White’s Snowboard League Debuting with Billion Dollar Aspirations

White’s Snowboard League Debuting with Billion Dollar Aspirations

The Snow League (TSL) debuts at Aspen Snowmass this weekend (March 7-8).

The new snowboarding and freestyle skiing league is seeking to capitalize on the interest that exists in halfpipe-related events, growing participation rates (particularly abroad), and a fragmented programming calendar.

“We’re not just athletes [at] the Olympics. We're the premier athletes, [the ones] on the billboards,” Shaun White (founder and chairman, The Snow League) said. And the reason Olympic organizers continue to add snowboarding events to the Games is “because they draw the biggest numbers from a [television] viewership perspective.”

But fan enthusiasm for the sport drops off in between Olympiads. The lack of a meaningful annual through line, like a league championship, has made it hard to follow or invest in.

TSL is setting out to change that with an international tour. Its business model is simple.

“Let’s get the [36] best athletes in the world, put them at the best resorts with the best facilities, and [air the events] on the best broadcast [platform] we can get –NBC– in the lead up to the Olympics,” White said.

And put the sport’s biggest star out front.

White “brings authority and influence across every aspect of the business. Whether in his relationships with existing and future athletes, or in building relationships with sponsors and media rights partners, he has the credibility to make it happen,” Harley Miller (founder, CEO, and managing partner, Left Lane Capital) said. “His network includes the top people in operations and senior roles, making him a magnetic force for everything the business needs."

Left Lane Capital led The Snow League’s $15 million Series A round (closed last fall). Will Ventures, Ares Management, David Blitzer’s Bolt Ventures, and Ryan Sports Ventures participated alongside.

While White will open doors for TSL in its early days, the league believes it has all the ingredients necessary to enjoy long-term success. 

Winter sports have a large participatory base. And in nearly every country outside the U.S., the correlation between the top participatory sports and the top spectator sports is high.

“There are about 125 million [skiers and snowboarders] spread across the world,” Omer Atesmen (CEO, The Snow League) said. 

That is more than twice the number of golfers worldwide (~66 million). Granted, not all are doing tricks on a halfpipe.

No sport has a higher average household income, either

“Think about the people that normally go to Aspen,” White said. It’s the “Kardashians and Swiss billionaires.”

But the snowboarding and freestyle skiing ecosystem has historically been disjointed. That has made it difficult for fans and brand partners to engage with the winter sports, like they do tennis or golf. 

TSL is trying to solve for that with a tour model, and by ensuring it has all the best athletes participating. The league will also revamp scoring to make it easier for casual fans to follow along (think: a head-to-head bracket-style competition). 

The competitor with the most points at the end of the TSL season will be crowned the winner.

Tiffany’s is designing the league trophy.

“It’s all the little details [currently separating properties like the PGA Tour or F1 from snowboarding],” White said.

The 3x Olympic Gold Medalist is convinced fans will tune in for a series of snowboard competitions that add some flavor and tradition to the formula. The sport currently draws viewers with little in the way of promotion, pageantry, or storytelling.

“If you actually look at individual events that [you might assume] most people aren't paying attention to, [like] the Copper Grand Prix or Mammoth Open, [they] are pulling really good numbers on Nielsen,” Atesmen said.

The Sunday broadcast of the Copper Grand Prix on NBC drew 678,000 viewers in 2022 and 588,000 in 2023. For context, those two deliveries are about 2x the highest turnout for Unrivaled and ~3x the league's full-season average (note: broadcast versus cable make it an imperfect comp).

And yet, the number of world-class competitions has dwindled in recent years.

But with the ’26 Olympics on the horizon, TSL believes the timing is right for a new property to emerge and fill the gap that’s been created for fans, athletes, and brands alike.

The Snow League envisions having four revenue streams: sponsorships, media rights, tickets and hospitality, and other (think: licensing, merchandise).

Winter sports’ large upscale audience is attractive to brands. However, up until now, the disparate landscape has made it difficult for most to invest at scale (which coincidentally is one of the reasons event volume has declined). 

TSL’s season-long format changes that. And brands seem to be embracing the opportunity. 

“The business is already outperforming projections and achieving far more success in their first season than initially anticipated,” Miller said.

The league has attracted both sports’ typical sponsors (think: Marriott Bonvoy, Pacifico) and a host of blue-chip non-endemic brands (think: Tiffany’s, INEOS, Hublot).

“They're seeing the vision that we have,” Atesmen said. The sport has evolved “and the top athletes [now] cross over into [broader international] culture.”

Mix in some consistent storytelling between events and Left Lane envisions TSL becoming a ‘Formula 1-like’ circuit–and eventually being able to command a comparable domestic broadcast rights deal.

“We’re evaluating the total gameplay/content hours and the viewership each attracts,” Miller said.

FWIW, F1 drew an average of 1.1 million viewers across 23 ‘23 races.

Miller acknowledges reaching that benchmark at the outset may be challenging, particularly considering its linear NBC broadcast will be delayed (TSL will be live on Peacock).

“The positive takeaway is that viewership doesn't have to reach those levels for the property to remain highly appealing,” he said.

In fact, with all the sponsor interest, Left Lane believes TSL can be a profitable business without a media rights deal.

Winter sports’ fan/participant demographics, and the five star destinations TSL events will be held at, present an opportunity for the league to sell highly curated offerings (think: celeb-laden parties, athlete meet and greets) and unique experiences (think: riding with Shaun), and ultimately to generate meaningful gate receipts out of the starting gate.

“It’s easier to sell [a few wealthy individuals] lux packages than [to fill a stadium with] 40,000 GA tickets,” White said.

Of course, TSL will have plenty of general admission seating available for sale too. 

The venues are currently TSL’s largest expense. The league announced it will be making stops at Yunding Secret Garden (China), Buttermilk (again), and the iconic LAAX halfpipe (Switzerland) over the next 12 months.

But it’s not difficult to imagine resorts/locales paying out site fees to attract TSL –and its fans– in the future; particularly because the entirety of the mountain isn’t needed to stage a halfpipe event.

The Snow League intends to ramp up its schedule to between 12-14 annual events within the next three-to-four years.

“We'll go down into the Southern Hemisphere [in the summer months], Chile or Argentina, potentially to New Zealand or Australia,” White said. “There’s talk of Japan [and South Korea too].”

An expanded TSL slate does not mean replacing existing winter sports events. In fact, the league is working closely with X-Games, FIS, and other organizers on scheduling and logistics to ensure their continued success. 

However, White & Co. fully envision TSL becoming ‘the future of winter sports’. 

The live event experience will have “the same luxury [aspect], the same sort of paddock club-style VVIP elements, another stratosphere of VIP, which is still really interesting, and even from a GA standpoint, it’s [going to be] far more interesting than being a pedestrian at a [F1] race where you can only witness a single point in time live.”

And snowboarding makes for an easy at home watch.

“I don’t see why [TSL] couldn’t get a $100mm plus per annum media rights deal in the midterm,” Miller said. “That seems [to be] on the table from the comps we’re seeing in other sports.”

So, what’s the upside for The Snow League if it can?

"With true sponsorship interest, this could evolve into a business that generates hundreds of millions in revenue and becomes highly profitable,” Miller said. “We're invested because we see the potential for it to become the next billion-dollar-plus franchise."

If The Snow League fulfills White’s vision, that outcome just may be possible.