History

House of Snowboarding – the World Snowboard Federation

The sport of snowboarding is relatively young with the first snowboard only being invented in the 1960s and competition snowboarding as we know it only appearing in the late 80s and early 90s.
In 1990, five nations and 120 racers established the International Snowboarding Federation (ISF) with the goal of keeping the officiating by riders and for riders. It sought to bring the world’s best competitors together to test their skills in an environment, which embraced competitiveness, but stressed the idea of having fun. The ISF eventually attracted riders of varying ages and abilities, which allowed one-time rising stars such as Terje Haakonsen, Daniel Frank and Danny Kass to sharpen their skills at an early age on their way to joining the professional ranks.

The ISF set the standard for snowboarding competition, which contributed to the development of it as an Olympic sport in the 1998 Winter Olympics. The ISF closed its doors in 2002 as their internal financing structure didn’t survive with the FIS’s new arrival into the sport with the 1998 Olympic Games.
Delegates from 14 nations formed the World Snowboard Federation (WSF) on August 10 2002 in Munich in order to fill the void after the collapse of the International Snowboard Federation (ISF). The initiative was taken by Japan and Norway – with support from most of the nations worldwide. The WSF became operational at the end of November 2002.
Simultaneous to the formation of the WSF, The Ticket to Ride Tour (TTR) was established by Terje Haakonsen, key event organizers and brand representatives with the aim to become the most innovative and progressive grass-roots tour connecting the most prestigious independent snowboard events worldwide.

The TTR strived to promote competitive snowboarding in representing the interests of a professional network of events, athletes, national sport associations and industry partners.
The TTR owned the World Snowboard Tour, the World Championships of Snowboarding, and the widely respected global ranking system – the World Snowboarding Points Lists.
By offering a fair, unbiased, global ranking platform, and through maintaining global competition course-build, safety and judging standards, TTR brought transparency to the sport, across the freestyle disciplines of Halfpipe, Slopestyle and Big Air. Through TTR’s four-tiered Regional to Elite level tour structure, it encouraged, developed and supported rider progression from rookies to world-class athletes, where the Elite level, WST Pro Series events were the ultimate pinnacle of snowboarding.

TTR AND WSF BECOME ONE ENTITY

In 2017 the WSF and the TTR merged to become one organization due to the seismic shift in the sport’s cash flow. In 2012 the TTR noticed the
start of the National Sporting Association injecting money to support National athletes and the first nationally well-funded events appearing on the tour.
This was happening in unison with the collapse of the core brands, who had been funding the sport of competition snowboarding.
Due to the shift from events being funded primarily by sponsorship to the current situation where National Sporting Association funds the bulk of athletes and events the merger with the WSF was required as the WSF is a member based International Federation whereas the TTR was owned by private event member shareholders.
In 2017 the merger between WSF and TTR was performed through merger via absorption. WSF as the acquiring organization became the universal legal successor of the merged organizations through the merger.
Over the intervening years, the WSF became the international authority for youth development and grassroots snowboarding sustained by over 43 national snowboard associations around the globe.

FIS AND WSF ANNOUNCE UNIFICATION OF COMPETITIVE SNOWBOARDING

In 2019, the International Ski Federation (FIS) and the World Snowboard Federation (WSF) have reached an historic agreement regarding the global unification of competitive snowboarding and the future custodianship of the World Snowboard Points List (WSPL).
The agreement outlines significant opportunities and defines the responsibilities for the Snowboard competition pathway from grassroots to the Olympic Winter Games.
The World Snowboard Points List (WSPL) is recognised as the most comprehensive and authentic ranking of international snowboard athletes in the events of Halfpipe, Big Air and Slopestyle. Custodianship of the WSPL has been transferred to FIS immediately to ensure continued viability of the WSPL and provide certainty to athletes and National Associations for its future.
Both FIS and WSF recognise that their respective membership bases are largely the same and have a similar focus, facilitating the first steps of unification.
Both share the objective of ensuring that the most important interests are those of the athletes, nations, events and sport as a whole, with each party contributing its unique strengths.
WSF is and will continue to be the one and only authority for the grass-roots snowboarding and development of young riders through grassroots programmes, events and other activities.
Whereas, the FIS is and will continue to be the representative governing body, providing athletes with a clear international pathway to the Olympics.
There will be ongoing collaboration between WSF and FIS where the breadth of opinions can be brought together to focus on strengthening the sport.
Thanks to this clear understanding of areas of responsibilities, a structured and clear athletes pathway has been worked on and will provide guidance and a better understanding to the entire snowboarding community on what is the path for progression.