Snowboard Battles Rage Off the Slopes : Marketing: Two rival sportswear companies back separate professional tours to create an identity with the sport.

For sports fans who are not yet aware of snowboarding--a skiing hybrid fusing elements of surfing and skateboarding--it may come as a surprise to hear about the sudden emergence of not one but two new competing professional tours.

As far as sports wars go, this is not NFL vs. AFL, or NBA vs. ABA, or even NASL vs. MISL, but the rivalry between fledglings PSTA and NAPSA already has far-ranging ramifications, not really for most of the athletes, who might win $10,000 a year if they are fortunate but for the clothing and equipment manufacturers sponsoring the tours.

The Professional Snowboarding Tour of America is basically run by Body Glove, which is expecting to do $100 million in overall sales this year in the $2-billion-a-year action-sports industry. The North American Professional Snowboarders Assn. is backed by Ocean Pacific, the industry leader with annual domestic sales of $250-$300 million.

Industry manufacturers are slugging it out among themselves to create an identity with the sport. And while the National Football League may have been formed to provide entertainment, the two tours were created in part to help sell merchandise for the action-sports industry, which has been in the doldrums lately with flat sales.

“Snowboarding is probably the last serious action sport that will come along this century,” said Jeffrey Grell, technical and tour director of the PSTA.

Like alpine skiing and mountain and road biking in the early 1980s, snowboarding is virgin territory for manufacturers. In the past two years, participation has jumped about 33%, with 1.8 million Americans expected to snowboard this year.

The increase is due in part to the acceptance of snowboarders at ski areas. When snowboarders first appeared in large numbers in the mid-1980s, they clashed with tradition-minded skiers. Snowboarders identify more in spirit and attitude with surfers and skateboarders than skiers--Damian Sanders, the country’s most visible and well-paid snowboarder after doing a national McDonald’s commercial, wears spiked hair, black leather and skull-shaped earrings.

“I hear some snowboarders say they hate skiers,” said pro snowboarder Crystal Aldana, “but I tell them, ‘You can’t hate all skiers. They’re not all bad.’ ”

Today, the two groups have declared peace, grudgingly. And ski areas have realized the sport’s potential: Although snowboarders are one-tenth the number of skiers in this country, they account for almost half the first-time visitors to ski areas, according to a survey by Transworld/American Sports Data. Industry sources estimate that 90% of American ski areas are now actively promoting snowboarding.

“I’d been looking to get involved with snowboarding for about three years, but it wasn’t ready,” said Robbie Meistrell, president of Dive N’ Surf, parent company of Body Glove and Meistrell Sports Promotions, which runs the PSTA and also the Bud Pro Surfing Tour. Meistrell says he changed his mind when he began seeing snowboarding in TV commercials and magazines and when he noticed its acceptance at ski areas.

Ocean Pacific entered the field a few years before Body Glove, holding its first event in 1987. Since then, the Tustin-based company has staged about three events a year, all televised on ESPN. A year ago, Meistrell announced the formation of the PSTA, with its events televised regionally by Prime Ticket, and expected Ocean Pacific and other major players in the industry to get behind the tour.

“But nobody supported it,” said Meistrell.

Laguna Sportswear came aboard, but such heavy hitters as Gotcha, Quicksilver and O’Neill stayed on the sidelines, as did Ocean Pacific, which then formed its own tour. Major boardmakers also ignored the PSTA, prompting Meistrell to make plans for Body Glove to manufacture its own snowboard.

Ocean Pacific’s absence was the most disturbing to Meistrell. The two companies had cooperated in the past--Ocean Pacific has even sponsored events on the Bud surfing tour--and Meistrell says that he had a handshake deal with Ocean Pacific to come in with him on the PSTA. But Ocean Pacific vice president of marketing Jerry Crosby left the company and his replacement, Bonnie Crail decided Ocean Pacific had its own identity, Meistrell said.

Crail, however, says Crosby left no notes to substantiate the handshake deal, and getting involved with the PSTA would have been “a very impractical business decision,” she says, adding that Ocean Pacific is also dropping out of Meistrell’s surf tour.

While Meistrell says the PSTA will be back next year, Crail isn’t sure if Ocean Pacific will be affiliated with NAPSA or just sponsor its own events. Regardless, she hopes the competing factions will cooperate: This year, PSTA and NAPSA events often conflicted, forcing the top riders to make a choice. “I hope we can talk next year and avoid that kind of thing,” Crail said.