Jay Riggio: Street League of their own
Rod Dyrdek's new skate competition had such promise, then along came ESPN.
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Last month, I was on hand to check out the first ever Maloof Money Cup in New York City.
The event went off in proper form with and some of the gnarliest skating I’ve ever seen in my life. It got me thinking about all of the summer skate contents that are already in full swing: Maloof Cup, Dew Tour, CPH Pro, Mystic Sk8 Cup. Yep, all the big ones with top pros, company sponsors, hefty prize purses, unique course designs and fans travelling from near and far to get a glimpse of all the excitement. It’s exciting as hell, all of it, and for any fan of skateboarding, the chance to see your favorite pros skate (live or not) is pretty damn rad. It never ceases to amaze me just how ridiculous the talent level of professional skateboarding is at, and what better way to showcase those collective professional talents then to have some of skating’s best put it down in a live, unedited format.
Yeah, yeah you’re saying. I got it. What does pointing out all of this obvious stuff have to do with anything at all? Well, Street League Skateboarding, of course. By now, you have to know the score. Street League Skateboarding, the new contest series, straight from the ambitious mind of Rob Dyrdek is scheduled to feature the biggest pros in skateboarding and the heftiest prize money in skateboarding history - $1.2 million worth. It’s all well deserved for the talent that’s competing, that’s for sure. Rob wasted no time rounding up some of skateboarding’s best to participate exclusively in the contest series. Twenty-four (so far) carefully selected pros signed on for Street League to skate exclusively in the contest series, ultimately waiving their right to enter all other commercial skate events, with the exception of two non-sanctioned events until the end of 2010.
For a second it looked as if skateboarding was being plucked somewhat from the sweaty grips of the mainstream, or at the very least, from some sponsors that might be more or less rootless and back in the hands of the skaters. Could Rob be putting skateboarding back where it belongs? Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it.
Just last week, my hopes about the future of Street League Skateboarding were put to rest when ESPN announced an official multi-year partnership with Street League for worldwide broadcast domination and covering the event in 198 countries. Just when I thought the X-Games was on it’s way out, it turns out that Street League will allow their signed pros to participate in ESPN-owned events for the duration of their partnership. I’m pretty sure that means the X-Games. I thought for a moment we might be getting away from skateboarding as an overblown entity, but from the looks of things, skateboarding is actually growing in a much bigger, public direction, without stepping down from it’s heavily marketable pedestal.
Street League Skateboarding is set to start things off in August. It’ll be interesting to see what Street League brings forth, whether it be good or bad. Call me a bitter. Call me old but I’m still backing a quote from the legendary Gino Iannucci: “I miss the days when skating was still hated on”.
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Street League of their own (text) by Jay Riggio is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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