Top Five Fridays: December 1, 2023
Lead Image: After a tremendously slow start to the season due to a number of cancellations, the FIS Men’s Alpine circuit finally takes them to Beaver Creek this week for a series of speed races. The U.S. Men’s team appears poised to make a splash. Image: U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team on Facebook
#1: FIS World Cup Update: Shiffrin Earns Win #90, Paula Moltzan Continues Consistent Results:
Shiffrin’s reaction after winning her 90th career FIS race. This image feels like it should be on posters in kids’ bedrooms across America. Photo shot by Dawsy + Dustin Satloff for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. Sourced from Mikaela Shiffrin on Facebook
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the December 1, 2023 edition! This week is packed with competitive sports news, capped off by what you might consider “competitive business news”, if such a category exists. We’ll explain ourselves shortly, but first, we have some excellent FIS World Cup action to recap.
As you know, the women’s circuit made their return to U.S. soil last weekend as the FIS schedule brought them back to Killington for a giant slalom and slalom race. From our vantage point, this feels like it’s becoming one of the most beloved stops on the tour as the early season course is consistently on point, while fans show up in droves to loudly cheer on the athletes. That combination has historically proven to be successful for Shiffrin, and this year was no different. Kicking off the Killington activities this year was a giant slalom race on Saturday, November 25th. In that race, team America skied well, with Shiffrin earning yet another podium with a 3rd place finish, followed by Paula Moltzan with an 8th place finish, and AJ Hurt in 19th. All things considered, putting three athletes in the top 20, two in the top 10, and one in the top 3 is a solid result. On this day, in this race, no other nation was able to achieve the same statistic, although it should be mentioned that the Italians and Austrians were both reasonably close.
The real magic for Team U.S.A.’s top athletes happened a day later though, when Mikaela Shiffrin won the slalom race and Paula Moltzan finished again in 8th. For both of these athletes, it was a remarkable day. For Shiffrin, the win earned her her 90th career victory, putting 100 career victories well within sight for the season. The combination of her first and third place finishes also keep her on top of the overall world cup standings, with 350 points, an impressive 84 points ahead of Petra Vlhova in second place. Noting that winning the overall world cup is her biggest goal for the season, we’ll continue to keep an eye on this competition throughout the season.
For Moltzan, despite her 8th place finish, it was also an amazing day in its own regard. At the conclusion of the first run, Moltzan was sitting in a solid 6th place. Noting her proven ability to put down some of the fastest runs of the day on her second run, hopes were high that Moltzan could do exactly that and join Shiffrin on the podium. Unfortunately, disaster struck about halfway down her run when she hip checked the snow. Amazingly, however, Moltzan kept skiing with determination and ultimately finished the race in 8th place. To only drop two spots after a major mistake like that is truly amazing, and a true testament to how well Moltzan has been skiing this year. While she hasn’t quite cracked the top 5 or top 3 yet, it feels like only a matter of time before she puts it all together. In a way, it feels like podium finishes are inevitable for Moltzan this season if she can just put together two strong runs back to back. The next chance for both her, Shiffrin, and the rest of the Women’s circuit to crack a podium comes this weekend, with a pair of giant slalom races at Mont Tremblant, which you can preview here.
On the men’s side of things, there’s not much news to report as no races were held last weekend. That said, we do have reason to be excited, as their circuit is currently in Beaver Creek for the annual Birds of Prey speed races. There, athletes will compete in two Downhills and a Super G, at a venue that’s proven fruitful for U.S. athletes in the past. After a slow start to the season, this weekend’s events hope to be the exact opposite. To preview the race schedule, click here, and to learn how you can watch the action live, click here.
#2: U.S. Ski & Snowboard Team, Stifel Financial Corp, and NBC Team Up to Debut the New “Stifel Snow Show”:
In other FIS type news, we learned this week that Stifel is once again stepping up in a big way as the title sponsor of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team. This time, they’re helping to produce a weekly sports news style show that will be broadcast by NBC Sports. While details are somewhat vague at this point, the show, which will be titled the Stifel Snow Show, promises to be a recap of action from each week’s FIS events. While the USST’s press release doesn’t specifically name hosts for the show, it describes it as having, “a stellar lineup of well-known NBC Olympic talent and expert analysts, such as Ahmed Fareed and Cara Banks”. It’ll be interesting to see exactly how the show is formatted, but our general expectation is that it’ll feel like one of ESPN’s talking head type shows, where experts discuss results, highlights, and season long story-arcs.
One additional note that should be made here, is that this show isn’t just for alpine racing, but rather the entirety of FIS sports. Based on the information in the press release, it sounds like ski racing, freeskiing, and snowboarding will likely be the primary focuses, but athletes and sports such as Jessie Diggins, mogul skiing, or ski jumping could all very well make appearances. It’s also worth noting that while this isn’t the “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” style show that the FIS has been hoping to launch at some point, it remains very much inline with their goals of increasing visibility and viewership of FIS sports. This news, coupled with last week’s announcement that Stifel has upped the prize money for alpine races in the U.S. suggest that both the U.S. Team’s title sponsor, as well as the team itself, are both interested in playing nice with the FIS. All of this bodes extremely well for American skiing and snowboarding fans, as it should only serve to grow the success of our athletes on a global scale.
