In football, baseball and basketball, pro salaries are as common a topic of discussion as great plays or crushing defeats. When a rookie is signed to the majors right out of college, the details of his contract are often public knowledge, subject to dissection by the sports media and fans on message boards. But in the snowboard industry, salaries are a seemingly taboo subject. It’s all about the fun, right bro?
The hesitance to discuss cash is actually for several reasons, the biggest being that there is no “global snowboard federation” setting the rates for what snowboarders get paid. The majority of a rider’s money comes strictly from sponsorships and endorsement deals, negotiated by agents or in many cases, the riders themselves. How much a rider makes based on several factors, least of which is ability, and most of which is based on social media reach, editorial coverage, competition results and the willingness to play the game (being where you need to, when you need to, and doing it without bitching, at that.)
In researching this story, I reached out to marketers, team managers and agents I received a lot of similar responses amounting to, “I really don’t think I should say…” Even the pros themselves are hesitant to share just how much they are netting, either because they think they’re worth more, don’t want to seem like they’re bragging, or don’t want to bum out a teammate who may be making less. The “bro factor” plays a huge role in who gets paid at all, and so staying away from money-related drama is just good business.
But the biggest reason that snowboard salaries are somewhat hush hush is simply that they are so widely varied. The riders you see in contests and videos could be making anywhere from a few thousand, to several hundred thousand dollars a year, with the top guys bringing in seven figures. A lot of pros though, are lucky to make it through their career without going into debt or working a second job during the summer.
How do snowboarders make money?
Ozzy Henning, Mike Gray, Zak Hale and Madison Blackley, slightly richer after this year’s HDHR
The snowboard industry is divided into several segments. Video/editorial pros can either focus on backcountry or street and create content, which helps promote their sponsors through various channels. Contest pros can make money by winning contests and getting editorial coverage, (though unless you’re a consistent top 3 finisher, it will often cost more to travel to the contest than you actually win.) It’s also possible to make a career based on resort riding and web edits, although the most valuable and successful riders do some combination of all of the above.
The snowboard landscape is split into regions, with the Europe/Asia/Africa market existing as an almost entirely separate entity from the North American one. Within Europe, the market is again divided, equally as much by language as it is by country, as the majority of European snowboarders ride almost exclusively on holiday, meaning they travel rather than living by a resort. This makes the “regional” pro, which is a necessity for brands in the US, less of a factor when looking at European marketing.
Brands, no matter how core or corporate use snowboarders the same way – as giant walking billboards. Accordingly, the amount of space the brand occupies designates how much a rider should be paid for their services. Outerwear, which is the highest visibility, is typically the highest paying sponsor, while hardgoods, optics, gloves, helmets, streetwear and headwear make up the rest of the pie. Non-endemic sponsors (those that don’t make anything to do with snowboarding, ie energy drinks, beef jerky, head phones) also purchase real estate in the form of sticker placement, appearances, and of course oh-so-valuable social media shout outs.
What is a snowboarder worth?
Contest riders historically are paid the most because they get the most media exposure. Winning a gold medal in the Olympics is not only a stunning endorsement for the equipment you ride, but you’re likely to be mentioned in every media outlet, appear on late night TV, and even get talked about on the National Nightly News – which may not sell actual snowboards, but for a mainstream brand translates to a lot of value. In general, for any type of brand, editorial coverage is valued at a premium of about 4 times that of advertising. Basically, having a third party say you’re great is always going to be more valuable than paid placement telling people the same thing.
For an actual snowboard brand, sponsoring athletes is just one piece of the marketing puzzle, and brands divide their budgets between athletes, advertising, content-creation, events and more, making the answer to the question even less cut and dry. Within the industry, much of the snowboard media is “pay to play” meaning the mags and sites will not feature a brand unless they are advertising. So brands not only have to pay a rider a salary and cover their travel expenses, but then pay to get them featured in a video (buy ins to pro movies can be upwards of $20,000 which pays for all the expenses that go into making a video such as travel, equipment and filmer salaries – although this system has crumbled in recent years), and then buy an ad in the magazine so the magazine will then feature their riders at all. And all of this is done with about 10% of of their gross revenue, however this number varies depending on the brands strategic business plans, and could be as little as 3-4%.
The Great Recession
Never fear, according to a bunch of crap people are trying to sell on the Internet, money doesn’t matter.
Now the bad news. Snowboarding’s death/slump/recession has hit professional snowboarding especially hard and salaries have been contracting steadily over the past couple seasons. Some of this can be blamed on the departure of Nike from the industry. The footwear giant was paying riders way more than those riders could possibly sell in snowboard product – as the multi-billion dollar brand had a lot more available money to pay its athletes to serve as brand ambassadors and not just tools to sell boots. Six figure contracts were common, (although not the norm), and though they’re honoring those contracts (some with over a year left to go) that’s a big chunk of money that is no longer being pumped into the snowboard economy. Add in a couple awful winters and a sluggish global economy and there’s not a lot of money floating around at the moment for professional snowboarders.
