and direct us to your website if you don’t have the actual product on there. It’s seriously annoying. I’m flipping through Surfing Mag right now and saw a Nixon watch I like. So I go to their website and I can’t find it anywhere.

What’s up with that? If you don’t have the product in stock then don’t advertise it in the mags. If you do have the product in stock then make sure it’s on your site. This definitely isn’t the first time this has happened either and Nixon isn’t the only guilty party.

Not only is it annoying to the consumer, but now your advertisement is worthless.

End rant.

Alex from the ASR blog is pondering whether mixed martial arts will be the next major action sport. She notes the rise in industry companies sponsoring fighters (RVCA & BJ Penn) as a possible connection. What do you think? Is mixed martial arts an action sport?

Personally, I don’t see mixed martial arts as an action sport. I see it as fighting and see no reason why it would fit a classification any differently than any other martial arts or even boxing. I do think it’s a great opportunity for advertisers in our industry to not only reach their target audience (lots of us watch it right) but to branch into new industries as well. Not to mention many people who train and fight in MMA events are also involved in other action sports. But that doesn’t necessarily mean these sports qualify as action sports even with the close relations, or does it?

Which leads me to the question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. What exactly defines an action sport? Especially with the all the new sports that have been featured in the X-Games over the last couple years. Sports like rally racing and supercross. Two or three years ago none of these would’ve ever been considered as action sports, but now it seems because certain athletes have crossed over they’re suddenly accepted into our industry.

The Wikipedia defines action sports as…

Extreme sport (also called action sport, adventure sport, and adventurous sport) is a media term for certain activities perceived as having a high level of inherent danger or difficult and often involving speed, height, a high level of physical exertion, and highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts. They are almost always individual instead of team activities and that they often focus on performing tricks or stunts.

While that sounds like a pretty lame definition, there are a few key takeaways here. But seeing as the action sports industry as a whole pretty much sucks when it comes to keeping up with technology on the web I’m not going to automatically accept this as the be all definition.

So my question to you is…. What defines an action sport and who has the final say?

Founded by sisters Courtney and Lisa Pugh, Core Action Sports is an all womens action sports website featuring both a community and an online store for women’s apparel and gear.

The company is based in Denver, Colorado and offers a wide range of products and brands in the skate, ski, snowboard, wake, and surf categories. The site is also aiming to become an information source for everything related to women and action sports. There are sections for news, events, competition results, fitness tips, tip tricks, athlete profiles, and much more. The company even plans to launch a blogging platform that will enable members of the site to write their own blogs.

I like the idea of a women-specific website. There’s an obvious void in the industry when it comes to the female market and Core Action Sports is aiming to solve that problem. With a strong push being made in the industry towards female branding, Core Action Sports is positioning themselves to dominate this niche.

The design for the site is well done and I found it a breeze to navigate through the site. Some of the features are either missing or broken but that’s to be expected on some level as the site is still brand new. I would imagine those issues will be fixed as they continue to roll out the new features in the coming months.

The site could use more social features though. If they’re aiming to own the women-specific space there needs to be a stronger push into creating a community where the ladies can not only consume information but contribute back as well. The blogging platform is a good start but there should be profiles, video & image uploads, and more. There also needs to be some social shopping features around the ecommerce section of the site.

Core Action Sports is holding a grand opening party in October. The event will take place in Denver and feature action sports athletes and fashion runways showcasing the latest gear and apparel. Even though we’re aren’t chicks we better get an invite.