Author: Eugene Buchanan

In July, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved the addition of Ski Mountaineering (Skimo) to the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. SGB Executive touched base with a few industry players in the category to see what it could spell for the burgeoning backcountry market, a sector already growing before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With RMR surviving a competitive market, drought and the pandemic, it celebrates the milestone with a new 24,000-square-foot facility in West Virginia to continue growing in its market share.

With the pandemic-fueled explosion in outdoor participation, apps helping consumers to get outside are also booming. onX, an outdoor digital navigation/GPS mapping app that recently expanded into the offroad, ski and trail markets. Founded in 2009 for hunters, the company recently acquired Adventure Projects, whose mobile services offer guidebook details and photos, and the company recently added onX backcountry and offroad to its suite of apps. SGB Executive sat down with VP of Growth Chris Bate for her take on the company’s appetite for navigation apps.

After two buy-outs, most recently by VF Corp. and a cadre of world champion trail runners and Olympians in its fold, Altra is celebrating ten years of helping runners hit the trails. Founder Brian Beckstead discusses everything with SGB Executive from ownership under VF to what’s on the horizon for the brand.

Two of summertime’s biggest tradeshows for paddlesports are just around the corner, The Big Gear Show and Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, with iCAST at the end of July. But after a hard-fought year during the pandemic and a changing tradeshow landscape, is the industry, and are retailers attending? To find out, SGB Executive takes a look at all three.

Two decades after an era of consolidation in the paddlesports category, Laval, Quebec’s Pelican International, resurrected the trend, creating a new powerhouse in the space. 

While retail sales of new outdoor gear boomed during the pandemic, cash registers also rang for secondhand gear at brick and mortar, online and from manufacturers’ efforts to resell used equipment. 

While VF Corp.’s decision to shutter travel luggage brand Eagle Creek this fall came as a blow to its employees and its founders for the adventure travel category, it’s hardly a death knell for the category or the adventure travel market. 

Earlier this year, after more than 40 years as a French-made watersports icon, BIC Sport merged with Tahe Outdoors to become a new brand, TAHE. North American Marketing and Product Manager, Jimmy Blakeney, discussed the merger with SGB Executive.

In a retail sales study conducted by the NPD Group from August 2020 to February 2021, the past pandemic year saw growth in specific outdoor categories, with golf and cycling in the lead.

From Montgomery, AL, to the Midwest and the Rocky Mountains, artificial whitewater parks are sweeping across the U.S. as communities embrace the economic potential of their local waterways and recognize the recreational and revenue value.

NPD presented its 2020/21 snow season year in review to the ski industry this week. Hosted by its sports industry analyst Dirk Sorenson and outdoor industry analyst Laura Hills, the presentation included market dynamics that shaped the 2020/21 snow season, dove into COVID-19 and the impact from social distancing mandates, category trends, categories hardest-hit, and […]

A new category is fueling the world of cycling, and it doesn’t have to do with increased participation from the pandemic. It’s the category of gravel, or cross, riding—a mix between mountain biking and road riding that takes place on long, meandering dirt roads. The reason behind the boom is that riders can ride without fear […]

Steve O’Meara, owner, Kokatat, which this year celebrates 50 years of being Made in the USA, sat down with SGB Executive to talk about the brand’s humble beginnings and its early rise to the national spotlight as a premium paddlesports brand.

Bill Gamber, co-founder and president, Big Agnes, updated SGB Executive on the brand today, the camping category and its sustainability initiatives post-COVID.