📝 Intro by Mike Munzenrider
🎨 Art by Francesco Pini
For its first 40 years of existence, skateboarding’s popularity would rise and fall in regular cycles. But then, right around 1999, skating enjoyed two decades of enduring prosperity.
Come 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, skateboarding went nova – with pockets full of stimulus cash, folks sought activities to do outdoors, and skate sales exploded, albeit unsustainably.
And now, the cycle returned, so much that people point to an alleged crash in popularity. This past spring, we surveyed skateshop owners and managers to ask, “What’s the ‘Matter’ With Skateboarding?” The shops pointed to a number of factors, including higher prices for products, a lack of demos and in-person events, and changes in the way younger people interact with skating.
Some of the shops we spoke to also wondered: “Why are you only asking us? Ask the brands.” So we’re back, this time with the QS Anonymous Brand Survey.
“With the industry being a little slower, you don’t know what’s coming next month as far as sales. You don’t want to pretend you’re in the COVID times [when sales were higher],” says Tim Fulton, brand and team manager for Real Skateboards.
With travel budgets constrained – Fulton says he used to count on monthly trips, now there are a couple per year – brands have also shifted some off their marketing focus.
“I do feel like since there are so many older skaters right now, we’re really holding onto our vets in the industry,” he says. “It’s important to have a super long productive skate career. But we also have to keep investing in these young, talented kids.”
We reached out via email to dozens of skateboard industry types, including company owners, team managers, brand managers and sales people, whose brands have large footprints in the U.S. Many responded, answering essentially the same questions as the previous survey. We offered anonymity so respondents could answer freely. Below is a selection of their responses.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer our questions.
What brands, excluding the one you are affiliated with, would you say are doing the best job in skateboarding right now?
[Ed. note: Unlike the shop survey, which comes from a top-to-bottom retail landscape that sells all products, our sources are from different product types. Therefore, we did not think it was appropriate to list # of mentions for each brand, e.g. people who work in footwear probably clock what happens across footwear more than hard goods. However, the quotes below are reflective of brands that were mentioned multiple times, and were not cherry-picked at random.]
“Hockey really made their video feel like a big deal: like an event, the way videos used to be. I was sitting next to someone in the theater who works in the industry, and after the video he said to me, ‘If I didn’t work for a brand, I’d buy Hockey boards,’ which I thought said a lot.”
“I really appreciate all the media companies that continue to try to educate the masses on where skating has come from, where it is going, and how we can continue to maintain what is important to the culture. Village Psychic, Jenkem, Free, Skate Jawn, Thrasher, Closer. It’s important to keep educating and providing tasteful insights on what’s happening out there. Social media can distort it.”
“Adidas. You see Tyshawn [Jones] at Paris fashion week then you see the team out in the Midwest doing skate demos at community D.I.Y. parks and it all makes sense. That kind of branding could seem disjointed, but Adidas pulls it off. Footwear brands in 2025 need to hit all the points: support the core, influence fashion and create compelling media. I think they do this well because their team really knows their shit and they have a game plan that they stick to.”
“Deluxe has consistently done a good job supporting shops, riders and producing content. I also like what Ace is doing.”
“Baker Boys have done a great job. They have a sick team, do videos often and have a real defined look and brand presence. No frills or bullshit, they just make cool shit and support good skaters. And from a product perspective, Bones Bearings has always made the best bearings and have let their product do the talking for them.”
“I like how Limosine drops an edit every time they drop product. It just makes sense.”
“I feel like there are only a few brands that can really sell a t-shirt today and Sci-Fi is one of them. They are doing a good job at staying relevant while also keeping it cool. I love watching and seeing what brands do and it’s not often that I get excited. I think Sci-Fi gets me excited when it comes to soft goods and hard goods.”
What isn’t “working” in skateboarding right now, that may have worked in the recent past?
“Skate events for industry people in major hubs. A brand party or video premiere that doesn’t include the community doesn’t do much for the state of skating. It starts to feel really circle jerky after a while. The industry can’t cool-guy itself into oblivion by letting no one in. Million-dollar shoe parties aren’t going to bring a kid into this thing.”
