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Skateboarding isn't a crime -- it's here to stay. Find out how videogames helped evolve skating from a fad to an entire industry.
In 1999, Tony Hawk made skateboarding cool again.
It may have been a coincidence that 1999 was the year he joined forces with Activision to front Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, a gamble of a game that few thought would be a hit. Until they played it, that is. The addictive trick-based gameplay quickly swept the country and made THPS an instant classic and an all-time bestseller. It also secured Hawk's status as a household name, along with fellow skaters like Buckey Lasek and Bob Burnquist.
Of course, Hawk had enjoyed the title of world's best skater for years, even earning small roles in movies like Police Academy 4 and Gleaming the Cube. But he had never before enjoyed the fame wrought from the success of his first videogame. Quickly, kids around the country turned their eyes from videogames and started to follow professional skateboarding, which had finally began to get on track. The same year, Hawk landed the first ever 900 at the X Games: two-and-a-half rotations in the air, a trick still obscenely difficult to pull off. The historic move won Hawk the gold for best trick. Today, skating has shed its underground roots and is mainstream, thanks in part to a legendary spin and a sleeper-hit videogame.
Skateboarding, ironically, gained popularity at the same time that surfing did. In California in the 1950s, surfers looking to take the wave on the road resorted to the first rudimentary skateboards, contraptions of rollerskate wheels attached to planks of wood. For a time it was known as "street surfing." The popularity of skating waned until the 1970s when new kicktail boards were invented, allowing riders to perform a number of new tricks, including the ollie, skating's most important move. Innovations like polyurethane wheels made for a better ride and better tricks. Soon, boards were being mass-produced.
The sport received another boost in the '80s, thanks to a number of videogames like Skate or Die and T&C Surf Designs. Popularity continued to grow until, for no real reason, it was deemed nothing more than a fad and tapered off again. Even Hawk struggled, as his professional career became an underground activity that parents didn't want their kids involved in. Skating was outlawed in areas of some cities. Norway even went so far as to deem skateboarding illegal altogether, for a time.
It was in the mid '90s that skating surged once more, this time for good. High-profile televised contests like the X Games helped contribute to the growth of skating and other extreme sports more than anything in skateboarding history. By the time Hawk lands the 900 and THPS is released, skateboarding is here to stay. Norway even repealed its skate ban.
Today skateboarding is more than a sport -- it's an entire industry. Skate shoes, skateboards, skate clothes, skate movies, skate videogames, skate magazines and skate contests comprise a billion-dollar business in which professionals can make hundreds of thousands a dollars a year in prize winnings and sponsorships. With the increased popularity, the quality of skating has risen dramatically -- so old pros like Hawk and Lasek are being pushed by a new crop of athletes like Danny Way and Shaun White.
Way, a big air specialist, made headlines in 2005 when he was the first person to jump over the Great Wall of China without a motor vehicle and land successfully (he did it five times). Electronic Arts re-creates Way's Mega Ramp in the upcoming game Skate, set to release next week. Instead of skating in empty pools and makeshift ramps, thousands of city-funded public skate parks are spread across the country, proof that once and for all skateboarding is not a crime.
Posted: 11 Sep 2007
