Wow what a season. I knew right away when I started considering a move to Mt. Bachelor from my previous role with Sunday River that there would be surprises and challenges. There was plenty of heat in the kitchen. Is it gone now? Nope. But there is less due to markedly improved communication with guests and the community – and our goal is to continue to mend those fences. The folks who frequent the Freeride Blog this time of year are our sponsored athletes, local shop owners/employees, rabid riders, and their friends and family. This is a tight group, and one that I wanted to take time to address.
I have always embraced the “freeride” side of our sport from a marketing perspective. Whether it be the photo/film shoot side, the park and pipe product (going to bat for the park department), or the online promotion of all such things. At the handful of previous ski areas I was employed at, there was usually little or no focus on bettering such things. I truly enjoyed building new programs from scratch to help the best riders on the mountain gain the respect they deserved. Along the way, I got an award from Ski Area Management for the creation of the No Bib Jib Series, which was one of the first grassroots event series to allow athletes to compete with their friends on a team. I also organized the east coast’s first superpark 3 years in a row, where athletes got together with their media of choice to hit the biggest features of the year – an opportunity that didn’t exist on the east coast any year prior. Plenty of Heat Harvest attendees are now athletes on the national stage. These resorts didn’t sponsor athletes upon my arrival, but my constant goal of supporting this segment of the industry brought athletes on board. It’s the area of the industry where I got my start – being sponsored, competing, shooting, and filming. I care passionately about it.
At Mt. Bachelor instead of there being little to no programs in place, there was an established sponsor program. I arrived in September to a selection process already underway. Knowing full well that I was not informed to determine who should be selected or if the preset contract was legit, we ran with what was in place from previous seasons and I deferred to folks who knew the crop of applicants. It was best to assess and make adjustments in the future. It was setup in a cookie cutter fashion where everyone agreed to get XYZ from Mt. Bachelor and give XYZ to Mt. Bachelor. I found that odd since not all sponsored athletes are created equal. Some travel non-stop and are rarely in town as they pursue their international goals, some are more local level professionals who would likely be involved more. But it would have to do for year one as it was already done – the requirements present led to some challenges, but we could fix things up in year two, which is where we find ourselves now. This year’s sponsor program will reflect less of a one’s size fits all approach.
We set out to improve much of the freeride experience in the interim. There was agreement that the old freeride series was stale, so we developed the Oregon Cup. We added cash to the prize pools and developed event formats that would allow competitors to get a lot of runs instead of standing around. Some worked great, some were so-so. We’re keeping the great ones and re-working the so-so’s.
We moved the marketing department from town to the mountain, right on the snow. I’m told that in the past it has been challenging for some of our top athletes to get assistance with mountain access when they have other top pros visiting or folks to film with. This move to the mountain greatly reduced that challenge for those who stayed in touch, or simply asked. Will every request without notice be able to fulfilled? Likely not – but if we know ahead of time it helps a lot, and if we don’t, we’ll hopefully be around to help. This is an industry standard.
We built an online portal for all things freeride, instead of the old static page. This feature allowed those who wanted it to get far greater local exposure and the feedback was that it was another example of the positive moves. We are putting more resources into it this year again.
We made a concerted effort to bring exposure opportunities to our sponsored athletes. A bunch this year got high paying gigs shooting with Hewlett Packard, others will be featured in Cascades East this fall, others will be on our trail map this year, and now our marketing materials actually highlight Bend talent instead of using bland stock shots. These opportunities are not up everyone’s alley, but they represent Mt. Bachelor using our resources and contacts to offer new opportunities to our core group of riders. A majority of our athletes have come forward saying how cool it is that Mt. Bachelor is working with/for them more now.
In the past our Park Manager had to pull teeth to host big exposure park shoots at the end of the year. Hames deserves a ton of props for the work that he does and he deserves the chance to show it off. This past spring we hosted 4 different large scale park shoots. Hames is the man who makes it happen on the hill, but this year he had a new ally in that process who was snowmobiling athletes, gathering the lift tickets, handling insurance, and assisting on-site.
Access to industry passes for key photographers and videographers has become the norm quickly. When we get requests for photos and video from paying outlets, we pass them along to these same key folks. It’s a partnership.
These moves have occurred all the while defending the increased park acreage and focus to the larger non-park crowd who would rather see it gone. Here is an excerpt from one of those exchanges:
"Please give Chipper back to the skiers. It has always been one the favorite runs for veteran, long time Mt Bachelor skiers (read: Season Pass Holders who paid full price for their skiing rather than the current "stimulus" prices).
By moving the "terrain park" to chipper you have drastically changed one of the best spots on the mountain, tailoring it for a very few users. Please take this seriously; it is the topic of a lot of lift chair conversations." - Guest
"The terrain park is currently our most highly trafficked run by a wide margin. These people are guests, and most season passholders, and their numbers are not few. We have a wide variety of publics to make happy. Terrain parks reside on about 2% of our total terrain. They are an integral part of all ski areas currently and are likely to increase in the future, at all ski areas as they attract new users into our sport.
We grant that there are guests that would prefer not to see terrain parks on any trail they would care to ski. In today’s ski industry that is simply not likely to occur as having a couple of trails dedicated to parks that are easy to get to, easy to lap, and a moderate pitch is a required part of any ski mountain.
While I do grant that it is not your cup of tea, and that it is surely an inconvenience to your preferred style of skiing, I also think that you deserve a straight answer as to why it is located where it is, and why we have them on a handful of trails. So that is what I have provided. Terrain park users are guests too. As such, they get 2% of the mountain dedicated to their efforts.
We do take it seriously. We take the balance of making many different people happy at the same time seriously. Sometimes that requires compromises between those groups of people and sometimes it just takes some getting used to.
Some people like terrain parks, some people do not, both are good people and deserve their needs met." - Alex
Why this update you ask? It’s simple. I want to make it clear to the passionate freeride patrons that our goals are aligned. Our actions make that clear. We’re going to stay committed to building the ways we can work together. Are we perfect people? Nope. Will there occasionally be decisions made or policies enforced that someone disagrees with? Surely. In a couple of days we’ll publish our list of sponsored athletes for the coming season. It’s a large list and it’s a lot of support. Are there a couple riders that we want to sponsor that have chosen no longer to work with us? Yes. Will an odd rumor that occasionally arises impact our dedication to this segment of our sport? No. We will remain dedicated and open to improvement regardless.
Our goal is your goal. I think we’ll all be more effective listening to each other and working together. I look forward to continuing that method.
Thanks for reading. See you at the mountain.
Alex Kaufman
Marketing Director and one year Bend resident
