December 12, 2012 at 10:42 am
| Spongercity General, International
News
What the fuck is wrong with bodyboarding!? Read this and share it. Like this on FB if you wish.
What the fuck is wrong with bodyboarding!? How comes Movement Mag is releasing their LAST issue? Why? Because no one invests in the sport, including brands and distributors within the sport. Yes, you read it well. How come a magazine like Movement Mag which is the BEST mag ever seen in the bbing industry, made by professionals, goes down?! How come? Because even the brands inside the industry don’t invest, because most brands are managed by amateurs who know nothing about running a business and doing proper marketing. Don’t mis-understand what we’re saying, not all brands are unprofessional like this, some are, but very few. Most brands are just distributors’ brands, not driven by individuals or athletes but just driven by people taking care of multiple brands and specially their own brand coz the margins are 3 times larger this way. Greed. Money. Cheap goods sold at high prices. No support to the media (mags & websites). No wonder why the industry is down again. Economy crisis, yep probly’ but not just that… maybe just a 1/3 of the fiasco could be explained by the actual economy issues.
If you’re a brand and treat media within the bodyboarding industry like shit, how do you expect the same media are gonna advertise or talk about your products? They won’t. Easy. How come we’ve seen brands and distributors within the industry advertise in surfing magazines and surfing websites whereas they could have advertised on bbing media instead? Bad choice. When you dont support the industry, don’t expect the industry to support you. Brands will pay the price for these bad choices, no coverage in mags and no coverage or press releases on websites means you’re dead. This is how it works. Call it karma or bad marketing choices or greed or whatever.
We’re very sad and very sorry for Movement Mag and other mags in general around the planet, kinda disgusted at what the industry has turned into. Do you remember OPTION Mag in the USA? It was the same, a great magazine but probly’ not enough support from a weak industry too busy to count dollars and save money instead of spending a small percentage of their turnover in marketing and ads to keep the ball rolling. It’s a circle, a fragile circle. Ever since we’ve started writing and blogging and doing interviews on this website years ago we’ve kept our hope(s) high and our motivation(s) high just because we love bodyboarding and had faith in some of the people running it and running brands, shops and stuff. We love going to the beach and sharing that stoke. We didn’t care about the money or anything and still don’t care (we’re loosing money right here with this site, spending time to update it and not making any coins with advertisers because they are no advertisers almost) but now we’re even loosing our hope that one day the sport will grow and be more “pro” than it is. It’s amateur league all the way now, even more than before. Cheap competion between brands and distributors, panic, and then fail and extinction. It’s coming. It’s soooo fuct up right now.
The IBA is obvisouly struggling to find sponsors, the pro riders are struggling to find money and sponsors. Where has the money gone? Attracting sponsors from outside the industry doesn’t seem to work too well because when you’re not really passionate about bbing, the sport sucks, no style or attractiveness compared to stand up surfing, let’s be honest. We love bbing but it’s not bankable compared to skating or surfing or snowboarding. Doesn’t matter, we could have coped with this issue IF everyone inside our industry was supporting the sport. Buy bodyboarding brands, buy bodyboarding suits and clothes, follow the tour, watch events, support pros and magazines and websites, buy all mags you can and know your sport and your history of the sport. Know the brands, see who’s for real and who’s here for the money, who’s supporting riders & events for real, who’s runned by athletes and shapers, who’s been here for a while and has done their part to support and push the sport in the right direction. A lot of brands have been pushing the sport and supporting it for years, others have not. Maybe the cake is also too small for so many brands to share it? Hard to say. It’s a small industry but hundred thousands of boards are sold every year so there must be some coins and market out there.
We’re not here to tell you what to do and who to buy from. Just support the sport you love and buy from brands who support bbing. Do the extra effort to buy from these people, be selective, think, get more knowledge, read mags, share the stoke, be smart, stay core, support the core, question everything you do or buy.
Permalink
The two largest bodyboard brands in the US are owned by a toy company called Wham-o. They make Morey and BZ bodyboards(#1 and #2 in the US). I haven’t seen any contribution from then in contests in awhile. They do sponsor Hubb and Dubb. But even for Hubb, I haven’t seen his churchill hubb fins on the shelves in a long time. I don’t think they are in production since moving the molding to indo, so he can’t collect royalties on fin sales.
The Morey and BZ boards aren’t made locally in Oceanside, Ca anymore. Yamo, the hubb board shaper for BZ, was laid-off a year after they moved to indo(mez) a year before. Customx, also in Oceanside, is the largest independent board maker in the US. I don’t know if they are sponsoring contests. They do sponsor more riders than BZ and Morey.
One issue is low turnover of boards. I see guys in the lineup rocking boards made over 10 years ago. Surfers can break a board on the first time paddling out and lose there $500 investment. A bodyboard costs half that and lasts forever.
I think the industry needs to make a thinner board that is what the pros like because of the snap to the board. Wouldn’t last as long but would offer more performance, increase board turnover, and increase revenues. I don’t any surfer than has a board from 3 seasons ago here on the North Shore,Oahu. They just don’t last that long. But I have 3 bodyboards made from extruded polypro that haven’t even been ridden yet because the boards they are supposed to replace are still in great shape.
The only company that can afford R and D at this point in MEZ. I haven’t heard anything about a carbon fiber board. I’d drop $1500 for a flexing carbon cored board if the performance was justified(fast, responsible, flexible, super light). Sounds like Science boards are test riding some new flexy cores on the North Shore right now. So any new innovation will come from MEz at this point. Keep them coming Nick!
I personally don’t expect Wham-o to change their game plan. It was sold to a chinese company and they don’t realize that it is a flagship company that held up the US community of bodyboarding. Right now Wham-o receives name brand recognition without infusing within the industry some much needed marketing funds and lucrative sponsorships.
I understand the “buy the labels that support bbing” anthem. But the industry needs to change as well. Thinner, higher performing boards would go a long way to improving the dynamic. Buying 2 boards a year at $500 each vs. One $250 board every 3 years… Weak sales. The industry wants growth. But I don’t think that needs to translate into more heads in the water vs just having the existing riders pay twice as much for a higher performing board.
There are many thing wrong. The coverage, the costs of bboard gear and more.
First, the coverage of the contests is still bad. Many of the contests are during my working hours, but I would like to see results. But I cannot see live feed or facebook at work, so there is no way of keeping track of scores. it is very irritating. Then the updating of the IBA website, it lags behind, very behind. When I go on facebook, many bodyboarding related sites will post IBA info before it is on their site, or on their facebook. That is not professional at all.
The same goes to many bodyboard companies. You buy a board, on the wrapping is their webpage, but if you go their, it litterly hasn’t been updated for YEARS (or it will say for months or more than a year that a new site is coming soon.)
How can anybody new to the sport think that the companies are serious with their buisness.
Then there is ofcourse also the money question. Yes I would like to buy a bodyboard branded wetsuit. But well, where I am, most of the time you will be wearing atleast a 5/3 (rather 5/4) suit. And I do not know any of the bodyboard brand that have a suit that thick. And then in the summer, I use a 3/2 suit. And well, for the money of one bboard brand suit, I can get a surfbrand suit and a new board. Guess what I will choose.
Also it should be more available. People do not want to hear this, but to generate more money, it has to go more mainstream. Bodyboarding brands should be available in normal sportstores, not just bodyboarding stores or online.
Then there are the comps, well the complaining and moaning about them (the Sintra one in particular). just complaining at it on FB does not do any good. Yes the waves there can suck (but then again they can be excelent, I know I have had them). But there is alot of money brought into the sport through NON bodyboarding companies there. And they have many years. What if there are more brands interested in bringing money into bboarding. But all they aks is to have a comp closer to where there HQ or something is. Well if I was one of them, and did some research and saw all the whining, I would think I’d better invest my money somewhere else.
Worst evaluation of our industry I’ve ever seen.
@ Grand Flavour: Why? It’s quite accurate actually.
Pretty disappointing bitter read. ‘the sport sucks, no style or attractiveness compared to stand up surfing, let’s be honest’
You dont know all the details regarding why certain magazines closed. Yes they know how to make an amazing magazine, that doesn’t mean they are any good at the business side of things and haven’t burnt almost every advertising relationship they ever had. Missed that part out I guess…
Magazines close. Not bodyboarding magazines, but all magazines.Do you know what happened to Newsweek? Do you know what it takes to make a magazine these days? About all the rest…bodyboarding is a tiny industry, and the global recession is forcing every brand to clam up and try to survive. You guys fire a lot of shots, but very few on target, really.
Keep up the good work, though. Cheers.
We just wrote this the way we see it, to each of us his opinion. Mags close for sure but usually not in niche sports / hobbies that are doing well, specially when the rates for ads are not very high and there’s not even a need for more than 15 advertisers to make usre the mag can survive. As we said earlier this bitter piece of an article is definitely not targeting core independent brands which we know have truely been supporting bbing and will continue to do so. No need to write a list of these people and brands, they know who they are and they have all our love and respect.
If you’re all happy with the way the sport is and the way it’s going that’s awesome. We’re not stoked and felt we had the right to express ourselves. Having worked in the surfing & bbing industry for the last 10 years at least, we’re definitely not making up things.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
