Nike Snowboarding is Shutting Down — CONFIRMED (AUS/NZ)
NIKE SNOWBOARDING IS SHUTTING DOWN — CONFIRMED (AUS/NZ)
Rumours have been flying around recently on various websites including Boardworld, regarding Nike Snowboarding closing their doors after this season. We have been hearing the same reports directly from Nike Snowboarding retailers in the USA. It appears to be more than just a rumour now. We have received official confirmation in an email from Nike Australia (below) that they are indeed shutting down their snowboarding program after this season, at least in Australia and New Zealand. However, based on what we have been hearing directly from retailers in the USA, we strongly believe this isn’t just isolated to Australia and New Zealand. What remains unclear is whether this is a permanent move or not.
“We can confirm that the current season will be the last season for Nike snowboarding products in Australia and New Zealand. We cannot confirm if future seasons will be coming through in the Nike Snowboarding range.” — Nike Australia
EDIT: We have just received further confirmation from our friends at Pleasure Snowboard Magazine in Germany, who just released an official statement and Q&A with Nike, confirming their snowboarding program is shutting down. Read the full Q&A here. This confirms what we have been saying for over a week, as Nike looks to pull funds to focus on their skateboarding program.
Photo: Frode Sandbech
Nike poured money into their team and marketing efforts—making a huge push into the snowboarding market. From the outside it appeared as though the program was moving along with great momentum. They built one of the most stacked teams in the business—consisting of Nicolas Muller, Halldor Helgason, Danny Kass, Gigi Ruf, Jed Anderson and other snowboarding royalty—and amassed more than three times the followers of Burton Snowboards on Facebook. Their team video “Never Not Part 1 and 2” (below) was well received by the core snowboarding market.
Why are they pulling out of snowboarding when seemingly everything is going well? Unconfirmed reports suggest there just wasn’t enough money in snowboarding to satisfy the mega brand. This serves as further evidence that we should be supporting rider-driven brands; brands that are in it for the right reason—for the love of snowboarding—not just to satisfy shareholders!
It will be interesting to see how this plays out and how their customers respond. What are your thoughts on it?
Its a shame that a company that obviously has no money issues thinks so little about our sport that it thinks it can just jump in and out as it pleases, oh well.
There is no doubt that Nike makes great products, and it shows by the customer love of their boots.
It seemed to have started out well with the NSB arm opening up their own R&D and getting a bunch of core pros for feedback before they launched their boots, and then outerwear.
But asides from that they haven’t really done much to the game at hand, which was the problem for most core riders, and possibly at the Nike side too as they would’ve taken a “investors” approach to the market, which clearly didn’t yield enough of a return, unlike the running market, which is at the core of Nike (go to the Nike store and see what they sell.)
I think this was shown when they merged their 6.0 snowboarding line with NSB. (Their 6.0 line is essentially the same NSB gear, possibly made somewhere cheaper, and distributed via non-core shops like Hot Topic and Target.)
The results of NSB’s closure is possibly twofold:
1) The hoarding and price hiking of Nike boots. (NOS; no longer available….rare!)
2) A warning to sports conglomerate who want to “cash in” to the snowsports market. Another company who’s taken a very cautious conservative approach is adias, and they’ve added even LESS to the sport.
For these two companies with near infinite budget there should be more R&D and ground breaking movement, but it just ended with a fizzle.
In any case, I think it’s really shown the uneducated rider the difference between core and corporate brands in the sports and what they stand for.
As others have said, real shame. They were making a good quality product with the boots. I have a number of friends who all made the switch to Nike over the past few years after being unhappy with constant quality issues with other big brands and couldn’t have been happier.
This serves as further evidence that we should be supporting rider-driven brands; brands that are in it for the right reason—for the love of snowboarding—not just to satisfy egos and shareholders!
Agreed
Its a shame that a company that obviously has no money issues thinks so little about our sport that it thinks it can just jump in and out as it pleases, oh well.
My sentiment exactly. We were fools for thinking otherwise.
Its a shame that a company that obviously has no money issues thinks so little about our sport that it thinks it can just jump in and out as it pleases, oh well.
