Skyler Bennett
Staff Reporter
Skateboarding is an international sport, recently being recognized in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. The United States and the UK are seeing massive increases in street skating with new and re-engaged skaters. The recent growth in skateboarding is likely caused by the pandemic lockdown and strict quarantine restrictions; all you need to skate is flat ground anywhere you can find. Typically, men have the stereotypical lead in the skating industry. However, recently the largest spike in skaters has come from women, couples using skating as an activity, and older generations using skateboarding as an activity to reconnect with their youth and younger grandchildren.
Within the last six months, the skateboarding industry has seen a boom in equipment sales, selling out across the country with complete skateboards being the most popular. According to Tom Brown from Leeds’ Welcome Skateshop says, “Skateboarding is booming at the moment. We’re seeing it on the streets and in the parks; we’ve hit a tipping point where participation isn’t limited by age or gender”. MySkateApp is a recently developed first-of-its-kind app designed in the UK to provide skateboarders with locations of all the skateparks in their area. App developers have seen an increase of 180,000 uses each month.
On the flip side, Skate One’s factory in Santa Barbara, California had 40 to 60 employees pre-pandemic working day and night making most of the company’s decks and wheels. Their warehouse is one of the largest production and distribution sites in the world. However, in recent years they have seen a significant decrease in production rate since the pandemic. Companies have skeleton crews constantly working around the clock in their warehouse to produce and ship products. Skateboarding has fallen in and out of popular mainstream media since its take-off in the 1960s. Today, the skateboarding industry generates over $2 billion in revenue yearly and is predicted to generate $2.38 billion dollars by 2025. Additionally, according to Transworld SKATEboarding, there are an estimated 16 million skaters, with nearly a third of them living in California.
Image Credits: News Channel 8
Kommentare