“Professional skateboarders who don’t act professional. It’s wild seeing people who make six figures a year who don’t put in a higher level of effort to validate their positions. If you’re getting paid well there should be some sort of requirements beyond just posting a clip on social and tagging the brand.”
“Local filmers and brands making money off of skate videos directly. The death of DVD sales isn’t talked about much. Sure a skate video is marketing, but that’s a hell of a lot of time to put into something without any direct sales from the purchase of the video.”
“The lack of diversity in key positions at brands, media and product development. Back in 2016 when skateboarding was announced as an Olympic sport and Nora [Vasconcellos] had the best-selling board, there was a lot of scramble to hire women into key roles. At one point in 2022, women made up nearly 40% of hard goods purchases in the U.S. and were the fastest growing demographic in skateboarding. Now, in 2025, the higher-ups at brands have moved into a scarcity mindset and laid off most of the women who helped usher in that boom. Women in skateboarding are the last ones in the door and the first ones kicked to the curb when times get tough.”
“Three-minute formulaic video parts are done – YouTube views don’t lie. Strictly relying upon social media to speak to your audience isn’t cutting it anymore either. It’s probably time to go back outside and talk to people in real life again.”
“I wrote down about 12 brands that you could ride for that are ‘in the industry,’ where if you’re lucky, you can actually make a decent career. The sad thing is none of them are actually core skate brands.”
“The one thing I think that isn’t working in skateboarding right now is …skateboarding. People only pay attention these days to things that are unordinary, and I’m sorry, but an Independent x Creature collab isn’t that.”
What is “working” in skateboarding right now?
“Shaking hands and demos. Connecting with people who aren’t already jaded – showing them the best skating in the world and getting them genuinely excited about it. Coming from a small city in the Midwest, I can literally remember every pro skater I saw growing up. Every single one of those experiences meant so much to me and stuck with me.”
“Discounted products.”
“Pants and soft goods”
“We’re selling to an older and older audience these days. The last few years have seen a much smaller amount of kids skating, but a lot of people who are 25-40 who are still 100% skateboarders and down. They’re the ones consuming and buying the most products right now from what I see. They have jobs, they’re super down for skating and without them buying stuff, things would be way worse in our industry. That block of skaters does really know their shit, too, and when you put out solid products, they pay attention and appreciate it. There’s always an ebb and flow to demographics and for sure the pendulum will swing back and we’ll have a ton of kids skating soon, but right now they’re not.”
“D.I.Ys and skate urbanism are really catching their stride. ‘This Old Ledge‘ with Ted Barrow, the Dern brothers and all the content around historic storytelling is helping us understand who we are and where we came from.”
“Going skateboarding with your friends still totally works.”
“People still view street skating as irritating and bothersome activity in the public sphere – thank god!”
“Diverse communities coming together and creating their own scenes, making a welcoming space for people of all skill levels. Skateboarding is more inclusive than it ever has been.”
“To be honest, nothing. Every brand has a win here or there and some wins pay the rent for a shop for a couple months. We don’t have heroes any more like [Chad] Muska, [Eric] Koston, Jamie Thomas. These pros were built up to be larger than life and every shop had to carry their stuff. No more, we turn out too many pros without checks and balances. Some are deserving and some are not.”
“The skateboards. Still seven plys, trucks still turn.”
“I think mixing skateboarding alongside things that aren’t directly skateboarding-related is how to keep things fresh. Take the Baxer x Tim Robinson guest pro board, for example. Robinson is also a skateboarder, but has a whole world outside of skateboarding that he can then bring to Baker. I think that is the goal right there and they did it perfectly.”
What would you say are the biggest differences between the newest/current generation of skaters you see getting into skateboarding now versus. ones in times past?
“I have a lot of conversations about how there are more skaters than ever, but the difference between now and then is that tons of kids skate, but they’re not skaters. It doesn’t consume their lives or become their identity in the same way it used to.”
“The existence of YouTube skaters, contest skaters, social influencers, TikTokers – the paths kids can go these days to try to make it are a lot different.”
“There’s a lot less brand loyalty these days. It used to be that skaters would identify with a brand or two and stay pretty loyal to mostly skating only those boards. But now skaters seem to brand hop regularly with little dedication.”
