Bottleneck of Slopestyle

I’ve been thinking a lot about this sport and the quiet issue sitting underneath it... facilities.

Now, I’m not interested in ranting about how unfair slopestyle is. I chose this sport. I take the good with the bad. But it is worth acknowledging something real, and that is how far you go in slopestyle is heavily correlated to whether you live near an indoor park or a proper training facility.

In the last three years I’ve moved three different times just to get access to the same setups other riders have on their doorstep. And I’m not the only one. That’s a problem for current riders, future riders, and the sport itself.

Why? Because slopestyle sits in a weird spot on a Venn diagram.

Snow is actually insane

High resource requirement on one side, low popularity on the other.

If a sport is massive, like basketball, the audience justifies courts everywhere.

If a sport is niche but cheap, like ultimate frisbee, all you need is grass and a disc.

Slopestyle?

Bikes are expensive, gear is expensive, and after the skatepark phase you hit a brick wall. There's nowhere to go safely learn the next level. You need airbags, resi, foam pits, big ramps, coaching, space. And unless you live in one of a handful of places worldwide, you’re trying to break into an elite sport without elite infrastructure.

So when you zoom out, you’re left with two ways to fix the bottleneck:

1. Lower the cost of entry (cheaper bikes, more public facilities)

2. Increase the audience (grow the fan base, the competition field, the hype)

Because slopestyle runs almost entirely on big brands sponsoring events, riders, and parks, I actually think the second option, growing the audience is the real lever.

And here’s the real problem...

People don't understand what they're watching.

They don’t understand the difficulty, the nuance, or the stakes. To a casual viewer, you see 14 riders hit the same course, doing tricks that all look vaguely similar. The differences that decide the podium are tiny, almost invisible. And then a subjective score appears with no breakdown or explanation.

So viewers leave with questions instead of stories:

How is this run better than that one?

What even is an opposite 360?

Why didn’t the guy who double flipped win?

Why does a small breeze send everyone into panic mode?

Right now slopestyle leans almost entirely on the “wow factor” of the tricks. That works… until it doesn’t. Once the shock wears off, people need something else:

A narrative, a character, a reason to care.

I don’t have the full solution. I’m a competitor. My job is to show up, ride, and tell my story as honestly as I can. But maybe that’s where it starts. If more riders tell their story, if more people understand what’s actually happening behind the scenes, maybe the sport grows the audience it deserves.

And if the audience grows, the opportunities follow. More facilities, more progression, a deeper field, and a better show for everyone.