^ actually, scratch the part about the free-ski boot sub market, and even the ski boot market space. After reading the article and looking into Jarden a little further, it is clear to me that they have identfied skiing in general as a place where they want to do business.
Jarden is a large corporation. There isn't a huge window to turn a profit in free-skiing(specialty market, but very small. target end user is not typically rolling in cash either), so to assume that is where they are looking to be was foolish. I just saw the listed brands and instantly thought of freeskiing since I am, well, surfing NS.
But after reading the article and looking into them a little further, it is clear that they have identifed skiing in general as a space where they want to compete. Skiing is an exspensive, popular, and diverse sport. It makes sense that they would want to own a variety of ski companies that produce a variety of products, which go on to serve a large varitey of end users. All of the ski companies that they own are well established outside of freeskiing.
I think that it is cool that a company like this has a foot in skiing. I appreciate the grassroots side of the industry, but the big guys need to be in it to.
