{"id":2446257,"date":"2019-07-11T23:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/new-u-s-ski-and-snowboard-chairman-sets-eye-on-funding-the-athlete-experience\/"},"modified":"2019-07-11T23:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T05:04:00","slug":"new-u-s-ski-and-snowboard-chairman-sets-eye-on-funding-the-athlete-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/new-u-s-ski-and-snowboard-chairman-sets-eye-on-funding-the-athlete-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"New U.S. Ski and Snowboard chairman sets eye on funding the athlete experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Kipp Nelson stands for a photo on a patio atop U.S. SKi and Snowboard\u2019s Center of Excellence. Nelson, 60, brings a finance background to his new role as chairman of the organization\u2019s board.<\/strong>
Tanzi Propst\/Park Record<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 If you want to really boil it down, Kipp Nelson is the money guy at U.S. Ski and Snowboard.<\/p>\n

In May he formally took over the position as chairman of the organization\u2019s board from Dexter Paine, meaning that a significant part of his job now is to raise donations, which typically constitute a third of the organization\u2019s $36 million budget. He\u2019s been in the finance industry off and on for most of his life and his role now in the top position at U.S. Ski and Snowboard is largely to make money so athletes and teams have what they need to compete on the highest level. He is currently a partner at the New York firm Long Arc Capital.<\/p>\n

He said for all of his 18 years with the nonprofit, starting from when he was brought on as a trustee in 2002, the organization has been noticeably underfunded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always seems like we\u2019re 10 to 15 percent under what we need to really fully fund what we want to do,\u201d he said, reclining in a chair upstairs at the Center of Excellence. \u201cThat\u2019s been kind of a chronic problem. \u2026 Money is like oxygen. If you don\u2019t have it in expensive sports like this, you\u2019re really dead. And if you think you\u2019re going to improve the culture without that \u2026 probably not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently, a consulting firm finished a three-month study on just what U.S. Ski and Snowboard should do to bring in more of that oxygen, and what it should do with it to improve the athlete experience \u2014 two areas that Nelson and others in the organization started discussing more during the process of replacing Paine, who had served a full 12 years in the leadership role and was ready to hang up his hat.<\/p>\n

According to Nelson, Paine contracted the consulting company and handed Nelson the reins.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said to me, \u2018You can direct what they study,\u2019\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe decided what were the one or two most important things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Money and improving the athlete experience topped the list. So that\u2019s what Nelson is going to focus on while starting his four-year term.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s behind the mustache?<\/p>\n

Nelson was brought into U.S. Ski and Snowboard essentially by happenstance.<\/p>\n

One night, during the Winter Games in 2002, Nelson crashed a USA national team party at a bar on Main Street in Park City, where his former alpine coach at the University of Colorado and then-U.S. Ski and Snowboard president Bill Marolt noticed him.<\/p>\n

Marolt didn\u2019t quite recognize Nelson. Nelson had changed so much since their time together during the early \u201970s, and Nelson, who lacked the VIP credentials to actually attend the party, was worried he would be thrown out when his former coach pointed to him across the bar and waved him over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking, \u2018Dammit, I\u2019m busted,\u2019\u201d Nelson reflected. \u201cThis is coach disciplining me again.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Marolt was simply curious. Nelson, who was clean cut during his years at Colorado, now had long hair and a formidable mustache. Now 60, he stands tall with fair hair and blue eyes.<\/p>\n

In a picture of Nelson from the same era, he looks like if Kid Rock had cleaned up for a wedding.<\/p>\n

Though he probably didn\u2019t know it, Marolt would soon understand he had found a mark in Nelson=. Or, at least, a sympathizer. Nelson said he had just retired from finance for the second time and was living in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he had become a rabid skier after the invention of shaped skis. He was spending 125 days a season on race skis and through that, he had gotten to know some of the really competitive racers at the time and had seen their struggle to compete on the international stage firsthand.<\/p>\n

Marolt asked Nelson to help sponsor the ski team, and Nelson has been a member ever since. After Nelson started running large boardercross and skicross competitions called Ski Tour (and later 48 Straight), he was brought on as a full member of the board in 2008.<\/p>\n

Minding the gap<\/p>\n

As chairman, Nelson said one of his main objectives is to reduce the cost of being a member of the U.S. team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the B and C teams, the athletes, would have to come up with something like $20,000 to $30,000 apiece to pay to the organization to be on the team, that created a fair amount of resentment because that\u2019s a lot of money for a 20-year-old and their family to come up with,\u201d he said. \u201cThe kid, instead of being in the gym and on the snow; they\u2019re out fundraising. And after writing us a $20,000 check, you still need money to survive. So it may cost you $50,000 a year for the benefit of being on the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said forking over that large sum made some athletes question whether U.S. Ski and Snowboard had their best interests in mind.<\/p>\n

Nelson also said U.S. Ski and Snowboard has \u201cunder invested\u201d in coaches\u2019 educations. He and the current administration are trying to remedy those woes.<\/p>\n

He said this year, for the first time since he joined U.S. Ski and Snowboard, the nonprofit has been able to fully fund the A, B and C teams within cross-country, alpine and moguls skiing. The development team athletes still need to raise $10,000 each, which Nelson says is perhaps less than they are spending on a yearly basis to compete outside of U.S. Ski and Snowboard.<\/p>\n

The freeski and snowboard teams have a bigger hurdle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten that down to around, in total, around $400,000 and we think we will be able to close that this year,\u201d he said. \u201cOur ambition is to be able to fully fund everybody above the rookie level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson said U.S. Ski and Snowboard invested some $2.2 million in closing the gaps, though it still has more to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it came from donors who understood, \u2018Wow this is a problem for the organization and we want to help,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More and more, he said, the organization is trying to garner those donations from more and smaller sources as opposed to a few larger contributors, which is one area where the athlete experience and fundraising overlap. One of the findings of the consulting group was U.S. Ski and Snowboard wasn\u2019t putting enough money into digital marketing, and was spending a considerable amount promoting only their very top athletes \u2014 some 25 athletes out of 185. Going forward, Nelson said the nonprofit will expand its marketing and feature more of the upcoming athletes, which he said would both add to the athlete experience and help the governing body raise funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Instagram followers, if you aggregate all the athletes, (numbers) 22 million,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the organization itself, it\u2019s only 800,000. We need to help figure out with the athletes how to best explore the 22 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for coaches\u2019 educations, Nelson said U.S. Ski and Snowboard has been working with the U.S. Olympic Committee to establish a \u201ccoach\u2019s code\u201d that employees will apply consistently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to be competitive in the modern era, you have to be much more attuned to an athlete\u2019s overall wellness, which isn\u2019t just on the hill, it\u2019s off the hill,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just during the snow sports season, it\u2019s year round. Just a lot of things like that we realized we had some gaps in what we were doing. \u2026 What the athletes would say is, probably, we treated them too much on a transactional basis, instead of really thinking about them more holistically.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about his guiding principles for steering the organization, Nelson said trust and integrity were at the forefront \u2014 two qualities he has found integral, believe it or not, in the finance industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you lose that, you\u2019re worthless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The same goes for how he interacts with the athletes at U.S. Ski and Snowboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not somebody who has any kids,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cNow I have 185 of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

sports@parkrecord.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kipp Nelson stands for a photo on a patio atop U.S. SKi and Snowboard\u2019s Center of Excellence. Nelson, 60, brings a finance background to his new role as chairman of the organization\u2019s board.Tanzi Propst\/Park Record PARK CITY, Utah \u2014 If you want to really boil it down, Kipp Nelson is the money guy at U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 05:39:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}