The future of sport doesn't wait to get imagined.... it gets built!
A conversation with the CEO of Visit Big Bear about the Skate Board Association and IDM Arena, the springtime of dis(awesome)content, not now, Andrew Pott! And more.
The definitive weekly ranking and analysis of all the skateboarding and other things online that I cannot stop consuming and how it makes me feel, personally.
The future of sport doesn't wait to get imagined.... it gets built!
Rank: 2026
Mood: 🏟️🤷
Last month, Royce Campbell, co-founder of the sports and entertainment media company IDM (I Don't Miss), which is the holding company of a forthcoming competitive skateboarding league dubbed the Skate Board Association (SBA), of which Campbell is also the Chief Operating Officer, made a post on LinkedIn.
This isn’t a concept. It’s already in motion!
What we’re seeing with the SBA and how it’s leading the way, it’s showing to be bigger than just a league launch.
BECAUSE IT IS!
It’s a signal that finally action sports, culture, and equity can evolve together, and at the highest level to sit next to traditional sports!
When major outlets like ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Business Journal are aligned on the same message, standing for that massage [sic], it’s extremely clear: this moment didn’t just come out of nowhere — this moment was built!
For #investors and #brands paying attention, this is what early alignment with a global category-defining platform looks like.
The future of sport doesn’t wait to be imagined….
It gets built!
The post is accompanied by a photo of a group of people standing in an empty lot, some wearing SBA-branded clothing. At the time, it was unclear what Campbell was talking about; the post a vague, somewhat jumbled tease of big news to come. The post is also hard to parse on a general syntax level, stuck in a gear between aspirational business bro and intermittent ALL-CAPS Facebook aunt, but it's especially confusing in one particular area.
When major outlets like ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Business Journal are aligned on the same message, standing for that massage [sic], it’s extremely clear: this moment didn’t just come out of nowhere—this moment was built!
What "massage [sic]" are ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Business Journal "aligned on" and "standing for" in relation to the SBA? Each outlet has covered the proposed league, but the latter two simply regurgitated ESPN's reporting on the SBA's initial press release in September. The headline of each story, understandably, revolves around the SBA's celebrity co-founder, the Golden State Warriors' Gary Payton II.
That's an odd misrepresentation and willful conflation of those outlets' run-of-the-mill news coverage with "support" for their project, and a brazen one at that, given Campbell tagged each publication in his LinkedIn post. However, that's light work as far as the SBA is concerned.
In my previous reporting on the organization, I found that the SBA had outright fabricated articles and quotes from both ESPN and the Sports Business Journal while promoting themselves online.
Campbell's recent LinkedIn post leads with the line "This isn’t a concept. It’s already in motion!" Which is so similar to the quote that an SBA promotional video falsely attributed to senior ESPN journalist Alyssa Roenigk — "This isn't just an idea. It's already happening!" — that it strains belief how that video is still live on the SBA Instagram account.
This type of bizarre online behaviour is what prompted me to look further into the SBA last year, where I learned that Campbell's other IDM/SBA co-founder, Sheldon Lewis, had attempted a precursor to the SBA in 2022, called the Premier Skateboard Association (PSA).
After hosting a handful of trial balloon events under the name "Backyard Skate Battle," the first two at professional skateboarder Manny Santiago's backyard skatepark and the last at the now-defunct Berrics, the company rebranded to the PSA and booked So-Fi Stadium, home of the LA Rams, for an event in July 2022 — a big move by any measure. Days before the contest was set to take place, it was postponed and never rebooked, with ticket holders alleging online that they were never refunded. The PSA would go dark online that August.
A few years later, the SBA was born.
I have previously reached out to the SBA for comment. Campbell directed me to a PR contact from whom I never heard back. After publishing my initial story in September, the SBA blocked me on Instagram.
Cole Nowicki
None of that exactly inspires confidence in an organization that has claimed to be — in the headline of their made-up Sports Business Journal article — "The Evolution Skateboarding Deserves."
On March 12, PR Newswire published a press release.
IDM and The Skate Board Association (SBA) today announced a landmark partnership with Cooperative LA, world renowned global design firm Populous, Visit Big Bear (VBB), and Aambé, to develop the multi-use IDM Arena, elite high-altitude training facilities, and a purpose-built community Sports and Entertainment District in Big Bear Lake, California.
The multi-phase development represents one of the most ambitious, pro athlete-centered infrastructure investments in skateboarding history, creating a first-time permanent home for high-altitude training, competition, education, and community engagement in a mountain destination uniquely suited for year-round action sports culture and live entertainment.
This was the news Campbell teased in his LinkedIn post. Following the publication of that press release, Travis Scott, CEO of Visit Big Bear, gave an interview to CBS LA about the proposed project.
