Marvel characters hit the slopes in the fall of 05’

By Robert Covarrubias

Tyler Sports, a division of Spencer Reed Accessories, Ltd, proudly announces a licensing agreement with Marvel Enterprises, Inc. to produce snowboards, snowboard helmets & snowboard bags. The snowboard products will feature popular Marvel characters such as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, The X-Men, The Punisher, Ghost Rider and The Fantastic Four. I had the opportunity to speak with Robert Shiff, President of Tyler Sports, who showed me the impressive line of snowboards, helmets and bags. Not only was the art work impressive but it makes you want to pick one up and rush down a snow covered hill. When I say that pictures don’t do these snow boards any justice, I mean it. Unfortunately the rest of you will just have to wait for the fall or browse their website.

RC: How did the concept of the snowboards come about?
RS: I was looking for a winter product, right now I currently do a lot of beach product and sandals and toys mostly spring related…I needed to get involved in a winter product and I’ve always had an inkling to get involved with ski or snow board equipment and had an opportunity at the licensing show to meet with Marvel and Disney and Nickelodeon and Marvel made the most sense for the snow board industry, it’s a little edgier graphic driven, wide variety of ages that its going to correlate to so we went to marvel, brought them up a proposal on putting something together and they were interested and we were able to put something together.

RC: Is this the first time something like this has been done, Marvel characters on snowboards?
RS: Actually it was done about 10 years ago and I think it did ok for a couple of years and then I’m not sure what happened with the company they got bought out or they got gobbled up by somebody else… and nothing else had happened.

RC: When do they hit the shelves?
RS: We’re launching the product September 1 st. We’ve been taking orders since January. We had our first trade show at the SIA show which is the Snow Industries Association show in Las Vegas to resounding success, we did a major e-mail blast to about 12,000 retailers post card mailers to about 4-5,000 customers so people were excited about it when they saw the product and the reaction…most people, their eyes light up and…totally awestruck it brings them back to their child hood.

RC: Who’s the artist on these snow boards or do you have many?
RS: Its definitely a variety of artists that we pick and choose…we have access to Marvel’s encyclopedia on-line we’re able to download and manipulate the art work and put it on our boards we have a great designer her name is Betty Stendik and she’s just fabulous in the way she could re-construct or re-configure a poster or some other art work and put it on a helmet or board etc… and its pretty exciting to see.

RC: Are you a collector?
RS: I collect Baseball cards I don’t collect Marvel property items but I think I’m gonna have to start creating a little collectors edition on my wall in my office I think its gonna make a lot of sense.

RC: Since showing your products at these shows have you’ve gotten requests for other characters not currently on your list?
RS: There’s been a couple of requests for Silver Surfer and Juggernaut…we’ve covered pretty much of the gamut we also have Iron Man on our website which is going to be a movie release in 06’ we just heard that Nicholas Cage has been cast to do Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four is coming out in July so with Marvel you have just a constant flow of product hitting the market between movies, video game releases, the comic books, they sell 40 million comics a year 24 of which go to adults, so we have a great adult market as well to go after and were selling boards not just the Spider-Man little kid boards were selling the Ghost Riders and the Venom boards they’re big sellers we have a good assortment.

RC: What is the price range?
RS: The junior boards start at $200 retail the adults are $250 retail…seem pretty much in line with the market place not too high price but right in the meat of the industry, helmets retail for $60 and the bags range anywhere from $25 to $45 depending on the type of bag.

RC: With the reception you are receiving do you see yourself expanding the characters and creating other products?
RS: We’ll definitely be expanding for the following season, thinking about skis as the next category…we don’t want to extend too much because it’s very skew intensive meaning we already have between all the sizes and all the characters on snow boards alone we have 50 different style numbers…when you’re looking to construct a company and you have to support each size and character it means inventory so on and so forth so it becomes a major investment.

RC: Why go with Marvel as your final choice?
RS: Well we felt it was age relevant to about 7-14 and we’re finding that adults want it. My friends, cousins, nephews my brothers friends who are in their forties so its been pretty varied in terms of ages and the orders have been reflecting a wide variety of interests.

RC: Will you eventually do DC characters or would that be a conflict of interest?
RS: I don’t think it’s gonna be too much of a conflict but it’s been a thought but we want to really get our feet wet with Marvel.

Robert Shiff, President

RC: Do you have a favorite character?
RS: Personally, Ghost Rider is, I think… probably the coolest board, but some people will say Captain America’s right there, the art work just looks great you can check out the website at www.marvelsnowboards.com or www.tyler-sports.com and check out the whole collection.