to corporate sponsors that action sports trans-late to youth globally.

SMQ: What is the social media/digital media strate-gy for the Dew Tour?

Martin: I wouldn't say that we have a separatesocial/digital strategy as much as we look at social/digi-tal as one with the rest of our marketing and distribu-tion strategy. Our social/digital strategy is embeddedin everything we do whether we are developing ourprogramming/distribution plan and determiningwhere each piece of content will live or we are develop-ing our event marketing plan and looking at social/dig-ital as part of the advertising mix. Its omni-presentand critically important to everything we do.

SMQ: What is the latest in social media/digitalmedia trends for action sport generally?

Carter: I think that action sports has done a good jobin being at the forefront of digital media as a means toengage its fans. Like many other sports that corporatesponsors use as a platform, action sports will need tocontinue to find new ways to engage those fans, meas-ure that engagement in sophisticated ways, and thenuse that engagement to drive sales.

SMQ: How has/will NBC ownership change thefuture of the Dew Tour?

Martin: NBC's ownership of Alii has been terrific forall aspects of our business, particularly the Dew Tour.We have significantly more assets to market and dis-tribute the Dew Tour under the NBC Sports Groupthan we ever did before. Erom the new NBC SportsNetwork to NBCsports.com to the local RSN's, wehave so many touch points with our consumer ... itsan exciting time for sure.

SMQ: In 2010, Alii acquired e-tailer StandardBoardshop, leading to the creation of Alii Shop. Howhas this venture progressed?

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Martin: We recently announced a new partnershipwith dogfunk.com (a leading action sports e-tailerowned by backcountry.com) in which they will nowserve as the official ecommerce partner for Alii Sports.We are very excited about the partnership as it allowseach of us to do what we do best. They are a terrificmerchant and we have a massive audience we candeliver to them. We are excited about the possibilities.

SMQ: How reliant is the newly structured DewTour, and action sports tours in general, on "starpower"?

Martin: I think every individual sport—tennis, golf,boxing, etc.—is reliant on star power and action sportsare no different. When you don't have the same root-ing interest that fans have in teams, individual starpower is a major driver. Fortunately, the depth of tal-ent and star power has never been stronger in actionsports and new stars are appearing faster than everbefore.

Carter: Action sports events rely on star power, but Ithink generally speaking it's a factor that is probably ofoverstated importance in action sports and in manyother sports. The core fan in action sports can watchan action sports event or attend live and name many ofthe athletes, maybe 50% or more. The casual fan willhave a difficult time naming 10% of the athletes byname. That's really no different than any of the majorsports, though we don't usually think of it that way.The NFL has about 1,000 players, and even the corefootball fan would have a hard time naming 50 ofthem. My point is that stars help you succeed, but theproduct has to go way beyond the stars.

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