“I think once you latch on to skating and are 100% hooked, there aren’t a ton of differences. Most of the younger people I see these days at contests and events are bullshitting about the same stuff I did when I was their age. I think the difference in the younger generation, who may just kind of skate, is that there’s so much opportunity to not skate. E-bikes and things like that make it so you don’t have to skate to all your spots before you [can] drive. You had to use your board for transportation so you had no choice but to be on the board at all times of the day. You can also communicate with your homies without being in person with them. As much as skating is a great thing to do solo, your crew is an integral part of it and if you can just be on the phone or playing video games without actually kicking it with them, then that’s another touch point that takes you out of the streets.”
“The new generation is obsessed with the word ‘contract.’ ‘Who has a contract and who doesn’t?’ ‘Who makes what from who and who isn’t?’ I don’t ever remember my crew growing up talking about contracts. We all just prayed one of our homies could get free boards from someone so we could get the leftovers. Maybe it’s a big city thing, but you can’t go on a car ride without the new gen talking contract gossip.”
“Kids seem to have a wider variety of interests currently, which is for sure not a bad thing, but it might make for a less passionate or voracious audience for content and products.”
“Where I live, kids can’t just play outside by themselves like past generations. It is now parents driving kids to practice or lessons. Many younger skaters are being introduced to skateboarding through lessons or with the help of coaches.”
“You know, they’re multitasking: skateboarding is just one of the things that they do. It’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m a skater, but I’m also a rapper. I’m an influencer. I’m a model and I’m a Bitcoiner or a crypto-miner. I’m also a gamer. Then I’m also sidehustling.'”
What conditions would you like to see going forward so that skateboarding can thrive?
“Other sports bring in tons of fans who aren’t necessarily participants, and I wonder if that’s what needs to happen with skating. For as long as I’ve skated, I’ve thought of skateboarders as the ones who keep the industry alive, but maybe that’s the part that needs to shift.”
“More community-building, in-person events.”
“I really think pricing needs to come down. I want to see more quality shoes available at the $60-80 range than $80-$100. Skate shoes over $100 are just not realistic for the bulk of younger skaters. I want to see boards down closer to what they used to be, which I know is a lot less realistic.”
“Being ok with retiring pros.”
“The only way I see skateboarding thriving and growing is if we push into after school programs and leagues and community groups. Soccer was a niché sport in North America until American Youth Soccer Organization came along and worked with every park and recreation program in the country. Now we have a thriving soccer culture here in the U.S. I see no reason why skateboarding can’t be a mainstream success like soccer, other than the fact we don’t yet have a strong group to unify us.”
“Honestly, as long as there’s enough interest to keep some brands alive to manufacture products, I’m all for skateboarding shrinking. It’s time to tend to the garden. Let’s weed out the people who are only showing up for a check.”
Previously: The Anonymous Skateshop Survey
There’s nothing wrong with skateboarding. Well actually no, there’s a lot wrong with skateboarding. But to be honest that’s not exactly why the industry is faltering. It’s because America’s economy is fucked and will continue to be fucked for wellll… For ever pretty much. We will never be back to where we were in the 90s with complete hegemonic control over the world’s markets (and that’s a good thing for the rest of the world at least). Everyone is broke and so nobody wants to buy things. It’s really that simple.
The “super star” comments that are so prevalent kinda irk me at least when talking about JT, Muska or Koston because they are skate super stars
On what planet are Tyshawn, Foy or Nyjah not super stars of the same reach as those
If you want to say Bam, Tony Hawk or Sheckler types that transcend skating and reach outside audiences I get it but skateboarding has super stars
it’s a bummer to see skate companies have to/choose to rely on third-party outlets like IG, YouTube, TikTok to dictate how their pics, videos, products are viewed. constantly tailoring output to fit the algorithm continues to homogenize everything.
“why aren’t you asking the brands”
prob because y’all knew you’d get way better and realer answers from the shops lmao
Is any industry-centered brand truly doing something in skating that’s never been done before? All I’m reading here is a repeat of what has already been done in the past.
Where is the innovation in skateboarding now? It’s no wonder that the majority of people buying product are 25-45 because the industry is still presenting itself using virtually the same methods it did when those people were kids.
