Investors include Blackstone’s David Blitzer and former NFL star Larry Fitzgerald Jr. The Snow League’s first event is set for March in US.
By all accounts, Shaun White has already cemented his snowboarding legacy.
He’s a three-time Olympic gold medalist (the most of any snowboarder). He’s won 13 X Games gold medals (and another two in skateboarding). He owns a namesake snowboard brand, Whitespace
There’s not much more a pro snowboarder could hope to accomplish. But since his retirement from the sport, White has found himself thinking about building a legacy outside his personal accomplishments—one that could leave the sport better than it was when he competed in it.
White is starting a season-long halfpipe league that will offer more than $1.5 million in prizes in hopes of pulling together what has long been a spread-out, confusing action-sports calendar.
The 37-year-old, three-time Olympic gold medalist, who retired in 2022 after the Beijing Games, is calling the new enterprise The Snow League. Debuting in winter 2025 with a five-event season, The Snow League will feature a global competition format. The league’s first event in March 2025 will be held in the U.S., with the remaining four held at winter resort destinations around the world, and it will conclude after the 2026 Milano Cortina Games.
Snowboard Finals 2021 Toyota U.S. Grand Prix at Copper Mountain, CO Photo: @ussnowboardteam
“In the end, we really want to be that premier thing, where it’s amazing to go to the Olympics and win a medal, but this is like winning Wimbledon or the NBA finals. It’s almost more prestigious,” White said.
“Everything we’re doing is very calculated,” White added. “We want to do it correct; we don’t want to have to go back on something. We want to crawl before we walk before we run.”
Athletes—the world’s top 20 men and top 16 women—will accumulate points based on their results from each event, with a world champion being crowned after the last event. Riders will be chosen via a modified ranking from the World Snowboard Points List, recognized as the definitive ranking system for competitive snowboarding globally.
Each event will include a training day and two days of competition—a qualifying day and a championship day.
For the qualifier, athletes will be seeded into four heats, with a best-of-two run format. The top qualifier from each heat will advance to the championship. The second- and third-highest scorers from each heat will enter another heat to compete for the last four championship spots.
In the championship, eight men and eight women will compete in a head-to-head bracket format with quarterfinals, semifinals and finals rounds. Seeding is based on qualifying day finishes. Athletes must win two of three runs to advance to the next round in the bracket.
Though snowboarders capture the public’s imagination at certain times — notably, the Olympics — keeping track of the sport’s biggest stars — Chloe Kim, Scotty James and Ayumu Hirano — has always been a chore because most halfpipe contests are standalone events with inconsistent TV and streaming schedules from FIS-organized Grand Prix events and, every four years, the Olympics. X Games. Dew Tour. Not to mention resurging rail jams—Red Bull Heavy Metal, DIYX Street Jam, Red Bull Rail Yard—and the chance to blend freestyle and freeride at Natural Selection Tour.
But the gap White has identified is a significant one. These events exist in vacuums. Most major sports have a league of some kind. They allow fans to follow storylines as they develop from game to game or stop to stop, crowning an overall winner at the end of the season.
Meanwhile, White remembers competing for a $50,000 grand prize at contests in Japan when he was a kid. Those sort of prizes are more rare these days, and his league plans to bring those back, along with a bonus for riders who win the season-long standings.
“It feels very much needed right now,” said Ian Warda, a former executive at Burton who will serve as the league’s chief operating officer. “The sport is in an interesting, transitionary phase, sort of at a critical point, where do we go from here? I couldn’t be more thankful that Shaun is taking responsibility on this, and sees it as something that’s important to him to foster the next generation and build a better platform.
“There is no one-stop destination for snowboarding and freeskiing,” added Warda. “The content is scattered; the media landscape is very fragmented. It’s hard as a fan to follow it,” Warda added. “Name a sport that people would recognize. Most people can start rattling off the top teams, the top players, where to watch, where to buy merch—that ecosystem of the sport, the business around it. That doesn’t really exist in snowboarding.”White made clear he is not trying to crowd out the X Games or any other event or tour — only to give the sport a more reliable calendar with more lucrative cash prizes. He’s also looking to make the league part of a complex Olympic qualifying process.