The hit features what looks to be AI-generated concept art for IDM Arena that is as low-quality and ignorant to the physical dimensions and realities of a skatepark as the half-baked background video on the SBA website.
Concept art for the IDM Arena | Images via IDM and the SBA
Still, this announcement carries far more weight than the press release from September (which the SBA had to awkwardly walk back, in part, after promising the inclusion of a number of professional skateboarders who had not actually agreed to be a part of the league). Cooperative LA, who will serve as the "Owner's Representative" on the development of the IDM Arena, and Populous, the internationally lauded design firm responsible for Sphere, are as legitimate as it gets. As is Visit Big Bear, the tourism bureau and marketing arm of Big Bear Lake, California.
Having partners of that level willing to sign on to your project means something, as surprising as it may be to anyone who's looked into IDM and the SBA. Beyond their principals' questionable history in the competitive skateboarding space and the lying-as-a-marketing-practice, IDM and SBA have yet to host a single event. There is an overt, amateurish nature to how they present themselves to the public. That anyone could look at IDM's website and agree that those three letters belong on the name of a world-class, and one assumes, multi-million dollar arena raises even more questions.
All of that said, faking it until you make it is one of capitalism's great promises. At this point, I was unsure where they were on the spectrum between "faking it" and "making it," which is why I spoke to Travis Scott, CEO of Visit Big Bear, on Monday.
He'd tell me that Visit Big Bear and IDM/SBA's relationship began "about a year and a half ago" when they first "approached the Big Bear Lake community as a potential home."
"[IDM/SBA] were interested in the high altitude training benefits for their athletes." The "proximity to Los Angeles" and the "hundreds of small sporting companies who are home-based there" were also appealing.
Big Bear Lake was "really interested in continuing the conversation" and proposed getting "on the ground and seeing if there's any plot to land that might fit the vision that [IDM/SBA] have."
Scott said that Populous and Cooperative LA were on board early for the proposed project. While he couldn't provide details due to an NDA, he shared that, to the best of his knowledge, funding and land have been secured for IDM Arena.
At the end of the CBS LA interview, Scott notes that there is no timetable for when they will break ground. When I asked if that means the inaugural SBA season will be postponed since there is no arena for it to take place in, Scott said he wasn't privy to that information, but that there are possible "back-up options" in Big Bear Lake for the 2026 season. A season that is already behind schedule.
The SBA press release from September said that "The first-ever SBA Draft will take place in late Q4 2025, with the inaugural six-month season set to begin in spring 2026." There have been no updates on the draft, events, or the league's competitive structure since. The SBA did announce its "franchises" last December with an Instagram post that oddly ends with the mantra "No theft. No shortcuts. No rebuilds. Just execution."
During our conversation, Scott seemed genuinely excited about what IDM Arena could offer Big Bear Lake.
"From a community perspective, my hope, and my organization's hope, is that not only can we help drive tourism — tourism is our number one economic driver — but it boils down to supporting the community.
"We are a weekend destination, most famously known for winter sports with our ski resorts. [IDM Arena] is a way to continue putting food on our neighbours' tables [during the off-season]. This is what drives income for our friends, our family, our neighbours, anywhere in town. That's really what we're looking to do: bring midweek business, bring a more stable tourism economy to our community."
When I asked what convinced Visit Big Bear to partner with IDM specifically, including giving them naming rights to the arena, even though both IDM and SBA have yet to produce or host an event, he explained that "It's the fact that they came to the table with the players and the funding that they came forward with. When you have groups like Populous and [Cooperative LA], you know you're not playing around. And you're spending some dollars on retainers there. We felt like they were a really strong group ready for action."
I ended the interview by asking Scott whether he was aware of the strange and numerous ways the SBA had misrepresented itself online, if he knew about the PSA and its alleged rug pull, and if he had any concerns about partnering with organizations with that sort of track record.
He wasn't aware. He quickly clarified that "neither the City nor Visit Big Bear have committed any resources to [IDM/SBA's] project, nor have they asked us to commit any resources other than time and being the marketing agency to work with them in talking about what we're doing and the events that they will hold."
"I will have to dig into that and have some conversations with the SBA leaders and see what comes back from that."
IDM Arena could be a real thing, and a real win for Big Bear Lake, and perhaps even skateboarding at large — if they can make it happen. IDM and the SBA appear to be putting the pieces in place to at least make their namesake development a reality, but there are still important, unanswered questions about how these organizations operate that, even from an outsider's perspective, don't stand up to scrutiny.
With this much on the line and so many partners in play, when those questions inevitably get asked of partners like Scott, that leaves them in an uncomfortable position.
"I sure hope I don't end up with egg on my face here."