My sentiment exactly. We were fools for thinking otherwise.
particularly given they have the potential r&d budget. The small guy in it for the love will stick it out through slim profit margins, however they also don’t have the cash to splash about on serious research and development.
Hmmm… Nicolas Muller, Halldor Helgason, Danny Kass, Gigi Ruf, Jed Anderson might even make a new brand. We can only hope 
Well after findin the best boots I’ve ever had, Nike are gonna bail on me!!!!!
Fuck Nike and pretty much all of their other stuff!!!!!
I’m gonna return the favour, and bail on them!!!!!
^ haha yeah.. I’ve started looking at Burton equivalents for Kaijus and DK’s.
I’ll most likely go back to Vans as they were my previous best fit, but it’ll be a try try try before I buy deal again!!!!! 
I’ve got weird feet so I’m gonna have to keep trying. See what happens… looking at going burton. just got to have my feet fitted for the sizing.
I love my Nike Zoom Forces…other option that’s work well for my (very problematic feet) are Burton Ion Asian fit. Worth a try for those looking at replacements for the Nike boots.
Damn I love my nike DK Zooms,
Well, here is my spill
While i was at BW shred my Nike lacelocks broke, so i didn’t really think of it much considering it was NIKE and i though it would be a quick replacement. Oh boy was I wrong.
I have contact Nike AU and they basically told me to get lost in the most nicest possible way. They told me that they can’t help me as Nike Snowboarding is packing up in AU/NZ so I can confirm this as I heard it from Nike representative over the phone.
Moving along i decided to take my rant to Nike USA and basically they told me the to contact Nike AU, so i basically i replied back and told them what Nike has told me. So this it reply i got from Nike USA.
At this time since we do not support Australia so you will have to go with the answer that our Australia team has provided you.
So again i basically hit the wall.
So i got in touch with some of the snowboarding shops from USA and i told them my story about my lacelocks and what Nike told me. They basically confirmed as well that this would be last season for Nike Snowboarding and that all the money from snowboarding will be put in to skateboarding.
So yes what BoxHead said i can confirm that is correct.
Oh and good luck to anyone that has Nike boots if anything beaks on the boots.
Well that’s the very type of “service” that pisses me off!!!!!
It’s all too prevalent in today’s world, and I just wished that people really gave companies like this a wake up call, and stop buyin their products!!!!!
Who gives a fuck if you’ve bought their product in another country????? The CEO of Nike will still get his cut of the profit that is made off the brand!!!!! They should show some fuckin respect to the people that pay their wages!!!!!
Any of you guys and gals that have traveled to Japan would’ve noticed that the businesses and their customer support is on par with none!!!!!
This is because not only a bad reputation in customer service is a sign of disgrace to your company and it’s name, it’s also a death knoll, as people WILL take their custom elsewhere!!!!!
I for one, am truly pissed of with companies that are happy to take your cash yet couldn’t give two shits about you after you’ve supported them!!!!!
Well, here is my spill
( snip! See above for the spill. )
Oh and good luck to anyone that has Nike boots if anything beaks on the boots.
Yeap. Amen to that. I had the same problem with my inner laces, it got shredded (apparently easily done as my DK’s outer laces was shredded too,) and I initially asked around to Nike Australia and they just said “sorry we don’t stock spare parts.” So really the only way would be to warranty it, and get an entire boot replacement which I know people in the US have done to their chargin as they’ve just packed the boots in.
To note, I also originally put the pic of the shredded lace on instagram to which NSB’s insta account comment “Have you sent a note to the Nike Facebook page?!?! We need to get you dialed my man!!” Well I did no response so I went on twitter to ask them, them went back to the insta account to say “How do I do this, no response….” and wait for it…..
NO RESPONSE.
Way to back your branding, and this is WAY before they decided to shut down shop 2 seasons ago.
So really this is the way it panned out with NSB support:
But they are comfortable, so would I ever wear nike boots? Yes. They are comfortable and they fit my weird feet.
Would I ever pay ANY RETAIL price for it? Hell no. I never did and I never will, and I sure as hell am finding alternatives to them.