Newschoolers was founded in 1999 and sold to corporate America in 2007. It has been surviving mergers and acquisitions ever since. And yet, twenty-five years later, we’re still here as a cornerstone of ski culture.
Our mission has always been to give skiing a home, and to continue to grow the culture we all come from. The staff of NS are all still skiing as hard as our variously tortured bodies allow. We all grew up in this community and want NS to stay true to its roots as THE place that inspires skiers to chat shit and connect from across the world for years to come.
A lesson we’ve learned time and time again over the 25 years we’ve been around is to do it for the sport, and not for the money. Every time we’ve had ideas that we thought would grow the sport, we struggled to find a way to make them happen in the “real” business world of corporate media
“I knew everyone felt it. The members, the athletes, the brands… even the staff. I could hardly ever make all sides happy,” says @Mr.Bishop of his tenure at NS. “We either did the right thing for skiing or made enough money to create a nice profit for the owners. Sometimes we let skiing down, and sometimes we let our owners down but rarely was everyone happy. Newschoolers just doesn’t fit the model.”
More recently, myself and @Dr.Zorko , have been running the show. We’re stoked with what we’ve been able to do in recent years with the Newschoolers Originals series becoming a central focus, along with supporting movies and video projects from around the globe. It’s something we want to continue to grow, the question was how?
And so, to celebrate a quarter century of NS, we decided to do the most reckless thing possible… ask to buy it back. There have been attempts to do so in the past, but this time around we actually made some headway. Credit needs to go to Natasha Cholerton-Brown and the Arena Group here. Unlike with any previous owners, the door was open for discussion.
“We’re very happy to work with the Newschoolers team to return the brand to its roots. It is the best place for Newschoolers to end up. We look forward to seeing this team stand on their own again,” says Natasha.
So call it whatever you want. Call NS dead, call us idiots, call us stuck in the past, but we’re going for it. We are beyond proud to announce that Newschoolers is BACK in the hands of skiers after a seventeen-year hiatus with David Zorko, Mr Bishop, and Paul Stanisci (@nopoles ), as well as yours truly, at the reins. Our days of corporate life are over and while we have A LOT to do to modernize the site, we’re celebrating a new chapter in the life of this community. We can’t wait to bring you a ton more skiing and to take things back to the roots.
Cheers to you all for coming on this journey with us and let’s hope there is still snow left when we make it to fifty.
Vive la révolution.
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