Ed Andrews: Roll up, roll up
Pay-per-view skate videos could be a mixed blessing.
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Skateboarding’s most entrepreneurial philanthropist, Steve Berra, is at it again. How so? Well, The Berrics have just released a new part by Daewon Song for you to enjoy.
This is worthy news in itself from this skateboarding legend who was putting down über-tech tricks while most of today’s pros were still a glint in the milkman’s eye. Want to see it? Well, here’s the catch: to download the video, you’ve got to cough up one dollar (well, 99 cents to be precise). It doesn't explicitly say the money will go, but hopefully it will go towards the greater good of skateboarding. And to really get you in the mood to dig deep, you can watch a teaser.
I don’t know about you but I can’t escape this image of Steve Berra as a Victorian circus entertainer in top hat and tails hollering theatrically, “Roll up, roll up, come witness the amazing death-defying antics of skateboarding’s technical grand champion, the most marvellous magician on a skateboard device, twice as nice as any other, Mr, Dae. Won. Sooooooong!” But that’s just me…
This isn’t the first time The Berrics have tried to do their bit for skateboarding in this manner though. Young Australian upstart Shane ‘Nugget’ O’Neill was given a marketing boost in May 2010 by The Berrics when they put his first pro part up for pay-per-download at a cool three dollars. It was then that Berra first donned his metaphorical top hat by putting out teaser videos of fellow pros gurning and whooping at an off-screen video going, ‘yeah, I’d buy that for a dollar’.
Seriously though, who – apart from our beleaguered public services – can not spare a bit of loose change to witness a part of such technical magnitude that they’ve obviously worked very hard for? All the money went directly to Shane and would have otherwise been spent on frivolous delights like fancy coffees and giving to homeless people.
It’s a fair argument. Why shouldn’t you do your duty and support those who fuck themselves up to bring you some quality footy? Despite Berra's noble intentions, I can’t help thinking that it may well be a double-edged sword for skateboarding.
Let’s not be deluded here, skateboarding companies exist to make money, turn over a profit and, in many cases, keep shareholders’ fridges well-stocked with magnums of champagne. So, if we get to the stage where each pro is judged on the revenue their part receives and how many hits they get, will that just mean survival of the most marketable?
It could well mean that many companies opt for the most celebrity-prone pros to shit out some outtakes and rake it in regardless and leave out those who don’t fit the mould, roll over and play ball? Will those who perhaps go against the grain or live in the lower echelons of skateboarding be quietly dropped instead of nurtured and supported in doing something that little bit different? And more importantly, will you be able to get your money back if you get duped into shelling out a few coins for something that should be dumped in a bin marked ‘marketing fluff’?
I can’t helping feeling that we’ve reached the point now that video parts by their very nature should be open to be shared, appreciated and applauded/bitched about on forums. Footage ultimately should be about inspiring others to pick up a board and try it themselves, not hidden away behind a digital curtain and seen on a pay-per-view basis like the Elephant Man and the bearded lady.
And besides, in this age of Julian Assange and Wikileaks, someone’s gonna leak it anyway...
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Roll up, roll up (text) by Ed Andrews is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (3)
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I've still got all my old VHS tapes, though.
There is no right way of distributing the profit made (how much would each filmer get etc.).
If anything, Berra should be paying each and every skater ever to have filmed anything in the Berrics - he's the one making money of them in a big way.