That said, the idea of getting paid to snowboard at all is still a relatively new one. When the first generation of snowboarders began to gain market share in the ski industry, most people were just excited to get free stuff and never dreamed of getting paid at all. It is only in recent years with the proliferation of coaches and academies that kids (ok, their parents) now see snowboarding as a viable career option at all. And while riders in the 90s seemed to be raking it in, the reality is there are a lot more people getting paid to snowboard now than ever before.
So while the exact numbers in the bank accounts of professional snowboarders may never be common knowledge, some people are getting paid, and others are getting by. Snowboard super agent Circe Wallace summed it up best. “There are maybe 5 guys making 7 figures plus. Everyone else is fighting for what’s left over.”
#heartbreaker
Guesses on the top 5 paid pros?
Can we still call Shaun a snowboarder?
T-rice
Ginger
Sage
Terje
Jones
I don’t see Terje making 7 figures. Maybe Torstein? John Jackson?
lol. john jackson is on signal.
Travis Rice
Shaun White
Sage
Mark McMorris
Terje Haakonsen
Jeff holce could be up there if he had his own instagram account so he could keep the posts
E-Man, Tyler Lynch, DeadLung, Lucas Magoon & Bonus
one of these is not like the rest
those fools are all broke snow bums
We talkin about guys who get paid in weed? I can drop some knowledge on that side of the industry
Danny Davis has to be up there, hes getting burton money, mtn dew money, his peace park thing is gonna be on ABC…
Danny kass is prob up there
i know 2 years ago the top 3 were shaun white, travis rice, and danny kass
Cole Navin, Jay Hergert, Kody Williams, Vinnie, Lizard King
obviously Shaun and Trice are rolling in it but who else?
Pat has that Red Bull $$$
Torstein? Gigi? Sage?
I once saw Gooner asking for spare change at a party
mark mcmorris, shaun white, travis rice, pat moore, and sage kotensburg.
Jesse Paul could be up there, but Salomon won’t turn him pro
If I were any smart company, I would pick him up and turn him pro top of the roster ASAP. This dude could be selling tons of boards for almost any company out there. Salomon banking all the skizzy on Jed/Grenier
And Louif
I think this is the most accurate as far as money from actually riding a snowboard. I bet torstein and sage are on equal planes
Bode has to be up there, hes the best in the game right now
More articles like this Brooke. Let’s see inside the industry, go where traditional snowboard media doesn’t. More like Jenkem, less like TWS.
Thanks guys.
Speaking of Jenkem. Didn’t they post an article about how much skateboarders make like last week?
ok alittle too much like jenkem let’s find a good middle ground here thanks Brooke
The industry is a dark place that kills dreams. You don’t want to see inside of that. Just be happy that you got nothing to do with it.
dreams were made to be broken
Travis Rice
Sage Kotsenburg
Gigi Ruf
Muller
Pat Moore
Jones
First big names that comes to mind that I think make good money from snowboarding. Probably in the 5-7 digits that’s for sure.
Pretty strong list … Miller did take a pay cut to go to Gnu however… Well Burton offered him more after Gnu gave him a number and he still picked Gnu. So I guess I should say he took less money to ride for Gnu vs taking an actual pay cut.
Muller … Sorry autocorrect fail there.
100% incorrect
The shitty part to me is how the contest riders have the bigger contracts. I mean these are the guys taking in outside endorsements AND participating in a segment of snowboarding that pays them winnings on top of thier salary. I can’t really remember the last time someone was like “fucking sick part in VG here’s another 25k check”.
To top it off even if contest rider “a” is selling boards it is primarily to a demographic that isn’t buying a new board every year. I would guess that fans of Rav or whomever your vid part fave is are buying product on a regular basis. Both markets need to be facilitated but at the same time companies need to realize who is helping their bottom line more … Or at the least allowing them to show product movement on the books.
A final thing that is KILLING riders is the one year contract and every company is guilty of it … even my homies. A one year contract puts all the pressure on the rider to produce a banger each season without fail or possibly face being cut the next summer. I know riders last year literally riding with broken arms in order to continue filming. Let me be clear I’m not talking about in a cast I’m talking broken at the elbow “I’m just gonna try to not fall on it” style. Riders need to be able to dial it back when they are hurt. They need to rehab they need to get better. We’ve turned this into a fucking meat grinder and good riders are walking away because of it. Will this generation even have riders stick around long enough to become legends or will we just chew them up and spit them out for the next kid willing to ride for free. The Bode’s are few and far between and honestly his money is coming from drink sponsors and tourists buying billabong tee shirts at the mall.
The average salary from what I know is n the mid-high teens for well known vid part kids … I’m talking people with last parts in vids THIS season.
How is it fixed? Fuck if I know but awareness of how the system is really fucking over riders (and in the long term itself) is possibly the first step.
Companies are free to pay riders whatever they want. If they feel that contest riders give them a larger return on investment, then by all means they should invest their money with contest riders. I much prefer watching “video part” guys, but you can’t tell a corporation where to spend their money. You can speak with your own money by only buying products from companies who support who you want but the real money is made from parents buying boards for their kids who use it once and sometimes never again.