All in all, it’s an exciting update for us, and a show that we very much look forward to watching each week. The first episode is set to air on CNBC tomorrow, at 1:30 PM Eastern Time, with additional episodes airing weekly in the same time slot. Additionally, episodes will be available on demand after they air. To learn more about this new show, check out the official press release.
#3: Salt Lake City is a Near Lock to Host the 2034 Winter Olympics as the IOC Designates the City as Their “Preferred Host”:
Having played host to the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City has both the infrastructure and interest required to host the 2034 Games. This week, their big took a massive step forward as the IOC named the city the preferred host. Image: Utah Olympic Park on Facebook
For our third competitive sports highlight, we’re going to switch gears ever so slightly and bring you a pretty substantial update to a story we’ve been tracking for about a year and a half now, when the U.S. Olympic Committee began making it known that they were interested in bringing the Winter Olympics back to Salt Lake. Since then, it’s always felt as though Salt Lake would most likely play host to the games again, with the biggest question being “when?” While some hoped the answer could be as early as 2030, the more likely outcome has always been 2034 due to the fact that Los Angeles is hosting the summer games in 2028. Regardless, this week, we got some news that brings the picture into focus: the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially named Salt Lake City as its preferred host for the 2034 Winter Olympics.
In making this announcement, Salt Lake City enters the “targeted dialogue” phase, in which U.S. Olympic Committee officials will speak directly with the IOC in an effort to start ironing out the details and making sure the city is prepared to host the games. In other words, this week’s news doesn’t actually solidify that Salt Lake will absolutely, 100% host the games, but it’s pretty close. It’s sort of like if you’re interviewing for a job across the country, and now you’re in talks with your potential employer to make sure that all the details make sense before you commit and make the move. The job is yours, unless any unexpected red flags come up. This is the part of the process that makes sure there aren’t any red flags or dealbreakers. Considering the fact that not only is Salt Lake the only candidate to host the 2034 games, but also that the city hosted the games somewhat recently, in 2002, it’s everyone’s expectation that the targeted dialogue phase will go smoothly and that the IOC will officially name Salt Lake the host of the 2034 games sometime in July 2024, after the conclusion of the Paris games. Until then, congratulations go out the U.S. Olympic Committee for their hard work in getting to this point, and a big thank you to the U.S. Olympians who helped make the push. For more on this update, check in with the U.S. Ski Team.
#4: Vail Expands its Presence in Europe with the Acquisition of Swiss Ski Area Crans Montana:
In purchasing Crans Montana, Vail has added one of the most popular European ski destinations to its portfolio as they look to increase their international presence. Image: Crans Montana on Instagram
Finally, let’s round out this week’s newsreel with some non-competitive news: it’s just been announced that Vail has agreed to buy Crans Montana, a world renown ski area in the Swiss Alps. The resort will become Vail’s second European property after being purchased for $136 million. Now if that price tag jumps out at you, it should, as it speaks to the size and value for Crans Montana. For comparison’s sake, keep in mind that when Vail bought Stowe back in 2017, it spent $50 million. So, what is Vail getting in this purchase then, that makes Crans Montana worth almost three times as much as Stowe? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
First, let’s talk about the resort itself. Located just 2.5 hours from Geneva, the ski area is an easy travel destination for both European and international markets. For proof of that look no further than the fact that it sees approximately 3 million visitors each year. Stowe on the other hand, saw approximately 475,000 skier visits in 2021/2022, while the entire state of Vermont saw about 4.1 million skier visits last year. While this comparison isn’t necessarily apples to apples as we’re unsure of whether the Crans Montana figure stated in the article is yearly visitors or skier visits, the point stands: Crans Montana is a pretty sizable operation. In addition to the pure volume of visitors, the ski area also plays host to massive sporting events. In addition to hosting FIS races annually, they’ll also host the Mountain Biking World Championships in 2025, as well as the World Ski Championships in 2026. So again, we can’t emphasize this enough: while Crans Montana isn’t necessarily a household name here in America, it very much is in certain parts of Europe, and this acquisition is a big one for Vail.
Before rounding out this highlight, we wanted to quickly touch on a couple of other aspects of this story. First, we should mention that the acquisition comes at a time when locals have developed a bit of a disdain for Crans Montana’s former owners, CPI Property Group, and specifically their majority shareholder, Czech billionaire Radovan Vítek. Over the years, Vitek and local authorities reportedly had several clashes that ultimately came to a head back in 2018 when the resort suddenly refused to operate its lifts due to a payment dispute. As you can imagine, when the ski resort suddenly stopped operating, locals and those with plans to visit were furious, severely damaging the ski area’s reputation. For many, this week’s news provides some hope that Vail can fix Vitek’s wrongdoings and get the resort back to a higher standing. For Vail’s part, the acquisition is also significant as it brings a second European holding into the Epic Pass. As the company looks to broaden its footprint to a global level, the purchase of Crans Montana should give them a solid foothold in Europe. From here, it’ll be interesting to see whether the acquisition results in more European - North American ski tourism, as the Epic Pass will include Crans Montana access starting in the 2024/2025 season. To learn more about this story, check in with the Financial Times.