A Skating Coup d’X? Action Sport Alliance & Their Impact on the X-games
Dec 04 2006 / Los Angeles, CA
Just three days before last year’s X-Games, a few of the nation’s top female skaters almost pulled the ramps out from underneath the event. When the women, including Mimi Knoop, Cara-Beth Burnside and Jen O’Brien, heard that they’d be facing another year with a paltry prize purse and poor coverage in comparison to their male colleagues, they got together and threatened to not skate the event. Their unwillingness to accept the terms of the event, and the subsequent, if not incremental, steps forward at this year’s X-Games, highlighted some realities for women in action sports, offered a template for the future, and led to the birth of a new organization dedicated to helping them get there.
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
It was out that initial unplanned, labor-union-style tactic that Knoop, Burnside and O’Brien formed The Action Sport Alliance, a non-profit association dedicated to increasing opportunities for women in skating, and to establishing a heavier female presence at the pro level. Under the guidance of athlete manager Drew Mearns, who used women’s tennis as a model, the skaters started the group to get some much-needed, consistent leverage, above and beyond their heated public show-down. “It [the X-Games face-off] wasn’t pre-meditated, it just happened,” Knoop said. “We got a little leverage from that, we got heard—and it turned into a mission to improve things…It’s not going to happen overnight,” she added. “But the ball’s rolling.”
For years, the women’s contest and expo circuit has been far thinner than that of their male colleagues, and their prize purses notoriously small. As recently as the 2005 Games, for example—even after the show-down--Burnside reportedly took home a first place cash prize of $2,000, while the male vert winner, Pierre Luc Gagnon, took home $50,000. That stunning gap in earnings is more than big enough to incite a mutiny, one which was a rare but significant example of the leverage athletes can get in tandem.
Given that skaters typically operate independently in an industry where athletes work with their individual, respective sponsors, creating a unified voice was a novel concept, but one that seems like a must if female athletes are going to close the gaps. Knoop said that it was Mearns who “planted the idea of organizing” in their minds. “[Mearns] based The Alliance’s concept on the women’s tennis model of the 1980s. We had no idea—we’re just skaters.” Although last year’s prize money didn’t budge, ultimately, the women did skate the X-Games in ‘05, thanks to a last-minute conference call with one of the event chiefs. Knoop said he assured them that if they skated in the 2005 Games, they could sit down with him the next year and try to improve things.
A year later, on the cusp of the 2006 Games, Knoop said that “[t]hat hasn’t happened 100 percent.” But there are some notable successes in the wake of Alliance efforts. This year, Burns, O’Brien and skater/filmmaker Lisa Whitaker, are on the X-Games women’s skate athlete selection committees. Not only are they are the first women on any selection committee at the Games, ever, their presence on the inside of the Games is already having visible impact on the women’s skating events. The input of the top-tier female pros led to the inclusion of new female skaters this year—including three from Europe.
-Anna Dimond
