Shaun White has announced the launch of Australia’s first professional winter sports league, SnowLeague. … [+]
By any standards, Shaun White has already cemented himself as a legend in the world of snowboarding.
He’s a three-time Olympic gold medalist (the most of any snowboarder), a 13-time X Games gold medalist (plus two in skateboarding), and the owner of his eponymous snowboard brand, Whitespace.
There’s only so much a professional snowboarder can accomplish, but since retiring from snowboarding, White has been thinking about building a legacy beyond personal accomplishments — one that will enable him to be even better as a snowboarder than he was when he was a competitive snowboarder.
White on Monday announced the launch of the SnowLeague, the first professional winter sports league for snowboarding and freeskiing, which he hopes will give winter athletes the most direct opportunity to earn a living from their sport and a path to becoming a world champion.
Debuting with five events in the winter of 2025, the Snow League will feature a global competitive format. The league’s first event will be held in the United States in March 2025, with the remaining four held in winter resorts around the world, concluding after the Milan-Cortina tournament in 2026.
The first season will feature five snowboard halfpipe events for both men and women, with freeskiing being added midway through the season, and the league hopes to add other events in the future, such as slopestyle and big air.
“Everything we do is very calculated,” White told me. “We want to do it right. We don’t want to backtrack on anything. We want to crawl before we walk before we run.”
The top 20 men and top 16 women in the world accumulate points based on their results in each event, and a World Champion is determined after the completion of the final event. Riders are selected by a modified ranking from the World Snowboard Points List, which is recognized globally as the definitive ranking system for competitive snowboarding.
Each event includes a training day and two days of competition: a qualification day and a championship day.
In the Qualifiers, athletes will be split into four heats and compete in a best of two format. The top qualifiers from each heat will advance to the Championship. The second and third highest scoring athletes from each heat will advance to another heat to compete for the final four spots in the Championship.
At the championships, eight men and eight women will compete in a head-to-head bracket format with quarterfinal, semifinal and final rounds. Seeding will be based on performance on the qualifying day. Players must win two out of three runs to advance to the next round of the bracket.
Sandy McDonald, a former Olympic judge and athletics director for several major winter sports, will serve as the league’s athletics director.
Debuting in winter 2025 with five event seasons, the Snow League will feature global competition. … [+]
White said the seed of the idea that would become the Snow League was planted in his mind years ago during an undefeated season in which he competed in every major event he could, not only in halfpipe, his primary specialty, but also slopestyle and rail jam.
“I’d never done anything like that before,” White said, “and I’ll never forget being interviewed at the end of the season and someone asked me, ‘What an achievement, what an amazing season, but how does it feel not to be world champion?’ And in that moment I realized there’s a huge disconnect in our sport. We have so many big events that don’t have much impact on each other.”
The number of freestyle snowboarding events fluctuates but remains healthy overall: FIS-sponsored Grand Prix events, the Olympics every four years, the X Games, the Dew Tour, the return of rail jams like Red Bull Heavy Metal, DIYX Street Jam and Red Bull Rail Yard, and the chance to mix freestyle and freeride on the Natural Selection Tour.
But the gap White pointed to is a significant one: These events exist in a vacuum. Most major sports have some sort of league, where fans can follow the storyline as it unfolds, match by match or stop by stop, with an overall winner crowned at the end of the season.
And sports fans really resonate with that format. Aside from the major leagues like MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS, and Premier League, we have seen sports explode in popularity when they are elevated in a way that allows fans to follow, cultivate their favorite athletes, and understand the stakes. Just look at F1, WNBA, and WSL.
“There’s no one-stop destination for snowboarding and freeskiing,” said Ian Warda, SnowLeague’s chief operating officer and former vice president of global integrated marketing for Burton, which also runs the annual (now defunct) Burton U.S. Open.
“Content is scattered. The media landscape is very fragmented. It’s hard to follow as a fan,” Warda added. “Name one sport that people know about. Most people can quickly name the top teams, the top players, where they can watch it, where they can buy merchandise, the ecosystem of the sport, the business around it. But that’s almost nonexistent for snowboarding.”
