Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

World Cup redux – Re-inventing a tired concept

"It's an impossible situation. Manufacturers are spending way too much money supporting a dysfunctional format. The FIS is completely unrealistic about the matter.
62263_l

"It's an impossible situation. Manufacturers are spending way too much money supporting a dysfunctional format. The FIS is completely unrealistic about the matter."

- Christian Frison-Roche, Salomon race director

 

As I sit here in bed recovering from my knee surgery, I can't help but reflect back on the season we've just lived through. What a party we put on in February. What a party we put on in March. What a party we put on in April. Oooh! What a hangover. Still...

From the Olympics to the Paralympics and then straight into the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, Whistlerites showed the world in 2010 what having a good time in the mountains is all about. Great racing, great hosting - inclusive ambiance - it all came together beautifully. Is there a lesson here for the ski industry? I certainly think so.

Remember the 1960s? In those days new mountain resorts were popping out of the ground like mushrooms on a cow pie. And skiing was the sexy winter activity of the young and plugged in. The future of the sport had never looked so promising. Ski manufacturers were flush with cash. Clothing designers were setting new standards in whimsy. And television (still a relatively new medium for consuming sports) couldn't wait to get a piece of the on-snow action.

Inspired by soccer's successful World Cup format, skiing's newly formulated global circuit fulfilled the needs of the market perfectly. Exciting (and sexy) young skiers like Jean Claude Killy, Karl Schranz and our own Nancy Greene were about to be unleashed on a public clamouring for hot new stars. For destination resorts, it made total sense to get involved - for them the World Cup provided an ideal showcase for their new slopes and infrastructure. As for the hard-goods side of the equation, the fledgling circuit was everything manufacturers could have hoped for. Suddenly they had a series of TV-friendly events where they could brand their products in combination with the athletes they chose to promote.

It was a marriage made in marketing heaven. And it worked beautifully.

But that was back in 1966. Alas, today's clunky World Cup format needs a serious overhaul. It's out of touch with the times. The circuit's environmental footprint is way too big, the schedule is a dizzying mishmash of globe-crossing events, sponsors are unhappy, the press is indifferent and ski racing is far from the only snowsport game in town anymore. As we saw this past winter.

Indeed, unless something is done soon to rectify the situation, chances are that alpine ski racing's creaky World Cup - once the gold standard by which every other individual sport was judged - will struggle to make it to its 50 th birthday party...

So what to do about it? I think it's time to re-invent the concept. Make the whole dang thing relevant again. And how do you do that? Easy - you inspire yourself from the past. It's time to bring everyone together again. Time for the snowsport tribes to gather.

Know what I mean? Indulge me for a moment. Jump on my magic carpet and travel with me to the future.

We're now in the year 2016 and the newly re-vamped World Cup is celebrating the successful completion of its 50 th season. And what a year it's been. "Our new format has been an unqualified success," says current FIS World Cup boss, Doug Perry. The founder of Whistler's groundbreaking World Ski and Snowboard Festival, the energetic event promoter was recruited by the FIS back in 2010 when its members finally realized that the World Cup ship was about to sink. "It's been a long, hard climb," adds Perry of the last six years of work, "but it's certainly been worth it. Our two World Cup Festivals turned out to be the biggest snowsport parties of the year! Our sponsors, our media partners - the athletes and coaches even - everyone is totally over the moon..."

Over the moon? World Cup Snowsport Festivals? Happy sponsors? Say what?

Indeed. The "new" World Cup looks nothing like its predecessor. For one, global gatherings have been scaled back dramatically. In fact, there are now only two international World Cup Festivals a year - one in early December and one in mid-March. But what parties they've become! Incorporating all the FIS snowsport disciplines - freestyle, alpine, snowboard, skicross and half-pipe (with the 30 top competitors invited in each discipline) - these festivals are week-long multi-venue snow circuses that showcase the very best snowsport talent in the world.

"This year," says the World Cup director, "we launched the Tour de Rockies in December and the Tour d'Arlberg in March. Our first festival - dubbed 'the Christmas Tour' - was centred on Aspen Mountain and its outlying resorts. We got three events off per discipline there in six different venues. It was huge! We then moved to Europe in the spring where the festival had St Anton as its hub. And that worked great too. In all, each competitor got six starts in his - or her - designated discipline. Best overall results won the Cup."

Next year, he adds, Japan's Hakuba region will be a featured festival site for the Tour de Nipon event, while Banff is also being considered for a Tour du Nord in the spring...

It's the enthusiasm of the participants, however, that really surprised the old guard. "It's like a snowsport Olympics," explains Canadian Team Technical Director, Rob Boyd. "And the ambiance is entirely positive. I know my athletes really enjoy mixing with racers from other disciplines. We should have been doing this years ago..."

And the media is eating it up. Why not? After all, the new World Cup management team realized immediately just how much of a partnership had to be set up between athletes and press if the new format was going to work. The old us-and-them attitude is a thing of the past. Both groups interact together freely - off and on the hill - and the "insider" stories thus created offer the viewing public a compelling backstage perspective into the lives and travails of these competitors. "It's the kind of sports 'entertainment' that the public loves," says gregarious World Cup media director Britt Janyk. "It's way more fun to follow somebody's racing career if you know what they're like in their hearts. These are people stories! Not just racer stories..."

But it's not just about the racing. The Snowsports Village organized during each World Cup Festival features the same kind of atmosphere as an old-time town carnival. And it's totally interactive. Whether you're looking to try the raddest in ski designs or you just want to hang with your buddies and watch the latest snowboard film, the village is where you'll invariably find the action. It's like a cross between a trade show, a flea market and an on-snow beer commercial. And it's fun, totally fun.

Meanwhile, a variety of musical bands are hired to play on assorted outdoor stages set up throughout the host resorts specifically for the festival. In the evenings, big-name groups play to sold-out audiences. Event partners sponsor parties and contests and lots of giveaways each night. "World Cup Festival rocks," enthused the Rocky Mountain News in a glowing article on the new format recently. "It's like a return to the '60s."

And the competition among resorts to host these super-events is huge. For the hosting criteria also bestows the much-ballyhooed "Green-Resort" designation on winning bids. Why?  Because the first hurdle for any resort to qualify is its ability to get the various teams from airport to slopes using only public transport. Whether by train or by bus - or even by underground subway if available - it doesn't matter. No allowance is made for private modes of transportation. In other words, the long parade of cars and trucks that made such a carbon-burning nightmare of the old World Cup circuit is now a thing of the past...

And that, interestingly enough, has spurred most international resorts to explore new, more environmentally friendly means of getting their customers to the snow.

But car travel is just the tip of the iceberg. To qualify as festival hosts, the prospective resorts also have to demonstrate how they are mitigating their environmental footprint on the local mountains. Whether solar-powered lifts or geo-thermal heating, wind-generated electricity or "clean" snowmaking, each green initiative is considered on its merits - and then tallied against the competition. Greenest resort wins the honour of hosting the world's most progressive snowsport festival.

So there you go. Part WSSF, part X-Games, part Snoweater Olympics - and totally committed to creating sustainable events - the new Super World Cup format is breaking new ground at every step. More importantly, it's a huge hit with the kids. Snowsports have never looked so good.

Hope you liked our little trip into the future. Hope you had fun with it. Now - get off my carpet and let me fly on. Wow, that morphine drip sure is strong...