Stept: Broke Life

" Four days into my east coast adventure I find myself on an old tug boat in the famed Boston Harbor. High winds and spraying water tear away at our sensitive camera equipment. In attempts to access a restricted location via the water, our crew is soaked through and starting to experience symptoms of hypothermia. I abandon my crutches and crawl along the deck, dragging a camera rig behind me in hopes to capture a shot from the bow. I yell to our lighting grip for assistance, but he is out of earshot. I pull myself onto a pile of rope and get into position. I press record and look through the viewfinder. The crew is huddled together in front of the boat’s yellow cabin holding skis, lights, and Budweiser."

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Makes you wonder how many more seasons their bodies can withstand...

Also, I'm surprised that a lot of them don't get a little more support from their sponsors in terms of finances. Sure, urban skiing isn't the biggest aspect of the sport in the eyes of the big sponsors these days, but you'd think that if there were only one or two big time urban skiers under each company that were really pushing it, they'd support them a little more.
 
It sucks there isn't much money in the industry to go around yet. Sure top pros like Sammy, Simon, Gus, Kaya, etc can support themselves no problem but the reality is that almost all the mid-level guys are barely squeaking by. It's tough. Comp's can really help with money in more than one way (winnings lead to more sponsor support) but obviously not everyone's into that. That baller lifestyle that many people envision skiers living couldn't be farther from the truth for most pro's.

Not to mention what happens after you can't ski "competitively" any longer (not just comps but putting together segments and having sponsors). There's not exactly a 401k plan with sponsors.
 
Hey K2... Support your fucking best and banger athletes so maybe they can buy a cup of coffee and afford a bed. You motherfuckers have gotten so much exposure from the stept boys... maybe its time you stept up and give them more support.
 
the harsh reality of a film skier vs a comp skier is terrible, the skiers that I absolutely love the most hardly get paid crap. As the ski industry is being hit by a serious wave of impact that urban skiing and filming really has on promoting product, hopefully many more companies will seriously start backing "filming athletes." Every ski company needs a team manager that is young and is really in the "know" of the ski industry because anyone that knows anything about the ski world right now knows that kids are going to buy a movie and watch it 10000 times, regardless if their favorite pro is Gus Kenworthy because he won't even be in a movie and no one is going to rematch someones pipe run a billion times. Ski movies are so much more impacting than competing is, every ski company NEEDS to realize this. I think stept has really shown the industry that by being some of the most loved/relavant skiers in the game by solely filming/producing ski movies on their own
 
I agree, K2 was definitely loosing grip with the park scene after pep and benchetler went all backcountry, the stept kids are bringing back some of that credibility for em and seems like they're getting nothing for it.
 
I'd refrain from passing judgment as we don't really know specifics. I know K2 put them all up in a place in Hood and gave them a web-series last year so they are definitely stoked on them on some level. I'm pretty sure they sponsor Stept's movie and offer some sort of travel budget for their athletes. The fact is none of us, aside from them, really know. Also, it's not just up to 1 sponsor to pay for an athletes whole season, there needs to be support coming from more than one place; which, unless you are a comp skier, can sometimes be challenging to find backing.

That said, the Stept crew murders. Cam, Clay, Sean J, Shea and all those guys have great style, passion and are deeply motivated to taking skiing to another level. It's incredible to witness. Stept is delivering, in my opinion, near perfection with their production quality but it's still tough to make ends meet no matter how good the finished product is if there isn't much money to go around.
 
Exposure to a limited audience of broke kids. Reality is that the majority of people spending a lot of money on ski equipment have a very limited interest in urban. And the ones that are spend more money on softgoods from lifestyle companies than actual ski companies.

 
exactly what nordica and evan williams have done, and theyve been everywhere this season. more companies need to go a similar route as nordica did this year
 
yeee lupe and liam mckinley got to drive it out to sia and stop at mountains on the way there. kinda like the inspired demo tour so dope
 
I never realized the poverty throughout the crew which is terrible. The 86 was the first movie I could watch 1 million times and still be like "damn" on 75% of the hits. I hope ski companies can predict like most of ns can that skiing with all this new technology is goin to more film based things. The same thing happened to snowboarding. The only two companies that are really good at this that I can tell would be armada and nordica.
 
the reason that most film skiers (that don't have red bull helmets) don't get paid is that sponsors know we will be doing the same exact shit whether we're eating 2 meals a day or we're pouring champagne on bitches. as much as it sucks, it's just the reality, and I'm pretty sure every single one of us is just fine with it.
 
You know, every time I tell all of you that you need to watch ads ahead of videos or watch videos on newschoolers not facebook/Vimeo this is exactly why.

The rise of the urban movement in conjunction with the rise of easily distributed online video has broken the traditional money flow model. As much as I love the idea that people would do this for free, the reality of life is that they can only do it for so long for free. Eventually people require money to keep doing things, or they require money to keep the production value where you want it to be. Either way, money is needed.

The entire reason we have been dumping so much time and effort into an ecosystem of content distribution and monetization is to solve this issue. Advertisers / Sponsors need to put money into selling product, and in today's day and age they like doing that in a fashion that can show results. When they buy pre-roll on Newschoolers, they see results.

So Since companies want to advertise on Newschoolers, we created the producer program to get the people making this video content the money that we're receiving off of it. We take our cut (50%) which covers the cost of selling the ads, building the technology and keeping the site going - and they get their cut for producing the content. All that the end user needs to do is watch an ad in front of the content, and they can contribute directly to these athletes.

Sure, our program is in infancy - but its built to solve this exact issue.

If people want to give their content online away for free on Vimeo and Facebook, then more power to you. Ski companies then are going to pay facebook for likes to their facebook page, and not give a rat cent back to you. The broke production company made up of athletes is paying Vimeo for video hosting, sharing content for free on FB and then FB is selling ads based on that content.

