Burton Snowboards founder Jake Burton Carpenter discusses Olympic venue quality and the governance of snowboarding competitions.
Assertion Partly supported
Carpenter: Burton Was Always the Number One Snowboard Manufacturer
“We've been the number one manufacturer of snowboards since the day”
Opinion
Carpenter: Ride Snowboards Collapsed Due to Unrealistic Wall Street Expectations
“And then all of a sudden, Ride Stock, which was at 35 bucks at the time, went down to two bucks. Because they had these expectations that, like Wall Street, just, they take things and they project unrealistic expectations.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carpenter: FIS added Olympic snowboarding without consulting the sport's pioneers
“Well, FIS, which is a International Ski Federation, it's a Swiss, you know, whatever, governmental body, and they controlled the scene, and then they started having snowboard competitions when they just had, aside from their ski races, and we were wondering wh…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Burton: Bank charged Burton Snowboards $4M for loan covenant amendment
“The bank charged us four million dollars to change one paragraph in our loan agreement, which was called a covenant.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Burton paid a $4 million bank fee to amend a loan covenant
“Well, the bank charged us four million dollars to change one paragraph in our loan agreement, which was called a covenant. When you're borrowing money, your earnings had to represent a certain ratio compared to how much money you were borrowing, and we slipped…”
What-if
Carpenter: Ski Companies Could Have Destroyed Burton Early On
“They could have destroyed us, and there were all these rumors that some ski companies were going to start making them.”