Sponsors Send Them Wheeling

The next time a skateboarder crosses your path, don’t automatically dismiss him as yet another example of misguided youth. He might be earning a comfortable living from shoe, clothing and skateboarding companies--ones most folks have never heard of.

Hardly known on a mainstream commercial level but worshiped by skateboard fans, companies such as World Industries (skateboards), Elwood (clothing) and Orion (trucks, the metal that holds the wheels to the board) are among those relying on top-tier skaters to generate business.

Star skaters can earn up to $200,000 from endorsements from such companies. Lesser-known and emerging skaters with more modest sponsorships tend to earn about $20,000 for their services, which range from wearing clothing to using the skating equipment and doing promotional appearances.

“The serious professional skateboarder doesn’t have a job,” says Rob Dyrdek, a professional skater with four substantial sponsorships. “They get paid enough not to.”

So how do skaters--professionals who don’t benefit from major TV coverage and corporate backing--get such lucrative deals? “It’s like any other sport--who you know,” says skater Clyde Singleton, who has four major endorsements. “You have to excel in your field also, but you have to be respected by your peers.”

Unlike, say, the National Basketball Assn., where a player may be signed without having any relationship with the other players on the team, skateboarders tend to align themselves--and their sponsorship deals--with friends.

Like the skateboarders, many of the companies producing skateboarding gear are young. Most of them are also owned and operated by skateboarders--former or current--who have strong ties to the best skaters. Dyrdek, for example, receives royalties for every pair of DC Shoe Co. shoes and every Alien Workshop skateboard sold that has his name on it.

Several years ago, companies like Vans and Airwalk cornered the market, sponsoring premier professional skaters. Nike has even dabbled with skating sponsorships. But many skaters say that large companies limit the push they put behind their stars and are too impersonal for the skaters’ tastes. Many of the smaller companies, skaters say, are willing to do things, such as produce a video showcasing their athletes, that better reach followers. It’s a grass-roots approach to popularize a sport widely ridiculed by society.

“We’re trying to do it our way,” Singleton says. “We want to be our own backers.”