“There’s a lot less brand loyalty these days. It used to be that skaters would identify with a brand or two and stay pretty loyal to mostly skating only those boards. But now skaters seem to brand hop regularly with little dedication.”
Yeah I get why a BRAND would say this, but why the hell would skaters stay loyal to brands when vanishingly few people can make real careers out of this? You gotta do what you gotta do
The most telling new things people are doing is in the comment about women and inclusivity. Brands are doing new things, namely catering to women who make up 40% of new sales. Heck, I did not know Nora had a bestselling board. That’s your Muska right there. But someone is always going to hate on it saying its woke or the girl’s are not good enough. There job is to sell product and the new thing they did was cater to an uncatered to 50% of the market.
I like the Bobby De Keyzer 25 minute raw reel “part” as much as the new 30yo white guy and sure that might register as “new” but I doubt that had a sizable dent in the demand for Quasi products.
Wait nevermind they put it out on blu ray I’m sure they were raking in the billions on that.
When I go to the shop they are peddling 100 dollar pink shorts, t-shirts for 50, and the boards are now at 85 plus 10 for grip. I have rent to pay bro I can’t go dropping hundreds when I want to play around.
I wonder how much the general skate public knows about skate manufacturing now contributes to the lack of brand loyalty. We know that 75% are made by BBS or PS so we know that board shapes looking similar isnt just in our heads. Growing up, you couldnt tell me Xbrand had the same board as Alien, now we know better and it opens up our willingness to support multiple deck companies.
That said, brands like Heroin found a super commited base bc they offer unique shapes. It’s weird to me that other brands made by BBS don’t make similar boards. I guess most people just want that 8.5 pop.
i am approaching 40 years old soon, and am a product of the thps 1 boom. i’ve been skating and fully obsessed with everything to do with it for 25 years now.
if companies i like put out a dvd, i buy it. i think the last one was hockey x and i was thrilled to buy it. i’m no insider, but i know that there are a lot of people like myself who still love collecting physical media. i would be thrilled to see more companies put out dvd’s or hell, even a vhs, i would have bought the quasi bobcbc one but they sold out instantly.
in that early 00 era i feel like videos or physical media in general really sold me on products, but the market was also so much smaller with there not being nearly as many brands as there are today. i rotated through baker, toy, alien and zero for the most part.
to touch on brand loyalty as well, in my younger days i used to strictly skate whatever my favourite pros skated or had skated at some point. example, i loved toy machine because welcome to hell and jump off a building were some of the first few videos i watched, but by the time i got into skating the team had sorta disbanded. i loved ed templeton, but i definitely bought the boards because i was a huge fan of the earlier riders (ba, elissa, bam, satva, donny barley, maldanado).
i still mostly buy product from companies that really influenced me in my early years, i’m a sucker for a classic logo board or a re-issue from my introductory era (baker being my go to classic), but i also love supporting somewhat newer brands like frog, polar or limosine out of respect for their sort of unconventional approach and presence which gets me just as fired up as my bootlegged copy of baker 2g off of limewire did in middle school.
for whatever reason, i have no loyalty to footwear brands though. i’ll try whatever shoe as long as it’s white suede and has decent board feel.
my last thought is an answer to this question:
“What conditions would you like to see going forward so that skateboarding can thrive?”
adults need to stop asking for discounts at their locals. pay full price and help them out.
I don’t even care.. This shit is complete facts. Not a single thing said was untrue.. It’s time for new growth.
you can water a dying plant forever
and think about the beauty of its lively past, but thats not gonna make it come back to life again?
seeds got planted long ago
but were never watered or tended too.
i myself watched and entire possible generation of skaters fade out cause they were neglected. they said
“it’s not fun anymore”
but really these industry heads killed the dream with their recycled pros and i’m to cool to even have a human interaction with you attitude. and aint no one wanna talk about those exact people are influencing the existing skaters coming up at the moment to uphold that some bs? tell me why a clique timing exists in a space shared by people who all love the same thing?
Probably the selling out of the image vs the selling out of the possibility that was happening in the past years.
The industry has rode this new wave of selling the image of the skater opposite to actually making it interesting to watch the act and have the public be invested in the skaters themselves.
Take the NBA, where not only there’s a fan base for the single top player but also a general audience for teams and the sport in general. That was created in order to get the people to pay attention and be spending money on as many aspect of the game as possible.
