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Snowboard Gear

Let’s Talk About Burton Snowboards

By Adam ⋅ July 1, 2006 ⋅ Email this post Email this post ⋅ Print this post Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Greetings and salutations!

It’s been a busy week in my life, but a quiet one in my blog. I apologize for the lack of posting. It’s really in my best interests to keep posting – the more I post, the more traffic I attract – but I haven’t had much time to sit down and blog.

Anyway, I’m back. And I’m here to talk about Burton Snowboards. There have been several recent news items and discussions surrounding the snowboarding behemoth:

  • According to the San Diego Tribune, Burton is getting into the surf market in a big way. The company has purchased Channel Island Surfboards, a well-known surfboard manufacturer. While surfing isn’t my thing (sharks, people! SHARKS!) the move makes sense to me from a business perspective. I know several people who love riding in the winter and surfing in the summer. This is a good way to keep snowboarding customers loyal all year round; something that’s particularly difficult in a market that’s maturing every day.
  • Burton has released the dates for the Global Open Snowboarding Championships in 2006-2007. The Burton US Open will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year.
  • Justin over at ski-blog.com always posts insightful thoughts both in my comments area and on his site. Recently we’ve been discussing the “rebel factor” in snowboarding and whether it has disappeared. We’ve also been discussing whether Burton might have been the culprit (“Burton is the new Nike,” Justin writes in comment to one of my posts). Check out his post and our discussion, and get involved.

It’s Canada Day up here, Canada’s birthday. Nothing is open, but it’s gonna be a nice, hot day. We’ve been having some unstable weather recently, and yesterday it started raining in an upward direction; the rain looked like torn-up bits of hail. I thought of snowboarding, and I got sad. Damn summer!

Discussion

One comment for “Let’s Talk About Burton Snowboards”

  1. Xtreme sports. I mean what is cooler than surfing and snowboarding?
    The whole point of being a small company and a pioneer and an innovator and quirky and so on is that you are free to focus on your market. You are not a sell-out and don’t have to make acquisitions to drive your bottom line.
    So let’s look at this–from a business perspective, does it make sense for Burton to expand into new businesses? Yep. But does this expansion help their core business of making snowboards? Not a chance. It is a crossover demographic that diverts their attention away from snowboarding. Now, Burton has gone from the Nike and whore of snowboarding to Shaquille O’Neal. He is not just a basketball playa, but also a rap star and actor as well as a volunteer sheriff.
    Maybe Jake Burton can do a song with Gwenn from No Doubt rapping about keeping it real and their “street cred”. SELLOUTS! I am all about the mighty buck, but Burton sold himself as a rebel and a free thinker. He is nothing more than a suit that likes to hang out at a ski resort in his spare time and be around cool kids.

    Posted by Anonymous | July 12, 2006, 2:16 am

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