SIA 2008/2009 report

However it is important to note that each brand may appeal to a different market, here is an example from Ride corporate info:

"At the end of the 07/08 season, based on rider submissions & Ride Chronicle registrations, Ride's demographics are approximately 85% Male and 15% Female, with the largest age grouping being 18-24 years old. On average, $300 - $600 is spent annually on snowboard gear, and though over 20% of respondents are lucky enough to get over 50 days a year on the slopes, most ride 11-30 days, which is well above the reported industry average of 9 days per season. And there you have it!"

Note: I found those diapositives on transworld business site


We received the following insight from SIA's research guru Kelly Davis explaining the growth in snowboarder visits:
Participation was up across the board for 2008. It correlates with the 60.5 million (a new record) skier/rider visits to resorts reported for the 2007/08 season when La Niña conditions brought record snowfall to alpine resorts across the U.S (there were 57.4 million skier rider visits reported in the 2008/09 Kottke End of Season report). According to the NSGA Sports Participation Study, alpine skiing participation was up almost 19% and snowboarding was up 16% for 2008. The sample for the NSGA study is a bit small so we triangulate the results with the Kottke Skier/Rider visits report issued by NSAA and another participation study SIA sponsors along with OIA, SGMA, tennis, golf, NCPPA and others that includes 41,500 responses. We have two seasons of data from that study and cannot use it yet to trend participation, however, for now it serves as a good check on the trends reported by NSGA and a better view of the actual number of snowboard participants. Additionally, that study looks at participation by season rather than by year. The NSGA and the larger SIA Participation Panel study correlate well:

NSGA Participation Study (participated at least 2 times in the given year) – 5,063,000 riders in 2007 and 5,854,000 riders in 2008
SIA Participation Panel Study (participated at least 2 times in the given season) – 5,874,000 for 2006/07 and 6,099,000 riders in 2007/08