Would a snowboard Olympic boycott be a good thing?

If you asked the average person, "is there a decent amount of money to be made in snowboarding?" they would most likely answer yes. Between the X games, Olympics, and countless other televised mega events that are immensely popular how couldn't it be profitable? Unfortunately, Almost none of that money actually goes to the riders or the companies that make them possible. Companies like ESPN, NBC, and the IOC entirely control the profits made from the competitions that the snowboarders compete in. In more traditional sports, athletes are paid for the games that they play and, generally pretty large wages. However, in snowboard contest such as the Olympics and the X games the riders aren't paid at all. The only money going into snowboarding from these competitions, is from riders advertising there sponsorship by riding their gear, wearing stickers etc. (The Olympics does not allow riders to wear any brand specific clothing or stickers). This all begs the question why hasn't anything been done about this? The answer is because of the IOC and FIS (International Olympic Committee, and the International ski federation) The problem is FIS controls most of competitive snowboarding and, has no representation from the snowboarding community. Due to the fact that FIS has complete control over many of snowboarding's most important contests it makes it very hard for snowboarders to take control over their own sport. FIS controls everything from the dates of the contest to the scoring systems, which is a problem because skiers no very little about how to judge snowboarding. Even when I was competing in snowboarding competitions, most of the higher level contests I did were run by FIS, poorly I might add.

Snowboarding makes up a very large amount of profits for the Olympics

This is where the call for a boycott comes in. Snowboarders for the most part have been pretty much powerless in what happens to their sport. For so long snowboarders were just glad to be allowed to compete in the Olympics and appear on TV at all. But as their influence grows stronger so does their ability to change the structure of their business. By boycotting the Olympics, the snowboarding community actually loses very little while IOC and FIS take a HUGE hit. The main problem is convincing the riders to give up there dreams of gaining an Olympic medal for the sake of the snowboarding community. But, as far as I can tell, this boycott could enact some real change.

http://www.snowboarder.com/featured/boycott-the-olympics-the-ioc-needs-snowboarding-more-than-we-need-them/