Shaun White starting new halfpipe league in hopes of increasing prizes, visibility for action sports

Shaun White is starting a season-long halfpipe league that will offer more than $1.5 million in prizes in hopes of pulling together what has long been a spread-out, confusing action-sports calendar.

The 37-year-old, three-time Olympic gold medalist, who retired in 2022 after the Beijing Games, is calling the new enterprise The Snow League. The first season will start next March and run past the 2026 Winter Olympics. There will be five events, all of which will include snowboarding, with plans to include freeskiing at mid-season.

“In the end, we really want to be that premier thing, where it’s amazing to go to the Olympics and win a medal, but this is like winning Wimbledon or the NBA finals. It's almost more prestigious," White said.

Though snowboarders capture the public's imagination at certain times — notably, the Olympics — keeping track of the sport's biggest stars — Chloe Kim, Scotty James and Ayumu Hirano — has always been a chore because most halfpipe contests are standalone events with inconsistent TV and streaming schedules: Winter X Games, Dew Tour and a series of grand prix stops that aren't always interconnected.