But action sports are gaining popularity: On June 13, X Games announced the X Games League, a year-round international competition calendar in which teams of athletes from multiple winter and summer sports compete for points for individual and team prize money.
White, who only recently retired after competing in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, understands all too well what these athletes are going through and knows this is what they want from their snowboarding careers.
“We know the pain our athletes are feeling,” White said. “The need is there and they clearly want to do this. It’s bittersweet. It’s a good time and place for us to launch a league, but it’s also a bittersweet moment for the sports world that there isn’t more work being done to highlight this.”
NBC described its coverage of the PyeongChang 2018 men’s snowboard halfpipe final, which centered around White winning his third Olympic gold medal, as “the most dominant Tuesday night of the Winter Olympics ever.”
But White said, “the most-watched sports at the Winter Olympics don’t get attention after the Olympics are over.”
Chloe Kim, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in halfpipe, said she was “excited” about the Snow League. “I think it would be great to have a more athlete-focused competition that would give us more opportunities to shine and show off what we do best – snowboarding,” Kim said. “I’m grateful to Sean for all he’s done for the sport and his unwavering mission to improve it.”
Snow League’s inaugural season will have a total prize purse of at least $1.5 million, the largest in the sport, with prize money awarded at each of the season’s five events, plus additional prize money for the league’s top finishers at the end of the season.
It’s no secret that the money in snowboarding and freeskiing doesn’t come on the snow. Action sports athletes are primarily supported by sponsors, who often cover the costs of equipment, coaching, travel, etc. An athlete might make $5,000 for making the podium at a competition, but depending on where they’re based and where the competition is held, that could barely cover travel and accommodation costs.
“We’re going to pay everybody who competes, and if they qualify, we’re going to pay them an entry fee,” White said. While the Snow League aims to provide a premier competition stage for the world’s best riders and skiers, White also hopes it will provide a platform for the next generation of riders to step up.
The league is backed by prominent investors including Will Ventures, Ares Management Fund, David Blitzer and Ryan Sports Ventures, with Range Sports advising on strategy and execution of media rights and commercial partnerships.
SnowLeague CEO Omar Atesman, a serial entrepreneur in sports, technology and advertising, previously worked with White to develop educational sports content for The Skills, a startup similar to MasterClass for athletes.
Snow League has yet to finalize media rights and distribution, but will receive “premium local and broadcast production” from top partners. “Everybody watches what we watch. There is an incredible fan base and participation in the sport,” Warda said. “Those factors create opportunity.”
Snow League aims to provide greater access beyond linear broadcasts around the world through digital, both live and on-demand. Drive to SurviveIt’s a documentary in style, but a photographer accompanies White and the team, capturing meetings and Zoom conversations with the athletes.
“There’s definitely going to be some kind of storytelling element to it beyond just a live broadcast,” White said.
“One of the principles we’re building this on is to make it more appealing to new fans and so-called casual sports fans,” Warda says. “One of the reference points is the phenomenon of human interest storytelling in sports — the kind of developing sports characters behind the scenes, under the hood, behind the goggles. People make a personal connection to the athletes, their lives, their struggles and triumphs.”
Snow League also has the potential to have an overall positive impact on the lives of amateur skiers and snowboarders who never compete at a high level.
Some of the resorts the team is considering for its inaugural season have permanent 22-foot halfpipes, but not all of them. The attendance and revenue the Snow League would generate means resorts could have the impetus and support to build new facilities not just for the event, but for visitors to enjoy afterward.
“I think we’re going to see more halfpipes built at local resorts because the athletes are asking for it. If there’s a demand, there’s usually a response,” White said, adding that he also thinks the tour will inspire the next generation of halfpipe athletes.
“Snow League will truly be Sean’s greatest legacy,” Warda said. “It’s the greatest thing he’s ever accomplished.”
