3.Some say it is going to help the major brands fight back against shop boards and blanks.

What? Ok, I am not kidding. This is an argument that some of these fools have used. First of all, who's going to want to pay more for some big brand name deck made in China, when they'll be able to buy their local shop's boards for less, and it's made in America. Even making this statement is just completely ridiculous, but it is being said by the first company to go all China. I guess they thought their dwindling sales were due to blanks, and not due to the fact that their crap is played out, and pretty damn lame, and that's why their sales were going down. Making skateboards in China is going to grow shop and blank board sales, not fight them. Time will prove that one, just like it did when I told all these idiots that giving pro models to all thier amatuers was going to bite them back, and now it is.

The point some of these guys are also forgetting is the reason that shop decks and blanks have sold so well, is because pro skaters who have always been the primary marketing tool for skateboard brands, have been so devaluated by the skateboard industry itself that they are no longer the driving force behind board sales. Don't misread that statement. Pro skaters are still what will always keep skateboarding on the cutting edge, but the industry has taken things way too far and a individual pro is less valuable to his company than ever before. Consider this--25 years ago they sold blanks just like they do today. The difference was, there was only a handful of pro's that got coverage and had their own signature boards etc.... So, when someone went into a shop and picked that Alva board off the wall, and the shop guy showed him a blank in the same shape, most skaters would gladly pay $40.00 dollars for the Alva deck instead of $20.00 for the blank. I know, I was one of those kids. Back then, there were only a handful of pro's and the kids really respected and followed them. Skaters may respect many pro's today, but with so many guys shoved in their face, that level of respect and devotion is just not the same, and therefore does not directly drive sales the way it used to when pro skaters battled it out to stay on top. Pro skateboarders used to have to compete to prove they deserved the status they acheived. Skateboarders today are more popular for being included in a video game than for their skating ability, or for the tricks that are edited into their video part, even if they could rarely make those tricks on a regular basis. In general, skateboard companies are not selling talent, they are selling trickery, and with so many companies just doing the exact same thing, it has become so difficult to know who really deserves the status, that the local shop has a much better relationship and respect from it's local skaters than many major brands. This then makes it easy for them to sell their own brands. Shop brands are more popular than ever, from decks, to t-shirts, to clothing, etc...., and sometimes the skateboard market is too damn stupid to realize they have brought this all on themselves.

Today, there are around 500 pros with their own signature models of skateboards on the market. They are all just about the same shape, and since most of the guys don't compete anymore, and their video parts are almost identical, we have very little way of differentiating who is the biggest name, or who should be the biggest icon. Since the companies that are getting the most coverage in magazines are getting it as much due to their personal friendships with the editorial staff as for the talent of their team, we can't even really trust that what we are seeing is reality. If we don't know who to believe, how can we trust who to buy a board from, so price becomes a key issue when brand value is brought into question. Videos and magazines don't help much because they cover such a broad variety of guys, whether or not they have really earned the rights to be considered one of the top pro's. This is good in one way, because it gives the skaters on the street the hope that they can become one of the pro's, which sometimes keeps them skating longer, even though many end up skating entirely for the wrong reasons. The end result is just plain watered down effectiveness of the marketing of a pro skater. Pro skaters may be good, and they may not be good. It's so hard to tell even when you are in the industry, how do you think an average skater is supposed to tell the difference? Most really can't, so what good is that to skateboarding, and how does that allow the companies to use their pro riders to help them sell product. It just doesn't work very well, and makes blanks and shop boards more appealing, and will continue to do so until the skate industry cleans up its act, and focuses on the REAL pro's that are out there.

When I was a pro skater, most companies had between 3 and 5 pro's max, and those pros more effectively helped form the companies image. Today, many companies have between 6 and 12 pro skaters on their team, and are operating several brands under their roof. As an example, a major brand had 4 pros back in the mid 80's and all of them competed and worked hard to keep their spot, and the company had one brand. Today, your average major skate company has 3 brands each with a minimum of 6 pro riders per company, and sometimes as many as twelve pro riders per company, and many if not most of them never compete or do anything for the company other than a video part once a year or so. So in a nutshell you are talking about companies going from having 4 hard working major name skaters to promote their sales, to a point today where that same average is somewhere between 18 and 30 supposedly major name skaters promoting their brand, and while they make think they are working hard, they are not very effective, because it's hard to separate them all. These companies are no bigger in the market than those same brands from the 80's, but now they have 30 paychecks to try and cut for their pros instead of 5, and now that things are a little slow they are having troubles paying them all. I hope this may better explain why pro skaters don't have the same impact as they used to. They just can't. With that many guys out there, how can they stand out? What better way to keep those paychecks flowing than to shift your production to China, and try to make a few more bucks off every board you sell. The problem is, the consumer doesn't get anything out of the deal, in the long run, even though it might seem like they do initially. Sometimes each of those pros has seven different models out, but what makes each one special? Not much, and that is the basic reason that shop and blank boards are so influential. There is nothing special about the average skateboard deck today, or the average pro skater. Today, many of the best skateboarders in the world are unsponsored because they don't do good video parts, they just rule in the real world. The skateboard industry just needs to own up to some of its own problems and start dealing with them, or they are going to continue to eat themselves from the inside out.