Yesterday, The Snow League announced the official calendar for its upcoming Season Two, running through 2026-2027. In addition to adding a stop in Park City, Utah, The Snow League also announced the season would kick off in September down in New Zealand, while stops in Aspen and LAAX remain on the schedule.
Season Two will feature three regular-season events—Park City, Aspen, and LAAX—while the opening stop will be in a new format: The Snow League World Challenge. When we heard the news of both the added stop and the updated competition format, we called up The Snow League’s founder, Shaun White, to try and make sense of what this season will look like.
Why expand to New Zealand?
Multiple reasons. One is obviously to keep people's attention. We really wanna make sure that people are still tuning in and keeping snowboarding and skiing on their mind. And when you end a season and wait all the way till it kicks off again in December, it's a long period of time. And obviously, there's snowboarding around the world, from Chile to Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, and we just thought it'd be so great to kick off something down in New Zealand. And then obviously it's just such a hub for all sports in general. The whole place is just a giant outdoor playground. There's bungee jumping and jet boating, you name it—it's just an activity landscape. And so we thought it'd be amazing to bring our athletes down there, but maybe do something a little different this time, introduce some new takes on competition, and make it a little more exciting and unique with this team aspect.
How is this going to be different? Because this is The Challenge, right?
We're calling this the Snow League World Challenge. We thought it'd be fun to introduce four teams from around the world, composed of two men and two women—four teams of four. We have the North America team, the Asia-Pacific team, the European team, and then—we're calling it a challengers team or a wild card team made up of people from all over. And we thought it'd be fun to bring them together and not only have them compete, but then go around New Zealand and do a bunch of fun content and activities to get to know these athletes. Because you park them in the half pipe, and you get to see a certain side of them at a competition, but you don't really get their personalities, their experiences in life, and get to know them. So we want to create a ton of content around it and really push it out there. It won't be our traditional event, but it won't be too far off from what we normally do.
Do you see a world where Snow League runs year-round? Where it’s kind of just bouncing back and forth between hemispheres, and you're maybe getting a contest in, like, July in South America, and you're running it nonstop?
I wouldn't say nonstop, but I would like to have a more robust season that really expands the globe because that's where these sports take place. We're out there riding these places. I remember competing down in Chile at one point. I feel like there are other mountains, resorts, and opportunities to host these events. Obviously, you’d need the infrastructure of a 22-foot half pipe, or, say, if we get into slope style, big air at some point, it's a little more easily accessible. But I would love to have more competitions happening year-round. The athletes stay fresh, they stay excited. There's more content to be pushed out, and I truly think that's how the season really starts. At least for me, I would hang up my skateboard and be like, "All right, cool. We're going to New Zealand to not only compete at some events down there, but shoot catalogs, compete, and then start working on tricks for this upcoming season." So for me, that's really when the season starts. It's not the first snowfall in the U.S. I think we'll try to follow some type of schedule like that in the future.
For more information on The Snow League, including how to get tickets, head over to their website here.