Has snowboarding lost his edge?

A while ago an article was posted by the New York Times called Has snowboarding lost its edge? The main point of the article was the author looking into why the number of snowboards at resorts has been dropping since the mid 2000’s. It sparked a lot of controversy in the snowboarding industry many looking at it as a sign that something needs to be changed while the majority, said the article was wrong and that everything is just fine. Although I don’t agree with the article entirely, there is no doubt that the amount of snowboarders is going down and the whole industry is hurting as a result. Although there is clearly a decline in the industry not much has been done by the companies to try and help. The real question becomes, what is hurting the snowboard industry so badly?

The Problems

1) Increase in the price of lift tickets and price of resort vacations. In recent years the price of going to resorts such as Vail, Breckenridge, Park city etc, has gone up a very large amount. In 2002 the price of a lift ticket at Vail around Christmas was about 98$ per day. In 2014 a lift ticket cost 140$ per day. Not only this but the price of hotels, food, and transportation have risen as well. The price to take your family of 5 to Vail, rent snowboards for all of them, buy lift tickets, and park is about 1,165 dollars for a day. The prices are rising every year and it becomes harder and harder for people to afford to go to these resorts. Snowboarders are generally less wealthy than skiers. People who snowboard are generally in there teens or early 20's while those who ski are usually older and have more money to spend. Because of this resorts are attracting more skiers than snowboarders. I know many of my friends who live near these resorts had to quit snowboarding because they couldn't afford lift tickets for the season.

2) Too many companies have entered the market. The barrier for entering the snowboarding industry may be somewhat high but that hasn't stopped people from trying. But at the end of the day snowboards very expensive to buy and most people are unwilling to try new brands. The average snowboard is around 300-400 dollars and very few snowboarders are willing to venture away from there trusted brands such as Burton, Rome, Capita, etc. This unfortunately causes an extreme lack of innovation and new technology to help new companies push the industry forward.

3) The snowboard industry is naturally leveling off from large growth in the early 2000s. In the early 2000s snowboarding hit the mainstream in a huge way. What was before a small industry of only a few companies quickly boomed into the mainstream of our culture. Snowboarding quickly became the cool thing for every child, teenager, and young adult to do when they went to the mountains. Snowboarding was viewed as the hip and cool alternative to skiing and became very wildly accepted. As great as all this growth was it could only last for so long before it leveled off. As snowboarding became more mainstream the same people who wanted to snowboard because it was cool, made it uncool. The amount of children and teenagers skiing is rising while the number starting snowboarding is decreasing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/20/travel/has-snowboarding-lost-its-edge.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0