A Wider World Of Sports

By Karl Taro Greenfeld

He has lived the dream of the modern American athlete, turning pro straight out of high school, scoring a luxurious home in San Diego and becoming no-worries wealthy through the sport he loves. He has appeared in commercials for Mountain Dew, Gap, AT&T, Gatorade and milk, taking his place beside the white-mustached Pete Sampras and Cal Ripken Jr. But Tony Hawk isn't a tennis or baseball player. He's a professional skateboarder who spends his time in swimming pools. Empty swimming pools. Preferably lefthanded, kidney-shaped pools with lips of grindable concrete coping, perfect for landing nollie backside 180s, pulling fakie 540 kick-flip indies or even busting his phat 720 front-side airs.

If you don't understand that skateboard speak, then you're probably outside the 12-to-34 age demographic that advertisers and programmers covet--and that alternative-sports stars like Hawk can deliver. He's one of a new band of athletes who are helping drive the fast-growing world of nontraditional sports to an ever increasing share of the TV-ad dollar. Emerging sports such as surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, NASCAR racing and even bass fishing are gaining increasing TV exposure, providing greater choice for sports fans and advertisers.

For years the sports market has been dominated by baseball, basketball, football and hockey. But lately those major sports have seen their TV ratings slide, even as the fees that the leagues charge the networks for broadcast rights have skyrocketed. We just watched--or didn't watch--the lowest-rated World Series in history. Monday Night Football audiences are down 10% compared with last season. The extra commercials that networks air to offset their higher costs have only prompted viewers to channel-surf more frequently away from the major sports. Big-salaried athletes with bad attitudes have been turning off fans. And now a squabble over money among a bunch of rich men--pro basketball's owners and players--has forced cancellation of a month of games, further alienating that sport's followers.

The traditional sports fear they are losing touch with a whole generation. "I can't get my 11-year-old son to sit down and watch a whole football game, and he's the target consumer they want," says Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "He'll watch the X Games longer than he'll watch football." Participation rates, which may indicate which sports people will watch, are booming for pursuits like snowboarding (up 33% in 1997 over 1996), skateboarding (up 22%) and fly fishing (up 6%), while they are noticeably soft for old standbys like baseball (down 10%).

Thanks to cable, alternative sports are already racking up more hours on TV and more viewers. The household audience of ESPN for "extreme" sports like sky surfing and street luge has increased 119% since 1994, while fishing shows are watched by 34% more armchair anglers than they were four years ago. Last June, ESPN's annual summer Olympic-style X Games drew a greater proportion of viewers under 35 than did the network's football coverage. The Wal-Mart FLW bass-fishing tour has become the most popular program on ESPN2, drawing well among young male viewers as well as those in their 40s and 50s. And NASCAR's TV ratings are now second only to those of the NFL. This fragmentation of the sports audience has attracted advertisers and sponsors eager to grab a larger share of the $700 billion spent each year by young males. "Right now, if you're looking for the young male demographic, you have to look outside the traditional sports," says Bob Igiel, director of the ad agency Media Edge. Sponsorship revenue for extreme sports is expected to reach $135 million this year, up from just $24 million four years ago. And the FLW bass-fishing tour has landed the biggest sponsorship catch of all, persuading Wal-Mart to lend its name to a sporting event for the first time in the store's 36-year history.

Male teens and young adults love what they're seeing. "Extreme athletes take their sports more seriously. Mainstream athletes make so much money, it's just a job for them," says Jonathon Meir, 14, of Incline Village, Nev. His friend Tyler McPherron, 14, adds that he associates football with "a bunch of old guys sitting on the couch and drinking beer." Snowboard and mountain-bike legend Shaun Palmer agrees, pointing out that individualistic extreme sports are "a lot better than going to football practice every day and having your coach yell at you."

The kids of the boomers identify the stick-and-ball sports with a bygone era. "Since you don't like your parents' music, why would you like your parents' sports?" asks Lance Helgeson, managing editor of the IEG Sponsorship Report. "It's about finding a different kind of hero."

Those heroes have crossed over into the mainstream. This year champion bass fisherman Denny Brauer, like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, won a place on sports marketing's greatest icon: the Wheaties box. Snowboard pioneer Jake Burton taped a widely aired American Express commercial. And champion skateboarder Andy MacDonald signed on to do a spot for the Partnership for Drug-Free America--just one week after football legend Lawrence Taylor was arrested yet again on charges of cocaine possession.

To be sure, traditional sports retain huge audiences and monstrous marketing clout; the Super Bowl is watched by almost a billion people every year. But the era of the three-sport nation may be coming to a close just as surely as the era of the three networks. Experts forecast a future of a thousand TV channels, which will be looking for even more sports programming.

Right now, in some backyard or driveway, a kid is dreaming up a new game, inventing the rules as she goes, improvising the equipment. She'll teach it to her friends. And sometime in 2020, it'll be on ESPN2.

--With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles and Elaine Marshall/Incline Village

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles and Elaine Marshall/Incline Village