From Balls To Boards: Teens Increasingly Choosing "Action" Sports

July 2, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — America’s favorite pastime faces some major-league hurdles if marketers don’t learn how to do a better job of plugging into youth culture, says a University of Florida researcher.

With their rugged gear, dangerous moves and rebellious stars, action sports convey an image of fringe individualism. But skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding and other so-called action sports are surpassing baseball and basketball as the most popular sports to watch on television among today’s teenagers, according to a new study by Gregg Bennett, a UF assistant professor of exercise and sports sciences.

“Baseball is not connecting with the youth market like it once did,” Bennett said, noting that major sports are hugely dependent on advertising endorsements. “The baseball people should look at the marketing efforts of the action sports companies, broadcasters and sponsors, because they are effectively reaching the Generation Y market.”

Bennett is the lead researcher on a study in the current Journal of Sport Management that examined middle and high school students’ perceptions of action versus traditional sports. The study, which surveyed 367 students at a Florida school, found more students preferred watching action sports – including skateboarding, surfing, skiing and snowboarding – than baseball, basketball and hockey.

The study didn’t reveal all old-school sports as being in a death spiral. Football remained far and away the most popular sport, with more than 41 percent of students listing it as their top viewing preference. Nine percent chose action sports, while 6 percent chose basketball; 5.2 percent, hockey; and 1.6 percent, baseball. Soccer proved more popular than action sports, with 11.7 percent preferring soccer.

But the study, which also found that students preferred watching the X Games, ESPN’s national action sports competition, over the World Series and World Cup, highlights the mushrooming appeal of a class of sports that was considered to be on the fringe as little as a decade ago, Bennett said.

Other data cited in Bennett’s study supports the meteoric rise of action sports:

• More Americans skateboarded in 2000 than played baseball. Bennett said the number of youths playing baseball declined 13 percent from 2000 to 2001.

• Teenagers watched 10 percent more action sports on television in 2001 than in 1999 and also ranked watching action sports over college football and college basketball.

• ESPN, which first began airing action sports in the early 1990s, today devotes at least 900 hours to action sports annually.

Bill Carter, president of Fuse Integrated Sports Marketing, a Vermont-based sports marketing firm for action and adventure sports, attributed the rise of action sports, in part, to youths embracing “the values of what was once only the youth ‘counter-culture’ like individualism and creativity.”

Over the past decade, he said, “traditional team sport values, such as teamwork and competition, became less important.”

Bennett said savvy marketing, which aggressively pumps action sports to youth and teenage audiences, also is important. These days, even Tony the Tiger rides a skateboard, he said. “What has happened is the marketers have done a magnificent job of telling people, ‘This is good stuff. You guys like it,’” he said.

But Bennett also said action sports hold a special appeal for today’s teenagers, especially teenage males. Traditional sports such as baseball are highly organized, with children as young as 3 already participating in structured T-ball leagues. Until very recently, however, action sports have had no organized structure and no controlling adult authority – something very attractive to most adolescents, he said. “I think because traditional sports are so regimented, kids want to do something on their own,” he said.

Not only that, it’s easy to participate in some action sports – for skateboarding, all youths need are the boards. And many parents prefer to see their children skateboarding in the driveway than playing a pickup game of baseball at an out-of-view park, Bennett said.

Ironically, the increasing popularity of action sports poses some danger for the popularity of this new breed of sports, Bennett said.

This spring, ESPN’s Global X Games for the first time featured skateboarding involving team competitions. Meanwhile, more and more organized leagues and competitions for action sports are popping up nationwide. Bennett said the test for action sports will be whether this increasing level of institutionalization will dim action sports’ appeal to the youth market that follows Generation Y – children now 6 or younger who will become the next generation of sports fans.

Carter said action sports will remain popular as long as young people continue to feel a sense that they “own” action sports. “My belief is that as long as youth culture remains in control and feel they have ownership of action sports, and as long as action sports retain their current values, youth culture will not turn away from them,” he said.