All of this fits in well with what White has done over his one-of-a-kind career. Starting as a teenager, he essentially created the game being played today on halfpipes around the world. For decades, snowboarders struggled with the concept of competing for big money and even Olympic medals. White made that the norm, and now that he has left the competitive side, he’s hoping to give his fellow riders a bigger canvas on which to perform.
White says the seed for the idea that would eventually become The Snow League was planted in his brain many years ago, during a season in which he entered every single major competition he could—not just in halfpipe, his primary specialty, but slopestyle and rail jams as well—and went undefeated.
“I’d never done that before,” White said. “I’ll never forget getting to the end of the season and getting interviewed, and this person was like, ‘What an incredible accomplishment, what a season, but how does it feel not to be the world champion?’ In that moment I realized there’s such a disconnect in our sport—so many big events that don’t really feed into each other. If I can leave this sport in a better place than I found it, it would be amazing."
The league is still locking down deals with resorts and looking for the best-possible media distribution model. The leader of US Ski & Snowboard, Sophie Goldschmidt, backs the concept. Kim, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, is among the riders White has approached who is supportive of the new league.
“It’ll be great to have competitions that focus more on the athletes, giving us more opportunities to shine and do what we do best: snowboard,” Kim said. “I’m grateful to Shaun for giving back to the sport and his unwavering mission to uplift it.”
Snowboarders aren’t unlike many pro athletes, in that endorsements usually make up a bigger part of their income than prize money. Still, White would like to see them holding bigger checks at the end of events they fly around the world to be part of.
“A lot of athletes are, like, ‘Man, I just don’t want to fly to New Zealand and participate in a competition that’s going to make me $5,000 when the flight down there and the hotel costs more than that,’” White said. “And who is going to see it? I can post it on my social page, but that’s about it.”
The total prize purse for The Snow League’s first season will be at least $1.5 million, the highest in the sport. A prize purse will be awarded at each of the season’s five events as well as at the end of the season, when an additional prize will be distributed to the league’s top finishers.
It’s no secret that the money in snowboarding and freeskiing isn’t made on the snow. Action sports athletes are largely supported by their sponsors, who often cover the costs of equipment, coaching, travel and more. An athlete might make $5,000 making a competition podium, but depending on where they’re based and where the contest was held, that might barely cover travel and lodging.
“We’re gonna pay the whole field; if you’ve qualified to get to the event, you will get compensated for being there,” White said. As much as The Snow League is about giving the world’s elite riders and skiers a premier competitive platform, White also hopes it provides a platform for the next generation of riders to break out.
The league is backed by a who’s who of investors including Will Ventures, Ares Management funds, David Blitzer and Ryan Sports Ventures, with Range Sports advising on media rights and commercial partnerships strategy and execution.
The Snow League aims to have linear coverage around the world as well as more access through digital, both live and on-demand. There is, as of right now, no concrete plan for a Drive to Survive–style documentary…but a photographer travels with White and the team, capturing content in meetings or in Zoom conversations with athletes.
“There will be component of storytelling in some way that goes beyond just the live broadcast, for sure,” White said.
“One of the principles in building this is to make it more appealing to a new fan and what we would call a casual sports fan,” Warda said. “One of the reference points is this phenomenon of human interest storytelling in sports—behind the scenes and under the hood, behind the goggles, sort of developing the characters of our sport. People develop a personal connection to the athletes, how they’re living their lives, their struggles and triumphs.”
The Snow League also has the potential to create a net positive impact on the lives of amateur skiers and snowboarders who may never compete at a high level.
Some of the resorts the team is considering for its first season stops have permanent 22-foot halfpipes…but not all. The attendance and revenue The Snow League could generate means resorts may have the impetus and support to construct new features not only for the event but for visitors to enjoy long after.
“I think it’ll inspire more halfpipes to be built at local resorts because the athletes are calling for it, and when there’s a demand there’s a response usually,” White said. He also thinks it will inspire the next generation of halfpipe athletes because now there is a tour to follow.
“The Snow League really will be Shaun’s biggest legacy,” Warda said. “Bigger than anything else he’s ever done.”