Many of us are uncomfortable speaking about cash. Nonetheless, while you work in an trade the place the worth assigned to at least one’s artwork, athletic prowess, or clout appears to be one thing everyone seems to be making up as they go, there’s nearly nothing higher you are able to do than discuss how a lot everyone seems to be getting paid. The out of doors trade, and particularly snowboarding, has lengthy labored on a mannequin the place it underpays people on the premise that the experiences it permits them or all of the free pairs of skis ought to make up for a scarcity in financial compensation. Sadly, even in 2026, you possibly can’t pay lease, a mortgage, medical health insurance, a hospital invoice, or to your groceries with a pair of skis or an Olympic medal. Fortunately, after years of expertise within the trade as knowledgeable snowboarder, Shaun White is aware of this, which is why paying athletes is likely one of the pillars of his halfpipe competitors collection, the Snow League. The Snow League wrapped up its inaugural season in LAAX final month with a world championship occasion that noticed information damaged and a few of the most epic battles in halfpipe historical past go down. World Champions have been topped throughout the boys’s and girls’s freeski and snowboard disciplines primarily based on factors accrued all through the season, incomes them customized trophies and a considerable prize purse. Nevertheless it wasn’t simply the highest three finishers that walked away with a giant examine; each single athlete who made an look with the intention to compete at a Snow League occasion this winter walked away with at the least $5,000. In a transfer of radical transparency, the Snow League revealed every of its athletes’ last earnings on the finish of the season.See beneath for the total cash listing for girls’s and males’s freeski.The 2026 POWDER Picture Annual is right here! Search for a print copy on a newsstand close to you, or click on right here to have a duplicate shipped on to your entrance door.
The Snow League
The Snow League
On the freeski aspect, girls’s world champion Eileen Gu walked away with $135,000 between two first-place finishes, look charges, and total standing bonuses. Luke Harrold gained on the boys’s aspect, taking house $105,000. Second place total, which went to Amy Fraser and Brendan Mackay in a Canadian sweep, took house $40,000 and $90,000, respectively.Hunter Hess and Khexin Zhang landed in third place, taking house $25,000 every. Discrepancies between males’s & girls’s prize quantities throughout completely different standings could be accounted for by variations in factors primarily based on efficiency and look at particular person occasions, and by total standing bonuses.
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