Throughout snowboarding’s existence, there’s been one issue that many have said delayed the growth of the competitive side of the sport: where are we supposed to watch contests? NBC Sports has entered the conversation.
The television behemoth announced last week that it will broadcast the first televised U.S. Snowboarding event of the season from Copper Mountain in Colorado on December 21. The Toyota U.S. Grand Prix halfpipe finals will start at noon on the east coast, and be aired on CNBC and stream on Peacock.
Photo: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Image
The network has been as much of a broadcast home to snowboarding as possible as of late, due to owning rights to the Olympic games. NBC has held the broadcasting rights to the Winter Games since the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City. Since then, it’s been the home to some historic moments, like Todd Richards legendary call of Shaun White’s 2018 gold medal halfpipe run.
NBC will also broadcast snowboarding at the following times throughout the year:
- December 22, Toyota U.S. Grand Prix halfpipe at 4:30 p.m. on NBC.
- January 5, FIS World Cup Big Air at 1 p.m. on Peacock
- January 11, FIS World Cup Big Air at 1 p.m. on Peacock
- January 14, FIS Alpine World Cup Parallel Slalom at 1:30 p.m. on Peacock
- January 15, FIS Alpine World Cup Team Parallel Slalom at 10 a.m. on Peacock
- February 1, Toyota U.S. Grand Prix halfpipe at 2:30 p.m. on CNBC and Peacock
- February 9, Toyota U.S. Grand Prix slopestyle at 2 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
- March 21, FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup at 6 a.m. on Peacock
- March 22, FIS Snowboard Cross World Cup at 9:15 a.m. on Peacock
Photo: Mark Clavin
Olympians Chloe Kim, Julia Marino, and Red Gerard are all expected to compete. Kim is the first athlete to win all four major snowboarding events, and the owner of two Olympic gold medals. Marino won slopestyle silver at the Beijing Games in 2022, and Gerard won his only Olympic medal so far in 2018, when he took home gold in slopestyle. At just 17 years old, he became the youngest winter Olympian to win a gold since 1928.
Gerard touched upon the issue of live streaming contests in an interview with the Mark My Bird podcast over the summer.
"It's something that I guess you could say FIS struggles with the most, out of anything, is just not having live results. I don't understand why in slopestyle and ...in boardercross, why we can't have a live feed of those events," he said. "You're not going to get anyone to watch it if you don't have a live stream to watch it, and I think it's just something that we as competitive snowboarders struggle with so much."
The team also announced that all of the domestic ski and snowboard contests will be available to stream for free on Outside.com this winter. Contests held outside of the U.S. - with the exception of Austria - will be available to stream at skiandsnowboard.live. That won’t be free though, a monthly all-disciplines pass will cost you $19.95, while a snowboard-specific membership will cost $11.99 a month.
Related: Chloe Kim Wins Women's Halfpipe Gold Medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics