One of the most prominent skateboard executives in the country skipped the X Games last week in San Francisco.
Tod Swank, CEO and president of Tum Yeto, Inc., a Logan Heights-based company that sells and markets four brands of skateboards and accessories, didn’t even know which one of his brand managers went.
“The X Games aren’t the only (tournaments) that are out there,” the 34-year-old said. Perhaps, but not many skateboard tournaments are nationally televised.
“There are certain things with the X Games that have been a positive for skateboarding,” Swank said. But the ESPN extreme sport games “are sponsored by Slim Jim and Chevy. So it’s really hard for a manufacturer like ourselves to get involved at that level.”
The reason he didn’t attend, Swank insisted, was not because he wanted to maintain the skateboard industry’s independent, grass-roots marketing platform that, although profitable, has given the industry an aloof appearance and the misperception as a counter-culture.
Swank doesn’t like public events such as the X Games as it is, but his absence likely stems from the distaste he still has for the big companies that nearly ruined the skateboarding movement.
The last time the sport was this hot , in the late 1980s , nonindustry companies exploited skateboarding.
They mass-produced cheap skateboards and saturated the market with them. When demand dried up, the sport became trendy and the industry’s loyal following disappeared. The industry was left to pick up the pieces and start over again.
Wrong Reasons
Swank knows because he started his first company, Foundation, in 1989.
“Between ’91 and ’93 that was probably the lowest time in this whole industry,” said Swank, a professional skateboarder in the 1980s.
When he started Foundation, big companies ran the industry. They had no interest in the integrity or growth of the sport and they didn’t put money back into the industry, Swank said.
“Now all the top companies are owned by skateboarders who grew up skateboarding and have a certain amount of appreciation for the sport,” he said.
Industry profits have grown every year since former pros took back the industry, Swank said.
Now skateboarding is experiencing a revival with its most profitable year ever.
Revenues for skateboards range from $150 to $200 million a year, and $1 billion annually in retail accessories such as shoes, said several skateboard company executives.
They market to Generation Y, a demographic of 13- to 19-year-olds that reached 26.5 million and had a combined discretionary income of $80 billion in 1998, according to Ladenburg Thalmann, a New York investment bank.
And 80 percent of all skateboards, related equipment, and accessories are designed and manufactured between San Diego and Los Angeles.
Last year, Tum Yeto, which markets the Toy Machine, Foundation, Zero and Pig brands, recorded $9 million in sales from skateboard decks, trucks, wheels, a full clothing line, backpacks and accessories.
Impressive Goals
This year Swank projects a 53 percent increase.
And that’s a legitimate expectation, say industry analysts.
“What I know right now is manufacturers can’t make enough skateboards,” said Jeff Harbaugh, a Seattle-based action sport consultant.
However, Harbaugh said because skateboards, trucks and wheels are similar among competitive brands, they have a hard time distinguishing their products.
That puts the emphasis on marketing, which at Tum Yeto is done at the brand level. The brand managers are independently responsible for the brand teams and advertisements.
Swank controls and monitors the productivity of the infrastructure. The 47 employees in the 45,000 square feet of Tum Yeto warehouses across San Diego develop, design and distribute the brand products that compete against 50 to 60 similar brands.
In today’s competitive skateboard market, professional riders are the most important advertisement tool for companies, and signing good riders for tournaments and videos is the key.
That’s not a problem for Swank, said Jeff Kendall, the director of marketing for Santa Cruz-based NHS, a Tum Yeto competitor and distributor of Santa Cruz skateboards. Kendall was sponsored by Santa Cruz as a professional.
“The brands he has and the team riders he has , pretty much from the beginning , have always been top-notch,” Kendall said.
Competitive Prices
Swank markets skateboarding on the premise that it’s cheaper than any other action sport such as snowboarding, wakeboarding, surfing and even summer soccer camps.
A “top-notch” skateboard costs $100 and pads from $50 to $75, he said.
“Skateboards are really an inexpensive thing for kids to participate in and for parents to support,” Swank said.
One example is the proliferation of public skate parks in the county. Yearlong passes to the park in Ocean Beach is $30 and Coronado plans to open one next year under the bridge.
Currently, Swank is trying to persuade San Diego to build a park near his Logan Heights warehouse.
“I know (8th District City Councilman) Juan Vargas was very interested in having a public skate park built in that area,” Swank said. “Which would be a great thing for that low-income area because there are tons of kids out there with nothing to do.”
Swank has no problem being a spokesman for the skateboard movement , skateboarding is all he’s ever done.
Swank was as common to the Del Mar Skate Ranch in the early 1980s as the sun is to Southern California.
“I’d say he’s quite the guru in skateboarding,” said NHS’ Kendall, who first met Swank in 1985 at the skate park.
Swank recently wrote a column for TransWorld Skateboard Business magazine urging the small skateboard shops to emphasize the comparatively inexpensive cost of skateboarding to customers.
Swank’s newest venture, skateboard. com, is along that same line.
The Web site is designed as a sales site for the entire industry while providing direct links to skate parks, brands, training tips and free E-mail accounts.
The site is not a subsidiary or spin-off of Tum Yeto, even though Swank has owned the name since 1995. Rather, it’s a way to protect the small skateboard retailers from the dot-com companies that won’t protect them.
“It’s not about taking market share away from anyone,” he said. “It’s really about (the industry) hitting in places where nobody is hitting.”
So instead of watching his riders drop melon grabs and barley grinds and front side flips on the judges and the national viewing audience last week in San Francisco, Swank went skateboarding in San Diego.
Maybe he’s not as good as he used to be, but that’s all right; he has a more important job now.
