Trend Story Idea : Women and Board Sports – Bull Market?!

Trend stories are emerging that skateboarding is growing most among women, and the same goes for SUP, the emerging Stand-Up Paddling craze. Beaches nationwide are seeing more SUP’ers by the day, and an estimated 3 out of 5 people picking up the sport are women.

Of the 38 sports and activities surveyed by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) in its Sports Participation Series I and reports, the female share of skateboarding showed the strongest increase.

Females represented 26.6% (2.7 million) of total skateboard participation in 2007; in 2002, they represented on 19.5% (1.9 million) of the participants.

Pete Wagner of Wagner Custom Skis and Winterstick Snowboards has seen overall sales percentages increasing steadily since launching Wagner in 06. Still, Wagner focuses on complete customization over gender marketing. We don’t make broad assumptions about what women need. We tailor our skis for the individual’s needs. For example, if a woman has enjoyed forward mounted skis -a trend that a lot of the big factories are following – we will design their skis with a forward mount. If we think a forward mount will hinder what she is looking for in performance, we’ll examine that in building her specific ski, said Wagner.

Winterstick is answering the call to action from women hopping aboard board sports with this winter’s brand new Women’s ST 156 snowboard – available now through winterstick.com, but at time of post, so new, it’s not yet live online. You heard it here first!