Why did most of the OG park ski brands fall off and stop making park skis?

[eheath]

That's 2000 people....

We're only talking about owners of an epic pass, right? It's probably more than 2000 since breck/keystone/park city are probably the largest parks but my point is that park skis don't exactly bring home the bacon.

 

[dolanslebensraum]

Interesting thread. I still think something should be said for the people who watch xgames on tv and see volkl skis or atomic skis even though they themselves would never buy park skis.

if a person who buys atomic redsters and they see marcel hirscher on tv murder everybody on a gs course riding the same basic ski, they will probably be very happy with atomic and continue to buy atomic skis every year because of the obv psychological reasons.

what im saying is maybe 1 million ppl watch x games. Maybe if the same skier who rides atomic redsters sees an atomic ski doing triple 16s on the slope course. He might have the same feeling of being happy with his atomic skis just like he was watching hirscher, and this may lead him to continue to buy atomic skis every yr into the future, even if he would never buy the atomic park skis he saw at xgames.

does that make sense?

i get that park skiers are probably only 1-2% of all skiers, but i see alot more ppl riding parkable twin tips than just park skiers.

Also would guess that 90% of ppl who buy twintips have never skied switch in their lives.

So i would say that between brand visibility and non park skiers buying park skis, there is a reasonable economic reward for companies to make awesome park skis.

and if not, then i would say for a company like head or volkl or fischer or atomic to make a good park ski isnt that hard when they probably have 2 billion engineering man hours of expertise from their race dept that they can draw from to make good park skis. A good park ski is alot easier to make than a world class race ski, anyways. ffs just do what fischer does on the nightstick and make a full symmetrical ski. I actually dont know why more companies dont use the symmetrical path.

 

[druppin_jibs]

Combo of things.

One is definitely sports marketing spending. Giving skier X $80k a year plus incentives, and a pro model that only sold 60 pairs. Seeing little to no tangible return from that investment. Hell I'd go back to focusing on running shoes instead of losing money.

Atomic is an interesting one. They might have the most expensive team out, yet they haven't really progressed park skiers much over the years. Might be a case of, "let's toss money into a team because it will elevate the brand image, but we really don't care about park/freeskiing". After doing over 175 TAFT stops I have probably seen a handful of Atomic park skis so I don't see them making a bunch of money off them.

Come to the rock snowpark in Wisonsin I have 2 pairs of atomic Punx. They do a pretty good job at making a playful ski but defiantly not my first choice. I have the 2012s and 2013s, and they are good on jumps but they aren't great for butters, which is probably why you haven't seen them in a time where you can have a noodle ski that is stable at high speeds. I know a guy who has always loved punx, but I defiantly don't see Atomic making a lot of money off them. Especially considering how hit or miss some of the punx models can be. I know a guy who bought some that were way short for his height and weight, but his punx were still too stiff, and they had fully capped sidewalls. Don't mean to give punx a bad wrap but sometimes they are the bomb and sometimes they make you cry