This is a guest post from the folks at Shraplin Skating. There used to be a great skate park at the Seattle Center near my office in Seattle and one of my neighbors in Seattle is still a big builder of skateparks and advocate of skate culture.
Skateboarding was thought of as a fad for years before gaining acceptance into worldwide sports. However, it started getting its traction in the late 1970s. With the X Games and the Olympics, it’s not going anywhere any time soon. Here are some things about the future of skateboard competitions.
Humble Beginnings
What started as an underground sport filled with style and aggression turned into business competitions for huge sponsors. There are even coworking spaces where you have skateboarding ramps in the sports and e-sports realm. If you would’ve said skateboarding is a multi-billion dollar industry in the 1950s, people may have looked at you like you’re from another planet.
What you probably didn’t know is that skateboarding existed in the late 1800s. However, we didn’t see more of it until wooden pallets with clay wheels became popular in the 1950s in Southern California.
Originally, skateboarding was an alternative to surfing when the waves were flat. The 1960s made it more accessible and recognized.
Competitions Starting in the 1960s
Hobie and Makaha were at the forefront of commercializing skating by advertising it in the 1960s as “sidewalk surfing.” Makaha formed the first professional skateboarding team in 1963. It featured some competition formats and freestyle skating.
However, it began to die down in 1965. The media started saying that skateboarding was just a dangerous activity. The clay wheels and handstands began to play out.
Not to mention, the clay wheels were not the best to ride on because they wore down and didn’t have much traction. However, that all changed with the resurgence of skateboarding in the 1970s.
Evolution in the 1970s
You began to see the foundation of modern skateboarding, from the tricks to the skateboard shape. Once Frank Nasworthy introduced the urethane wheel to skateboarding in 1973, it flipped 180 degrees.
The new wheel helped grip asphalt and pool walls like cleats to a football field. Also, the back of the board had a kicktail, which Larry Stevens invented to make it easy to lift the skate deck. The byproduct led to more skateboard tricks.
Skateboard magazines started showing up at surf shops because skateboards began to dominate sales.
While the first skatepark came out in Florida, there’s nothing like what happened in Southern California. “Lords of Dogtown” is a movie based on the young skateboarders representing Zephyr Skateboarding Team in 1970s Santa Monica, California. It showed a pretty solid representation of how skateboarding began to get mainstream exposure.
The Z-Boys set a standard in skating. The breakouts were: Jay Adams taking tricks to another level, Tony Alva being that superstar in competitions, and Stacy Peralta having that marketable face to land on tv and commercials. Their showing at Ocean Festival in Del Mar, California, was the start. Even with all of the notoriety, tricks, and everything, people were still hesitant to accept skateboarding on the blue-collar level.
Skateboarding parks were expensive because of the high insurance owners would have to pay because of the risks. However, the 1980s showed that more and more people were into it.
Mainstream Appeal in the 1980s
Trasher Magazine remains a powerhouse in the skateboarding world. It started in 1981, and you can still read it both physically and digitally. The videos in the 1980s were like YouTube back then, and you got a chance to see tricks from people all over the states and eventually the globe.
Handrails and ramps started becoming more widely accepted. You saw more skateparks, which inspired young skaters all over the world.
Also, skateboarding competitions aired more frequently on tv. People like Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, and Lance Mountain were taking things to the next level in the late 80s. It led to the explosion in the 1990s.
The 1990s and Beyond
The X Games started to become the Superbowl of extreme sports. Tony Hawk was the big player. He landed the 900, which is a move where you do 2 1/2 rotations in the air. It was the talk of the town for a while. Big skating brands, such as Supreme, Palace, Santa Cruz, Etnies, DC Shoes, began creating apparel for skaters and skateboarders.
Also, Tony Hawk became a household name with his branding. Not to mention, Activision’s “Tony Hawk Pro Skater” video game set precedence for extreme sports gaming. The first one came out in 1999, and there are many sequels (even a remake of Pro Skater 1 and 2 in 2020). It showed you could monetize your brand beyond competitions, apparel, and sports drinks.
Tony Hawk is still involved in the sport by coaching and offering masterclasses. Additionally, he competed in the 2021 X Games. It was the first time since 2003 that he entered the Skateboard Vert Best Trick Contest.
2020 Tokyo Olympics
You saw more notoriety in the 2000s, and now we have skateboarding in the Olympics. 2021 is the first year of skateboarding in the Olympics, where we saw males and females getting medals in sports events.
Kokona Hiraki placed silver at the Tokyo Games for her performance at the women’s park event. She’s the youngest Japanese Olympic medalist when she got her placement at 12. The soon-to-be 13-year old has a big future ahead of her.
As you can see, the future is bright for new skaters and even more ladies getting involved in the sport at a high level. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.