Crashed Ice

Red Bull’s Headlong Frozen Dash Is a Crash Course in Marketing
By MATT HIGGINS | The New York Times | March 3, 2007

QUEBEC, March 2 — Maybe the gusts swirling snow through the alleys of the historic district here Friday were not actual winds of change. But in an old city famous for preserving the past, a new sport has become a showcase for changing relationships between fans and the way brands market to them.

Three weeks ago, 50 workers began constructing a 1,500-foot course past the city’s historic architecture. Starting along the city’s ramparts, near Château Frontenac, the course drops 180 vertical feet while winding along cobblestone streets to a finish at Place de Paris in the lower section of Old Quebec. For the past week, workers have been flooding the track with water to create ice along which 125 athletes, mostly amateur hockey players, will race Saturday.

The course is for a sport called Crashed Ice, a cross between hockey and snowboardcross. Three racers at a time, dressed in hockey equipment, whip down what looks like a large bobsled run, battling to stay on their skates. They will hurdle over jumps and ledges, down steep sections and around four hairpin turns in front of an expected crowd of 50,000.

Such sports have always offered great brand marketing opportunities, but Red Bull has done more. In addition to sponsoring sports, athletes and teams like the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer, the company has created new sports, including Crashed Ice, ostensibly to sell more energy drinks.

“I’m not aware of another brand that has created its own sport,” said Rick Dudley, president and chief executive of Octagon, a sports marketing agency. “Red Bull has taken it a step further. They are taking it to the next evolution by taking over ownership.”

Dudley said companies had been shifting money away from traditional advertising recently.

David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Sports Business Institute, said: “There’s a tremendous amount of clutter in the sports marketplace. There are more sports on TV than ever before.”

As a result, brands are looking for new strategies to distinguish themselves.

Crashed Ice was conceived almost 10 years ago when executives at Red Bull’s Austrian headquarters heard a pitch for a new sport based on downhill in-line skating, which was popular in Europe at the time.

The first event was in Stockholm in 2000, and Crashed Ice events have been held in five international cities since. In Quebec for the first time last year, 35,000 people stood outside on a winter’s night to watch. This year, 1,400 people attempted to qualify to compete at 14 locations in Canada and the United States.
“It has such a strong connection with Canadians,” said Keith DeGrace, communications director of Red Bull Canada. “It’s a hockey culture.”

A Crashed Ice competition will be held in Helsinki, Finland, in two weeks, but DeGrace said there were no plans to turn it into a full-fledged professional sport.

“The reaction we’ve had from the city, media, and broadcast opportunities are all there,” he said.

“Is the excitement because it’s a one-time thing or would the excitement be there if you did it all over? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.”

Another consideration is the events’ million-dollar cost, most of which is been spent on building the course. Although travel and related expenses were covered for athletes who qualified to compete in Quebec, paying professional salaries would require a bigger budget. Part of Crashed Ice’s charm is that it offers a shot at the big-time for those whose hockey dreams have been unfulfilled.

“If you played hockey and dreamed of the N.H.L., but couldn’t make it, you look at Crashed Ice and say, ‘I could do that,’ ” DeGrace said.

Last year’s winner in Quebec, Gabriel Andre, 25, still holds out hope of playing professional hockey. He played in a semi-pro league in Australia last year, but for the time being works in industrial construction for oil refineries in Saskatchewan.

“To one day make it to the N.H.L.,” he said, “that’s the ultimate goal.”

But through Crashed Ice, he has enjoyed a small amount of celebrity in Canada, especially near his home in Saskatoon.

Andre said a run down the Crashed Ice course was like a long, hard hockey shift and required many of the same skills.

“It says I’m an accomplished skater,” he said of winning last year. “I’m not a bum.”

With another victory, he would qualify to compete in Helsinki.

Jamie McGrath and Stephen Mack, 21-year-olds from Madison, N.J., were already enjoying the ride during a dinner for athletes Thursday night.

High school hockey teammates, McGrath and Mack have continued to play recreationally while studying engineering in college.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” McGrath said. “This is amazing for any hockey player. All our hockey friends are more jealous than anybody else.”

Neither knew anything about Crashed Ice before Mack saw it on television. But he was taken with the idea of competing, and he and McGrath qualified for a competition scheduled for Boston in November.

According to Carter for the Sports Business Institute, a trend among fans has been to be more active than passive with their sports, and that includes openness to newer sports.

“The next generation of sports fans are participatory in nature,” he said. “They seem just as inclined to participate in action sports as stick and ball sports.”

The Boston event was canceled because of warm weather, but Mack and McGrath jumped at the opportunity to compete in Quebec.

Although they admitted being intimidated by the course, Mack said he planned to go all out.

If his attitude is any indication, the sport of Crashed Ice is not even the point: Mack and McGrath are here to have a good time. But they feel indebted to Red Bull for making it all possible.

“Our goal for the entire thing was to get a Red Bull jersey,” McGrath said before getting more complimentary beer from the bar.
“Secondary was to qualify. But now we’ve got to put our hearts out there.”

How’s that for brand loyalty?