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LOS ANGELES -- For Web sites aimed at surfers, snowboarders and skateboarders, it's the ultimate challenge: how to remain cool enough for core participants who provide cachet, while appealing to the millions of armchair enthusiasts logging on at home who build sales volume and attract advertising dollars.
In recent months, numerous action sports sites trying to negotiate this balance have wiped out, including iFuse, iCast, Fusion.com, Hardcloud, Chicksticks.com and SkateSurfSnow.com. Kick Media, a Los Angeles-based Web content provider, has cut back operations and dropped its action sports brands, including Web sites for Surfer, Skateboarder and Snowboarder magazines and the magazine portion of Op.com.
Kick Media chief executive officer Joseph Shak said while boardsports made "great fodder for content," the sites were a hard sell to advertisers.
Despite these woes, there are still plenty of companies determined to use the Web to grab a share of the boardsport soft goods market, widely estimated at $2.2 billion wholesale.
The current scene in cyberspace is as varied as a skateboarder's terrain, with Web sites ranging from big-budget branding efforts to boutique e-shops to homegrown content sites offering everything from daily photos of local surf breaks to video clips on how to ollie.
It's a world that remains male-dominated -- more than 70 percent, according to trend researcher Board Trac. But women are a growing force, both as participants online and as consumers who happily grab up their boyfriends' sneakers or T-shirts when a female equivalent doesn't exist. Recently, young women have been snapping up Dickie's heavy cotton men's pants. Their interest prompted the Fort Worth, Texas-based brand to ink its first U.S. junior license in June, with Los Angeles-based Apparel Limited Inc.
While brand preferences depend on the sport, boardsport enthusiasts behave pretty consistently online, according to data from Board Trac, based in Trabuco Canyon, Calif. About half spend more than five hours online weekly. Approximately one-third have purchased clothing online, and another third said they intend to purchase clothing online in the future.
Keeping in mind the notorious fickleness of youth, industry...