Don’t expect to see Mayor John Hickenlooper get on a skateboard anytime soon. But like much of the city he represents, don’t be surprised to see him get behind one, either.
Hickenlooper, who claims three attempts at skating himself, has never fallen into the traditional politician mold. Perhaps that’s why he’s so quick to embrace the alternative sports genre and hail the burgeoning faction of “action” sports that includes not only skateboarding, but also freestyle BMX and motocross, among others.
The most recent example of Denver’s support for this contemporary breed of sport arrives in the Dew Action Sports Tour, which selected the Mile High City among the five host sites of its inaugural tour this summer, rolling into the Pepsi Center from July 7-10. Hickenlooper was among a panel of enthusiasts who came out to Denver’s bustling Municipal Skate Park last week to ring the bell and welcome the new tour to town.
“I’ve always thought of Denver as a sort of ‘can Dew’ city,” the mayor said in what may qualify as the worst pun of his political career. “We have more miles of bike path than any other city in the nation and the largest municipal skate park in the country, as well as one of the first. Denver is an active city.”
It is also, as the mayor notes, an openly experimental city when it comes to sports. Whether it’s the ABA, AFL, NLL or MLS, Denver’s tradition is to open its arms and greet new sports and activities with unabated enthusiasm. That zeal is equally evident in the action sports world, where throngs of devotees regularly visit ski resorts, skate parks, whitewater kayak parks, rock climbing walls and mountain biking trails throughout the state.
But even with a history of successful sports franchises and a statewide heritage of action sports success ranging from ESPN’s Winter X Games in Aspen to Tony Hawk’s Gigantic Skate Park Tour and Boom Boom Huck Jam stops in LoDo, Denver enters new waters with the Dew Action Sports Tour, which makes the first attempt at what might be considered an action sports league, essentially a full competitive season of skateboarding, BMX and freestyle motocross rather than sporadic events such as the X Games or Gravity Games with no unifying structure. Indeed, everyone involved is in uncharted territory.
“It’s a risk, but it’s also an opportunity,” said Dew Tour general manager Wade Martin, a former director of the Gravity Games who was at the skate park promoting his new event last week. “We believe it’s time to go in a different direction with action sports and do something else by creating a pro tour with a season-long structure.”
The risk, according to published reports in Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, is about $40 million this year alone. The opportunity, in Martin’s view, is a chance to unify a fractious generation of individual sports enthusiasts that already outnumber Little League baseball players nationwide by giving them a reason to turn on the television and watch their action sports heroes just like their parents watching the PGA Tour.
“It’s about time,” pro skater Andy MacDonald said. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years professionally, and we’ve needed this in our sports. It’s going to really legitimize action sports.”
Denver joins a group of mid- sized markets that includes Louisville, Ky.; Portland, Ore.; San Jose, Calif.; and Orlando, Fla., for this first season of the tour in large part because of the influence of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, owner of the Pepsi Center (Mountain Dew is a Pepsi product) and five of the seven local pro sports franchises. Kroenke also recognizes the potential of this unusual series and wants to grow with it from the ground up.
But perhaps most important to the NBC-owned tour’s decision to put Denver on the inaugural circuit is the proven enthusiasm Coloradans have shown throughout history for the various incarnations of “action,” “alternative,” “adventure” and “extreme” sports ranging from skateboarding to snowboarding, mountain biking, kayaking and even bull riding in between.
“It’s a market that’s open to different sports, alternative sports, non-mainstream sports,” said Martin, a former season pass-holder at Arapahoe Basin. “It’s individual sports heaven here.”
Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