It is pretty simple economics. If the industry can get by without paying guys much than that is what they will do. It’s not nice to hear but that is how successful corporations are run.
Should not exist. The placement of value on services is mistake number one.
Halldor Helgason would be up there. He has social media, Nike sponsorship, his own company (kind of) and is obviously being paid a lot by gopro. Mainly he’s the kind of high exposure rider companies love.
And I think he lives in Monaco
Monaco is a tax haven
I think the Nike paycheck is gone dude – too busy payin Nyjah & now Guy & Koston!
Soo, what does the “average” pro make? 30K? 40K? I will tell you what the average pro skater makes……
I would bet on average less than 30K somewhere between 20-25K in actual cash… you can’t count travel budget and meal money as “salary”
I bet the average pro makes $2000 -$3000 a month plus contest winnings. The more recognized are probably around $4000 – $5000 which is pretty fucking solid for snowboarding every day.
Average? Try 1500 a month for your average guy.
Yeah but if your sponsors are putting you up in hotels and paying for all your meals for a good part of the year, it really helps a lot.
Like if you’re on trips for 2 months out of the year, thats 2 months worth of checks that you just don’t have to spend (or spend very little of)
I think readers would be more surprised by the “bigger name” pro guys who are literally barely getting paid… aka product, travel budget, and some meal money on the side.
Personally, I think the two biggest enemies in today’s snowboarding are the resorts and their $100+ lift tickets making it less than affordable for young kids to fall in love with snowboarding and the slower economy.
The magazines suck a lot of money out of the industry as well. Do we really need so many? Im sure that all companies would love to not have to deal with so many begging for dollars, especially when they can create their own shit now and dont need em like they used to.
Clearly you don’t understand the importance of printed journalism and what it has done for the Snowboard industry as a whole. Unfortunately the age of internet is killing print, but if you pulled your head out of your sphincter and actually sat down to read Snowboarder, Frequency, TWS, Snowboard mag, or one of the other publications you might actually learn something. And also, “do we really need so many?” lol. They’re arnt even enough to make that comment valid.
It’s a subjective statement so whether or not its “valid” or not is really just an opinion. And I certainly respect what print has done for snowboarding and everything else as well. But things change…
So true, a reg day ticket at Whistler now is CAD$125 plus tax, that is just ridiculous. And they wonder why the industry is dying. How about not spending $5 million on renovating lodge that didn’t need to be renovated, and stop paying magazines to rate your resort “#1 in the world”, we’re all just paying into their marketing budget.
DOWN WITH VAIL!
I got into snowboarding for two reasons. The chicks and the money.
The only way anybody is making 7 figures is if somebody sponsored by Monster or Red Bull.
The #’s are kept private because it’s generally depressing how little they get paid.
How much does a Team Manager make?
We are out here working harder than the “pros” all winter to film parts better than most “budgeted” movies and no one even knows our fucking names. It’s okay tho we will be taking your pay check soon enough 🙂
Don’t be such a jock, kook
Something tells me you are from Michigan
Boznuts was prob one the highest paid snowboarders after his neff settlement and he didnt even have to snowboard to get it
If only Shaun White would go the way of the Boznutz… I mean, they’re both coke heads.
Lucas magoon the richest man in rutland
LOUIE VITO.
This is the reason I went to college, stay in school kids…
Im just trying to find out how much Scott Stevens makes
not much…32 is good to him but a good chunk of companies he’s on don’t pay him. capita is paying him considerably less than they should be.
Come on, this is just internet. If you have the knowledge just drop the numbers, it’s not that hard.
Thirtytwo riders with signature outerwear get 75k a year. But the correct answer to your question is “not enough.”
75 large? I find that hard to believe
joe $exton
How much does Jeff Holce make? I mean he’s an athlete, he must be making 8 figures or so.
Take that 8 figures and add a couple zeros..
Mark makes 4.2 a year between contest winnings, sponsors, Tv shows, and incentives. But that’s just one rider. Most snowboarders break even if they are lucky
Stupid ass snowboard comments. Im a skier and i know 6 figures are paid to Podlatschnikov !
I am swiss and Podlatchikov sucks, dude is seldomly on the mountain and cant ride anything beside that icy stupid ass Laax pipe. Only swiss high school girls like him. I once had to turn a hottie down because I told her I snowboard and then she said she likes Podlatchikov
You can sign 95% of pro snowboarders to ride for your company for $10k.
Everyone working for chikenmeat unlimited LLC, makes 68k and has huge stock compensation
Where Can I Donate money to VIDEO GRASS
Wtf is a bro factor
Yobeat you suck.
anybody else notice that yobeat put this article out right after Jenkem put out their article on how much pro skaters make? hmmmmmmm…..
You’re right. By following trends in other hip skate/snowboard media you are now part of the snowluminati. And simultaneously posted your most discussed thread since you brought up the word “fag”
Shaun White – BURTON
Danny Kass – GNU
Travis Rice – LIBTECH
..and that’s it for who can live off their careers for the rest of their lives, so it don’t matter lol.
Next Two tho:
Danny Davis
Mark McMorris
(not anyone from outside the US or Canada)