Springtime of dis(awesome)content
Rank: 1
Mood: 🍃😌🍃
The world is alight and the illusion of order has long been shattered. The West continues its long, stupid walk into the clothesline of fascism, draping ourselves in the garments of tyranny, as we stumble into some oblique future. See what we look like? Ill-fitted fools. So, what do people do in such a time? They gather, work together with common purpose in hopes of achieving change, and ideally, a new slate, a foundation to build on. If you like, call it a
Maybe that's fanciful. Gorging on hope in fallow times. But what's the alternative? Despair can't be an option even if joy is hard to come by. Despair can never offer
That's why it's important to consider all angles, who knows what entryway the absurd might offer. Happiness, even. Face down the wretched with the
So open your hearts, repair them if needed. Because if one doesn't fix them, well, we know the alternative. A momentous change is needed. Summer is coming soon. Then fall, winter, and spring again. If we want anything to be different, we have to
That process, while necessary, will be hot and uncomfortable, like the climes of
Which is, of course, about 1,773 kilometres from New Jersey, the home state of
Not now, Andrew Pott!
Rank: 17
Mood: 🤫
The skateboarding industry is not what one would call fair. It doesn't run on a universally agreed-upon understanding of merit. There are "rules," but most of them are unwritten or apply only to certain people or places or places in time. That, in some ways, is good. It means that when companies build out their rosters of sponsored riders, they choose who they think best represents their brand, rather than focusing on who the "best" skateboarders are.
Because there are a lot of talented skateboarders out there, not all of them are interesting, from a marketing perspective. But even some that have that twin potential are forgotten.
Remember Andrew Pott? The former Shorty's Skateboards rider was the type of charge you'd expect for such a brand: baggy clothes, technical tricks, and something a lil weird going on to keep you on your toes.
With Pott, there's no clearer visage of this than his XXL garms billowing as he kickflip-boardslid the Wilshire 15 at 15 years old, having pushed mongo on the way up to the rail — that's the trifecta.
There was always an urgency to Pott's skating, as Sam Korman described it in Waxing the Curb. "[Pott's] style was sketchy, landing everything to see what he could get away with, as if he were on the lam, and didn’t have time for a better take."
If he was rushing, perhaps it's because time in the industry is short for most. Pott's career petered out in the early 2010s, with his last video part serving as the closer in Everywhere We Go (2011) by Famous Stars & Straps, an impressive display even by today's standards (hardflip-feeble down a handrail? Why not). He'd also have standout sections on Oakley's Our Life (2006) and Digital's F.Y.I. (2009) along the way.
That's the thing about the skateboarding industry: Despite Pott's very legitimate talents and succeeding at making his mark in all the traditional ways expected of skateboarders at the time (including hardflipping Wallenberg), he never broke through in any serious way — no significant coverage. No magazine covers. So it's understandable that he might feel torn seeing Antwuan Dixon grace the front of Thrasher Magazine in 2026 with a switch-frontside-kickflip down the same set of stairs that he switch-frontside-kickflipped in 2009.
Torn enough to make a somewhat confused Instagram post both congratulating Dixon and making sure that everyone knows he already did that trick 17 years earlier.
To an extent, that's understandable and a reflection of the cruelties of an industry where the occasional mongo push can doom you to the C-Leagues — but not now, Andrew! Let us enjoy the Antwuan Dixon comeback in peace. C'mon, man.
Something to consider:
Paul Gains
They're also pretty funny. I saw this coyote last week and as soon as I pressed record they started letting it rip.
Another thing to consider: I quit my day job in marketing and today is my last day. I'm going to take some time to finish up a new book project, but I'll also be open to more freelance opportunities. If you're looking for someone to write about something, get at me.
Good thing:
José Vadi
Another good thing:
A good thing about a bad thing:
Nilay Patel
Yes! Another good thing:
Thom Callan-Riley
Ryan's corner, Switzerland edition:
Full disclosure: I love these videos.
A good pod round-up:
Templeton
A good Kasso clickbait headline:
A good chat with the star(!) of Hard Reset:
Snack
A good chat about the Future of Emerica:
Josh Sabini
A good thing about a very old thing:
Katherine Rundell
Until next week… the cherry blossoms are blooming. Take a moment to stand underneath them.
Laser Quit Smoking Massage
NEWEST PRESS
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A collection of essays that I think you might like. The Edmonton Journal called it a "local book set to make a mark in 2024," The CBC said it's "quirky yet insightful" (lol), and it won Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2025 Alberta Book Publishing Awards.
Book cover by Hiller Goodspeed.
Right, Down + Circle
ECW PRESS
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I wrote a book about the history and cultural impact of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that you can find at your local bookshop or order online now. I think you might like this one, too.
Photo via The Palomino.
