I thought I'd take a look at how New Balance got into skateboarding. They had an unremarkable beginning in 2013. In an article on ESPN by Robin Fleming from December of 2012, it was announced that New Balance would be fielding a skateboard team. They partnered with Jamie Thomas and used his Black Box operation as their distributor. New Balance worked with Westlife Distribution for their creative and design needs. Westlife was a distributor for Dickies, Paul Frank, and a snowboard clothing brand called 686.
The team was formally announced in May of 2013. John Rattray was the team manager. The squad consisted of Arto Saari, PJ Ladd, Levi Brown, and Tom Karangelov.
New Balance released a video called Second Narrows to go with the print rollout in November of 2013. It featured John, Arto, Levi, PJ, and Tom plus Tyler Surrey, Marquise Henry, Jordan Trahan, and Jordan Taylor. Joe Pease and Russell Houghten were the filmers. It's an interesting little video with creative editing that harkens back to the days of Sheep Shoes and Physics Wheels.
After the opening serve, New Balance ran three more ads like this:
They had similarly bland ads with Arto Saari and PJ Ladd before disappearing until the summer of 2015. My guess is that the partnership with Black Box didn't work out. Other than having some top level skate talent, there's wasn't much that looked overly exciting about New Balance's debut. Everybody's got to start somewhere.
Team: Thrasher - November 2013 Volume 34 Number 11
Jordan: Thrasher - January 2014 Volume 35 Number 1
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