Dew Tour

The Dew Tour is an extreme sports circuit organized by the TEN: The Enthusiast Network.

History

The Dew Tour was originally formed as a joint venture between NBC Sports and Live Nation. In 2008, NBC sold a stake in the series to MTV Networks, forming a new joint venture Alli to manage the series, and broadcasting events on MTV2. Following the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, MTV sold its stake back to NBC in June 2011, with events being aired on NBCSN and Comcast SportsNet networks.^[1][2] Replays of past Dew Tour events (summer and winter) can be watched regularly on Universal HD. In January 2016, Mountain Dew and the TEN: The Enthusiast Network announced an official partnership for the Dew Tour, with Mountain Dew continuing as the title sponsor and TEN serving as its strategic partner leading execution, content, and event staging. TEN is the publisher of Transworld Skateboarding, Transworld Snowboarding, Snowboarder Magazine, Newschoolers, GrindTV, Powder Magazine, Surfer Magazine, and many other adventure lifestyle and action sports media properties. ^[3]

The Dew Tour consists of athletes performing in multiple events: BMX Dirt, Park and Vert; Freestyle Motorcross, and Skateboard Street and Vert.

The tour was announced in late 2004, and made its debut in Louisville, KY in June 2005. The tour then made stops in Denver, Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California, and wrapped up its inaugural season in Orlando, Florida, in October that year. In its first year, the tour was a major success and returned to those five cities in 2006. In 2007, the tour replaced their Louisville, Denver and San Jose stops with events in Baltimore, Cleveland, and Salt Lake City. They did return to Portland and Orlando that year. The Salt Lake City event brought an overall attendance record to the tour. In 2009, the tour was trimmed down to four events for the BMX and skateboard athletes, and three stops for the FMX riders. The tour left Baltimore and Cleveland and brought two sanctioned events to Chicago for BMX, and to Boston for skateboarding. The tour continued to return to Portland, Salt Lake City, and Orlando. In 2010, the tour relocated its final event in Orlando to Las Vegas, due to the closure of the Amway Arena. In 2011, the tour was reduced to four stops: Ocean City, Maryland, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Las Vegas. A new event, in skateboard bowl, was introduced in Ocean City.

The first Winter Dew Tour, a spin-off focusing on winter sports, was held in late 2008–early 2009 with events in snowboarding and freestyle skiing.^[4] The tour made stops at the Breckenridge Ski Resort, Mount Snow, Northstar California. During the 2010-2011 season, the tour returned to Breckenridge, but moved its Vermont stop from Mount Snow to the Killington Ski Resort, and the Tahoe event to Snowbasin in Ogden, Utah.

For 2012, the Dew Tour introduced a brand new tour format. It was reduced to three stops from four, with two summer events in Ocean City and San Francisco, and one winter event in Breckenridge; management argued that the increased saturation of extreme sports events made it harder to attract athletes to participate. Streetstyle and big air events were also introduced in San Francisco and Breckenridge respectively. Although total attendance and television viewership was down for the season, the average attendance rose, and viewership of digital content also increased.^[5]

In May 2013, the United States Ski and Snowboard Association reached an agreement with Alli to allow the Winter Dew Tour event in Breckenridge to serve as a qualifying event for the 2014 Winter Olympics team. The arrangement gave the USSA control over certain aspects of the event, such as its format, and selling advertising to its own official sponsors during the telecast, and to promote its own Grand Prix series.^[6]

In 2014, the tour returned to Ocean City and Breckenridge, but not San Francisco. They instead brought the tour back to Portland, and then debuted it in Brooklyn, New York. In 2015, the tour was reduced again to two summer events and one winter event. The summer events were held in Chicago and Los Angeles, and the winter event returned to Breckenridge. They also did not have most of their signature events at those stops. The 2014 Ocean City event brought the biggest crowd in the town's history.

In 2016, the Dew Tour was "re-imagined" when the event format changed to include the first Dew Tour Team Challenge Presented By Transworld Skateboarding in addition to the usual individual pro competition. However, for the first time in the individual pro competition, the course was split into four sections — tech, bowl, rails, and, gaps. Competitors had to skate each of the four courses with the combined score from each determining the winner. ^[7]

The skateboard Team Challenge was held at Long Beach, California on July 24. Nine hardgood brands were invited to compete including Baker Skateboards, Blind Skateboards, Birdhouse Skateboards, Element Skateboards, Enjoi Skateboards, Flip Skateboards, Plan B Skateboards, Toy Machine Skateboards, and Real Skateboards. Each invited brand assembled a team captain and four specialists who they thought could best skate each of the four course sections.

The Blind Skateboards team won the event. ^[8]

The Team Challenge event continued during the 2016 winter Dew Tour, held at Breckenridge, Colorado December 8–11. Six ski teams and six snowboard teams were invited to compete including Armada Skis, Atomic Skis, Faction Skis, Head Skis, K2 Skis, Volkl Skis, Burton Snowboards, DC Snowboards, Lib Tech Snowboards, Nitro Snowboards, Ride Snowboards, and Salomon Snowboards. Like the skateboard event, each brand assembled a team captain and one specialist each for the jump and rail sections. ^[9]

The modified halfpipe event was cancelled due to low snowfall.

Atomic won the ski Team Challenge and Burton won the snowboard Team Challenge. ^[10]

See also

• X Games
• Gravity Games
• Mountain Dew
• TEN: The Enthusiast Network

References

External links

• Official website