In less-than official news, we’ve received a hot tip that Shaun White will be taking aim at X Games, launching a new event series of his own. ‘The Snow League’ is being touted as ‘The future of winter sports’ – with little information known, a official LinkedIn profile was launched with the following details:
The Snow League is the future of winter sports. Founded by Shaun White, we are the premiere global league for men’s and women’s snowboarding and freeski. The league is reimagining competition formats to elevate drama and fan engagement, while providing groundbreaking live coverage and human-interest storytelling.
While Shaun is no fool with his money, his track record with other grand displays of snowboarding theatrics like the Air + Style venture have flunked. However, the GOAT (according to most) is not to be deterred, and by the sounds of things, he’s connected the right wires this time. Quite possibly via LinkedIn.
At the time of writing, it sounds as though ‘The Snow League’ will be again a ‘top-tier dynamic sports event’ (both free skiing and snowboarding). Shaun has been at the coalface pushing hard for snowboarding to be in line with the likes of the NBA and NFL. It’s an obvious shot at X Games, still being hitched to the action-sports stigmata (adrenalin junkies). It’s a well-intended pursuit that Shaun has – to want more respect for the athleticism of snowboarding from the general public, is it not?
Drilling down harder into the brittle core of the X Games vs Shaun White topic, we’ve come to an understanding that those two, once-chummy parties are very much separate, semi-agitated entities these days. And with X Games contract with Aspen finished, (moving to Park City), we have it on good terms that ‘The Snow League’ could be taking over that Aspen space.
The official announcement of ‘The Snow League’ will be happening mid-June (At Cannes of all events), but what we know is that it’s set to be a global circuit. And with Australia now entertaining a 22ft Superpipe – could we be joined by Shaun’s star-studded posse? With some heavy investment already involved, and some real ‘top-of-town’ types in the mix, the prize purse on ‘The Snow League’ is anticipated to be greater than that of X Games.
For now, keep your eyes glued to your LinkedIn feed.
