I just wanna know how well paying it can be to be a pro skater in the UK. What determines your income and whats the ideal set of income streams for a pro skater? Is it something that can work long term or do you eventually have to switch careers?
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Get on that Hop King gravy train and you will be late flipping straight into the Forbes lists.
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It’s not. /Thread
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First thing you’ll need to do is get yourself one of these handy little signs. You can display it to passers by whilst queuing to sign on.
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Somewhere between assistant manager at Millets and bin man.
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Move to US and try there
At best you’ll make some disposable income alongside your real job
Has never been financially viable for as long as I can remember
Get on Palace.
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On the dole with free shoes basically.
Unless you’re one of about 10 guys.
Used to be better - now it’s not.
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Post a clip.
To give you a more nuanced answer.
Your income is really determined by your shoe deal - board sponsors pay relatively little - the top tier Uk dudes all have well paying gigs on Nike, adidas, cons or NB. Nearly all the top tier ones live in london as, currently at least, those brands require that.
Income streams - strong shoe deal, clothing deal (Carharrt/Volcom/etc) then an energy drink deal which can pay as well as a top tier shoe deal.
The amount of these kinds of opportunities are minuscule though.
Long term - maybe a decade if you’re lucky - after that, if the real world is too gnarly, there are a few TM or marketing gigs at the same brands but increasingly those jobs either pay like shit or don’t exist any more because brands would rather pay some Doyle to post insta and tikTok clips.
Your non standard industry route would be to adopt the influencer model which can be lucrative - see Stef Nurding, Jamie Griffin etc.
Other alternative is contest robot - you could conceivably get by on the Euro circuit but all those guys have strong energy drink deals.
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Memories are priceless
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thanks for the answer but honestly it seems like one of those lifestyles where ull constantly hv to worry about money. based off the other answers it seems like too much stress. I am currently in uni tho so Ill just focus on that ig lol
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i just started over a month ago lol. But I really enjoy it and Im progressing quite quickly (slowed down in the past few weeks cus it rains every damn day smh). I also just enjoy the culture and people around it so thought it could be a career but based of what everyones saying, seems like a bad idea
Cubix vibes.
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Awesome story
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Just enjoy it and don’t worry about all that stuff. Can look back in 10 years at this post having made loads of memories and friends through skating and just cringe lol.
If you’re of university age and only just started, you’ll never be sponsored by anyone good anyway.
At this point, with the level of skating what it is and the breadth of amazing skaters across all disciplines, realistically you would need to put a decade of work into being sponsored (going to events, video output etc etc, aka making a name for yourself) to get anywhere close to a legit sponsor.
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yeah, what really put me off is hearing that pro skaters have a career that will last 15 years max assuming they dont get severely injured and after that theyll hv to fend for themselves which just seems like too much stress tbh.
What’s your back up plan now?
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