U.S. Ski & Snowboard And Outside’s New Snowsports Hub Fills Much-Needed Streaming Gap

If you are a fan of competitive skiing and snowboarding—whether it’s year-round competition or simply following the U.S. team heading into Winter Olympics years—you know how difficult it can be to stream or watch the events.

In the recent past, some events would be broadcast on NBC or available for streaming on Peacock. Some events were streamed directly by U.S. Ski & Snowboard (some, however, behind a paywall). Some weren’t televised at all.

The Olympic channel would occasionally carry races and events with Olympic implications, but NBC shut it down in September.

That’s why a new partnership between U.S. Ski & Snowboard and Outside Interactive, which encompasses Outside magazine as well as its related media, digital, and technology platforms, fills a major gap in the market for ski and snowboard competition enthusiasts.

The long-term partnership, announced this month, will see U.S. FIS World Cup alpine, cross country, freestyle, snowboard and freeski events stream on all Outside platforms, including OutsideOnline.com, SkiMag.com, the Outside App and Outside Watch.

For the 2022-23 season, that includes Killington Cup, Xfinity Birds of Prey at Beaver Creek, Aspen World Cup, Palisades Tahoe World Cup, Freestyle International at Deer Valley, the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix at Mammoth and Copper and the Visa Big Air at Copper.

Qualifiers have rarely been televised or made available on streaming, but this season, snowboard and freeski qualifiers at the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix and Visa Big Air will be included in the coverage.

Additionally, U.S. Ski & Snowboard team fans who want more in-depth coverage can opt in to a paid membership bundle that includes additional access to Outside+ premium content, educational videos, SKI Magazine content and more.

While only World Cup events in the United States will be available through Outside channels this season, this winter the U.S. will host the most FIS World Cups on U.S. soil in history. For events in Austria, Peacock will stream more than 40 hours of exclusive coverage.

When looking for a partner to create this snowsports hub, U.S. Ski & Snowboard wanted more than mere distribution. The hope was that, beyond simply tuning in to live events, fans could access more behind-the-scenes content with athletes, coaches and other experts.

“Outside is more than a distribution partner with incredible channels and scale; what really attracted us was the opportunity to build a strategic alliance to allow our community to more deeply engage with our athletes, content and other new offerings,” said Sophie Goldschmidt, U.S. Ski & Snowboard president and CEO.

The hub will also house an extensive ski and snowboard footage archive.

Dew Tour served as an official Olympic qualifier leading up to the Beijing 2022 Games, but outside of Olympic years, it will not be streaming through Outside channels.

“Nothing could be more inspiring for a young skier than to watch champions come up through the ranks, dominate and take gold with the national anthem playing,” said Robin Thurston, CEO of Outside. “With U.S. Ski & Snowboard, we’re creating a one-stop resource where skiers and snowboarders will find motivation along with the world’s richest archive of gear, travel, and instructional content.”

The U.S.-based 2022-23 World Cup events kick off with the Killington Cup alpine events November 26-27.

Highlighting the U.S. Alpine Ski Team this season is three-time Olympic medalist and reigning World Cup overall champion Mikaela Shiffrin for the women and 2022 Beijing Olympics super-G silver medalist Ryan Cochran-Siegle for the men.

The U.S. freeski and snowboard events will begin with the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix and Visa Big Air, both held December 16-17 at Copper Mountain in Colorado and featuring men’s and women’s halfpipe and big air events.

With Shaun White’s retirement, the household names in men’s halfpipe snowboarding include Breckenridge, Colorado, native Taylor Gold, who finished fifth in the men’s halfpipe final at the Beijing Games, and Chase Josey, who came in seventh.

On the women’s halfpipe snowboarding side, no one in the world can touch Chloe Kim’s dominance, and she returns to up the ante even more. At the Beijing Games, she defended her gold medal from the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, becoming the first woman to win two gold medals in halfpipe.

The U.S. Freeski team sees two Beijing Olympics medalists, David Wise and Alex Ferreira, return in men’s halfpipe. The woman with the best halfpipe finish at the 2022 Games was Colorado’s Hanna Faulhaber, who came in sixth.

The first freestyle skiing event on U.S. soil will be the Intermountain Healthcare Freestyle International in Deer Valley, Utah, February 2-4, which will feature men’s and women’s aerials and moguls.