HAVENSKATE.COM

BRIEF HISTORY

In 1996 In-Line Skating was "The Star of the Sporting Goods Realm" with growth unlike any other sport or recreational activity. As the skate sales increased, the accessories sales followed with any in-line related product they could imagine. (Source: SGMA International 1996 Press Release)

The good side is that in-line skating was reported to be the 3rd most popular sport for youth in 2002 based on 2001 information. Only Soccer and Basketball were above it. Scootering was 5th and skateboarding was 10th, but who's counting? =) (Source: SGMA International 2002 Press Release). However, aggressive skating has been a segment that has been constantly fluctuating in interest throughout the years. From 1989 to 1998, participation in in-line skating grew by more than 850%, but research in 2001 showed it has recently declined by nearly 20%.

Random Stats (Based on a SGMA 2001 study)

- Over 33% of inline skaters skate 25 or more days per year.
- Nearly 70% of all inline skaters are under the age of 18.
- There were more than twice as many female inline skaters in 2001 than there were in 1993.
- Households in the $25,000 - $50,000 income bracket are the largest source of inline skaters.

THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

The inline skating industry is continually picking up new companies that want a piece of the pie. The competition is fierce, but it's all for the positive progression of the industry. Inline skating is undergoing a very much needed facelift. The UFS (Universal Frame System) has been adopted with great success among the key players in aggressive inline skating. The people at Salomon that funded the UFS have done the smart business move of using UFS for their recreational skates as well. The idea of a suspension frame system has also been a huge success with the Fiziks frames.

While there has been a lot of progression in rolling and rolling technology over the last few years, one thing seems to never change. We are still not recognized as skaters. If you see a poster in a retail stores inline skating section it is most likely of someone either rollerblading on recreational skates down the road with ski poles or someone flying through the air looking like they just got shot out of a canon. Seriously, does that sell rollerblades to you? No, of course not. The people like myself that have been skating for years got into it because it was fun. The book hadn't been written yet and we were the authors writing everything down as we went.

This doesn't make the old skaters any better than the new ones that don't know the history though. Sadly, many companies do a poor job of marketing or promoting themselves to the younger crowd and seem to appeal mostly to the older skaters.

Take a look at the TRS. I think it was a great idea to re-release the TRS and Rollerblade executed it masterfully because they didn't make a point that it's an old skate completely re-done. That sells itself to the older skaters, but the new skaters look at in the store and are immediately intrigued. The marketing and design teams at Rollerblade all should have received raises for such great work.

POPULAR

As for the whole popularity of inline skating growing to be like skateboarding - there's so many good things, but so many bad things. I really like where skating is at right now, but at the same time it's a tough game to play. Whenever I hear people talking about inline skating or skateboarding I try to interject a bit and educate them a bit. A lot of people don't even know inline skating still exists. Our sport is very underground despite what some people believe. Occasionally we'll look out from our little hole in the ground and someone will take notice, but usually that's just where we get another skater joining us. We get very little publicity.

FUTURE

In-line skating has previously had one of the highest growth rates of any sport. A positive future for aggressive in-line skating will depend on several forces. These include the preferences of the skaters, legal pressures to keep skaters off the streets and the strength of the dedication of skaters to the sport.

Future of the Business -

The future of aggressive skating is sketchy to say the least. From a business angle the future of rolling depends on how well companies can market their products. Traditionally the younger generation has been the largest demographic of aggressive skaters, but marketing efforts seem oddly targetted to an older crowd, but not the parents. Also, even the companies that do a lot to target the youth don't seem to continually do so. They market for one purchase and end the relationship at that point. The future of rolling product marketing needs to be a continuous effort in growing the relationships with the customers.

In-line skating in general has already been established in the marketplace and has lost most of the trendy and novelty appeal. The aggressive in-line skating sector will hopefully increase in the future, but at this point we're losing more skaters than we gain. The dedicated followers have all been working hard to increase aggressive skating's profile through competitions and companies, but quantity may not be the solution.

Future of Products - Every Component is Universal. -

Aggressive skating has many companies that provide nearly identical products with the only added benefit that the skater is buying a product that either A. Looks good. Or B. Supposedly supports another skater that they see as a representation of the skating scene. The future of products is likely to consist of many more accessory companies. Companies like Senate and Reign have already began this effort by selling liners as a seperate component for skates. The customizability of skates has far exceded anyone's expectations, but you should expect much more of it. There will also be many more skate manufacturers coming on the scene and more ways to be able to buy just the parts of skates and everything will work together. Truely complete universal mountings for every piece of skates are capabilities that we should see in the near future. Companies will fight to have a very distinguished look, but still comply to the standards.

Future of Skate Videos -

Over the last few years digital camcorders and home computers have allowed an entirely new set of film makers to emerge. Today almost all new home computers on the market come with everything you need to edit videos already installed. More importantly, it all works flawlessly out of the box. Digital video capabilities make it much easier for people to show a part of life not normally seen. I believe that even more inline skating videos will appear as this technology gets cheaper and cheaper for the average skaters to afford. Also, skate videos may start to drift away from the clip after clip styles finally. With new editing talent emerging there will be more and more competition to come up with a creative, new and upbeat way to show skating. It will be about story telling just as much as it is about focusing on tricks. Skaters performing lines may play a role in the way skaters show that they can not only do a hammer after 40 trys, but also do good tricks consistantly. Story telling will not only be about showing the skating but also in the documentary style and fictional style, but it's all up to the new up and coming film makers.

ROLLING the game

The "Rolling" video game might help to boost inline skating into the public eye a little bit, but it certainly is not a game focused on doing that. Rolling the game will appeal to skaters first and foremost with the best true to life look and feel when compared to other attempted inline skating titles. Rolling is the first game with backing from nearly every company in the aggressive skating industry. This means that you'll get to choose between all the real licensed parts you want to use. If this game does for in-line skating what Tony Hawk's Pro Skater did for Skateboarding then in-line skating may be back on the map.

- Thanks for reading this article. I hope you have enjoyed it. I'd like to send a special thanks to Rollerblade for contributing the pictures that we used for the article. Also, special thanks to Quang Do, Robert Guerrero, V3000 and the people at SGMA...

- Jeff