With skateboarding being portrayed by mainly this mainstream/fashion world is very easy to make it unattractive to alternative kids like it used to be before, and has also removed the aspect of having to be able to skate and actually get to the level of Jamie Foy, Tyshawn etc, because you can already look like them by dressing like them and be able to just ride.
I’m not sure if the league/associative approach would work in skateboarding but surely whatever is being done now is not helping the general state, from money being chased away to players that don’t fully support the core industry and that the main content is produced and distributed via external platforms to the dilution of people’s interests (rapping, influencing, having a real job etc.)
For all the “insiders” being interviewed, we still haven’t gotten any real answers about what’s going on in skateboarding. This all reads like another “anonymous shop owner” piece—lots of excuses, zero real investigation. Nobody’s actually looking at these companies and asking the hard question: where is the money going?
CEOs, CFOs, pros, AMs—who’s getting paid, and how much? Why are boards really $78? Why are wheels really $50? Until we see the breakdown, all we’ve got is speculation and PR spin.
From where I’m standing, a lot of brands need to seriously reevaluate who they’re paying and why. I see my local shop grind every day—throwing events, running sales, creating content for their riders—and they’re doing more for skateboarding than most of the industry. I’m not on their payroll, but I skate with them sometimes, and they are 110% skateboarding.
Meanwhile, some of these companies are cutting big checks to people who don’t even skate. Maybe it’s time to let real skateboarders have those jobs
Re: “are boards really $78?”
CCS catalog from 2003: https://archive.org/details/ccs-2003-fall/page/n25/mode/2up
A board is $54.99 (some $59.99), a set of wheels is $23.96.
Adjusted for inflation in 2025, a $54.99 board should cost $96.55. A set of wheels, $42.07 — both according to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
(Wheels from, say, Labor or Orchard are $44-48 rn.)
So, $78 is technically a discount.
And I feel you, but asking a private company to open up their books to a skate blog is prob a bold ask, so we did the best we could! ;)
yall really think companies are paying riders like that? everyone is barely getting by. company and skater. the majority of pros make less than 1k monthly from their board sponsors. yes even the big name ones. theres maybe a dozen jamie foys. maybe a few lucky ones supplement that with a check from a sportswear brand for shoes. that means they can live in north brooklyn with a roomate or 2 while flipping the occasional hype shoe for resale to cover their cell phone bill. this is why skaters take energy drink sponsors. then yall hate on that. being a contest skater is a better “career” than being a “core” skater.
which contest skater wrote this ^
People talking about the crazy price of hardware and asking where the money’s going lol.
That’s just called inflation.
If wheels were $35-40 in 2000, that’s $70-80 dollars in today’s money.
It’s not some secret industry scam, your money is just worth about 2.5% less every year.
Nobody in the above is talking about the fact that so many core brands sold out to venture capital. Nidecker buying Soletech, VF Corp buying Vans. Skate company owners made themselves a chunk of cash by selling to these groups, and in the process lost all control of their businesses. Wanna know why there are less demos, less tours and skaters getting paid badly? In this instance it’s because a CFO and a finance team are calling the shots and not a skater who started the company.
Skating has let in the Nikes, NBs and Adidas, it’s sold it’s core brands to venture capital. It’s jumped on the same finance gravy train as many other industries, and that means that it’s no longer operated in the interests of the skaters, it’s operated in the interests of the shareholders.
To get deep for a sec: The session is integral to skateboarding as a whole. The session isn’t a thing that just is, it has to be built. In skating you have to be seen and you ALSO have to _see others_. And people are just distracted: in conversations, at work, and in skating. They are consistently somewhere else. The lowkey formula used to be “My skating is dope so therefore I’m dope, and by virtue of you seeing me do dope shit, you’ll get stoked and want to do dope things too.” Now no one is even watching. If no one watches each other, the session doesn’t get built, and newcomers could then easily relegate skateboarding to any other activity. The good news is that from a local perspective (your homies, your crew, your TF) this can get mitigated over enough time with the same people…eventually, you HAVE to see them, their tricks, their bails/struggles, makes, redos, etc. And you can join in on that w them and the sesh can begin.