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https://www.bikemag.com/news/crankworx-responds-to-slopestyle-athletes Did Crankworx have a response to the riders' requests? Is the series open to appearance fees? "After receiving the athletes’ letter, Crankworx and the local organizing committee (LOC) assessed and addressed all three demands. While two of the demands have been answered with immediate action as well as written commitment, the third demand requested a EUR 2,000 appearance fee per athlete per Crankworx World Tour festival (a total of EUR 184,000 for the 2024 Crankworx World Tour). As Crankworx is the organizer of professional sports events within the Crankworx FMBA Slopestyle World Championship (SWC), no attendance fee can be...

Slopestyle Riders - Boycott for Better Pay Also Slopestyle Riders - Go home & double backflip in the desert with no health insurance & post to Tik Tok 8 hrs later.

Union guy here and they definitely have their positives and negatives especially as they get larger. The reason people compare this to other sports even though they are making millions more is that the events are not paying them the sponsors or teams are. Even look at Olympic sports they literally put their lives on the line and train/compete for years to get a gold medal. Yeah the government kicks in some money but most work full time jobs as well. They do it because they want to compete and be the best not for the payday.

sort of, I'm a unionist in the sense that if your job was to stop, society would to a degree falter. For example, I work in Electricity Transmission. A service that not many think about, but critical to almost everything we do as a society. 12 dudes stop riding some bikes, world keeps spinning my dude. The bike industry literally wouldn't blink an eyelid. So to a degree, have a union, but make sure your actions have impact on the industry you are in.

But, on the other hand, there are plenty of Redbull riders that weren't at Hardline.. Specialized told their DH guys no...

So take it to the other extreme. If I work on a car, the owner doesn't pay me. They pay the shop I work for, the shop pays me. A plumber doesn't get a check from the homeowner, the plumbing company does and then pays the guys who work. The riders "work" for their sponsors and their team. If Redbull is one of their sponsons and extends an appearance fee at a RB (or any other) event, great. That would be in the contract they signed with Redbull for the sponsorship. Is Rebull (rider sponsorship) even the same company as...

The NFL doesn't pay players. F1 doesn't pay Lewis. The NBA doesn't pay LeBron. The venues they play in don't pay them either. I don't think you understand who the riders "work for".

Maybe from the Crankworx perspective the optimum resolution might be to change it from a competition to an exhibition. Invite 5 top riders - 5 male & 5 female - and pay them what amounts to a generous appearance fee that includes travel/lodging. Hold the exhibition the last day of the Crankworx event. Charge a separate ticket price for fans to watch the event in person - maybe in the form of an add-on to any other event ticket prices. (So, slopestyle by itself $10, but slopestyle added to 3-day pass or whatever only $5... just making up numbers here...

A bunch of privileged kids on bikes demanding buffet lunches and 2k travel from Red Bull to spin off ramps doesn't exactly draw massive public support of the masses. Nor does their strike impact lives like say UPS or a dockworker. Let the kids have their temper tantrum. The adults will ride bikes and make fun of them on vital.

If they don't like their pay from Crankworx, they should get a job that pays more. This entitled mindset must be driven by a overvalued self worth to their sponsors? Crankworx needs to create some macro and micro economics classes as well as basic accounting with profit and loss education. Maybe slopestyle competitor isn't such a great career choice?

And so far all they’ve achieved is getting one of their main headline events cancelled… oh and a few forum posts. Great union so far.

I can feel the teenage angst bleeding through here, so I know I'm not going to change your mind. For anyone who is intellectually curious around the subject and how wrong this person is, here is an easy example to follow. The TL;DR is supply and demand underpins how "markets work". Not name calling and employees banding together (ironically what you just described has more Marxist tones, which is fine). Anyway - my example for anyone who cares... At the pointy end of the spear in the live performance space, its pretty widely acknowledged the best in the world right...

Crankworx isn't their employer though. Their employer is their sponsors. Crankworx is the competition they enter, and the platform granted to them to show their skills, market themselves as athletes & ambassadors, and ultimately prove their dollar value to said sponsors.

Slope will die.. They will just Push DH to the main event.. like it should be.

It only says riders can’t wear skin suits and nothing about bikes. Bend the rules baby and don’t give the UCI any ideas! 😂

DAMPER

So the event has to pay riders? Maybe the riders should start their own event series, get sponsors, handle logistics, insurance and all the fun that goes with it. Isn't it up to their sponsors to pay them? Maybe the riders need better sponsors. Oh well. It's just BMX on big frames. I'll go ride my bike and watch lame youtubers travel to cool places vs watching kids to 1080 tail whips over wood ramps at the base of a ski area in the summer. X Games died so will crankworx.

Give the money to the Womens purse

"One other way to think about this - If Crankworks stop supporting slope events, are there other organizers clamoring to host them because they are so valuable on the global stage? Are the athletes so valuable that there are organizers around the world just itching to setup events to fill this place? I don't think so." Yeah, I get the impression that many think this is some sort of massive moneymaker for... well, I have no idea for whom it's a big revenue stream. How many people attend this event and what do they pay for the privilege? Red Bull's...

Reading the riders' statement, I think its important to parse it into two parts. 1) Safety: The riders should have a major say in course safety, features and conditions. This is a totally reasonable thing to aim at being there is a direct connection between the organizers, the riders and course building. If they simply took a stand over this alone, I think they'd have a lot of success getting their way. 2) Pay: The idea that the riders "deserve" something because they are putting their lives on the line unfortunately doesn't hold much water elsewhere in life. I can...