I mean that is more fucked up than the Olympics.

Are things on Newschoolers perfect? Absolutely not. Our technology lags with smaller development budgets, and sometimes there are a lot of ads. We understand that, and do everything we can to improve it.

What Newschoolers is doing though is giving a way that the money can flow directly back to the athletes creating the kind of content that you want.

So I urge whoever is reading this - Please believe in and take part in what we're doing. We really are doing it for skiing. If we keep the support and distribution of this stuff inside of skiing then we can pave the way for a positive future for all of us.

 
They aren't in poverty, they just choose to spend their winters filming and therefore have limited funds.
 
Or just buy their movies.

It's interesting that so many people on here pirate ski movies then wonder why the companies and athletes have no money.
 
should have made it a video-article, I would have been pumped to see a bunch of dudes gettin' high as fuck in some grungy ass apartment. yeaaa
 
Buying their movies, and buying the product that you see in their movies.

Also, watch their edits on Newschoolers so that one of these days I can convince them to let us give them some money.

 
I do. I work 3 weeks in northern alaska then try to ski for 3 weeks, year round. Only way I have found that i can pay off my student loans and try to film simultaneously, unfortunately. It would be so sick to film full time but its just not in the cards for a lot of us.
 
I'm sorry bish, I really admire your spunk, but the idea that newschoolers ads will ever help people like me or the Stept guys is just downright naive. We will continue to get fucked and continue to film skiing no matter how many ads I see for "Filipino Cupid" on your website.
 
I honeslty wonder how stept affected k2's sale parkski wise

I know I bought my k2 because of them , and seeing all the k2 being ridden at my home mountain I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one
 
Aww cmon don't be like that! 20yrs ago thinking people would pay for a video of some dudes slidding down handrails on skis would have been naïve! Things can only get better from here (I hope) and hopefully you and the stept boys (and everyone else) will be able to enjoy the fruits of you're labor. What mr.bishop was talking about sounds really awesome,and I think plenty of newschoolers would disable adblock if it meant getting money to those pros in need.
 
Have you not heard of the producer program? That is where guys exactly like you make videos, put them on the site and then we pay you money directly based off of the ads that show around your videos. Additionally, we have a show sponsorship program for people who make series, and anyone who is part of the program and in the NSTV Producers cult are able to help brainstorm and pitch their custom content ideas.

So:

1. You can get your series sponsored directly.

2. You can make money off of each block of 1,000 views your videos generate.

3. You can pitch custom ideas, or get your custom ideas infront of potential sponsors.

You have to extend these ideas - what we're talking about here is the ability for you to easily make money directly off of the content that you make, your athletic ability or your ability to make content. The program is small now, but its growing extremely rapidly. We paid out about 60% of total revenue generated from video advertising on the site to producers.

The Stept guys so far have not wanted to partake as they choose to put all videos on Vimeo, and we haven't found a fit that works for them. That is their decision and I can't force them to do anything. We're going to keep at it strong though, as my belief is that the future of everything is with Newschoolers merely as a conduit to distribute and monetize your content. We don't want to make any of our own.

Note also, we are now extending these programs into Journalism and Photography. The only criteria is that your content must be popular on Newschoolers. So those Karma points for Production/Journalism/Photography actually mean something.

So if that isn't a way to help people like you directly, to be honest I really don't know what is. As an athlete, get yourself a media person and agree to split the revenue. I'm sure you guys could kill it.

 
K2 also revamped their lineup that year with a bunch of new skis. (Recoil, Sight, Domain.)

For sure though, K2 made a great marketing desicion when they picked up almost the entire Stept crew, just as they were blowing up.
 
If we could come up with a way to help connect those two things with numbers that could be put on a powerpoint presentation, then Stept would be rich as fuck.
 
This is how people make money on YouTube. My friend has a channel in which he gets paid per 1000 views. He has 350,000 plus subscribers and avgs about 40-45k views per video and uploads multiple times a week. He has a house, car, the works and that is the only job he has. It just goes to show, it can be done. Just like with any business though, it takes time and effort. Money is there to be made.
 
Yes exactly. We are using the YouTube revenue share model, except we pay about 5-10x better than them per view.

The reason is that it's more direct connection to advertisers of all size and who are only related to skiing.

There are a very tiny percentage of our people currently making enough to get by, but that should increase rapidly over the years as the system progresses.

Of course, this requires people not turning on Adblock, or telling us that they would like to pay a subscription.

 
Ask him what CPM he makes ($ per thousand views). I'd be really curious to see how YouTube is paying these days.
 
if they got jobs as labourers or heavy equipment operators up north for a couple months of the summer/fall each year they wouldnt have to worry about lack of sponsor funding..

but Bishop is certainly on to something with the producer program. right now it probably doesn't pay too well, but if you build a following (like stept has) and put out timeless edits that people will watch over and over (more and more views) you have a chance to make some decent coin. i don't know what ns is paying per 1000 views or whatever, but if you're getting the numbers of views that a company like stept would get then i'm sure that bit of cash would help out the company quite a bit.

i'm certainly excited to see how this producer program pans out though, I think it definitely has the potential to be extremely beneficial to both NS and the producers in a similar way that YouTube and their partner programs have become very successful and profitable.
 
Congrats, you just made me turn adblock off for Newschoolers.

Also enjoyed reading some of this stuff that gives insight into the skiing market, I don't really know much about it.
 
the platform development is awesome, but to play devils advocate the amount of money to be made per 1,000 views is pretty limited- definitely not enough to make a huge impact for a company- an individual maybe, but hopefully it can become more lucrative as it expands.
 
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