Rob Dyrdek-DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation

Street League Foundation seeks to create and maintain healthy and sustainable communities by promoting and providing the inherent benefits of skateboarding to communities throughout the world. The Foundation achieves this by working with municipalities, non-profits, and private donors on the design, development, and construction of safe and legal skate plazas.

According to recent data, there are more than 12 million skateboarders in the United States and 74% are between the ages of 7 and 17. Additionally, skateboarding has become the third most popular sport for teenagers, behind only football and basketball. Skateboarding is now more popular than baseball, hockey, tennis and many other “traditional sports”.

While skateboarding provides the same physical and mental health benefits of many mainstream sports, its needs are grossly underserved nationally. In fact, there are over 10 times as many tennis courts in the U.S. than skate plazas, leaving over 8.5 million kids with nowhere to skate.

With zero or very limited legal places to skate, skateboarders skate on public and private property. This has led to a number of problems: trespassing, loitering, property damage, etc. As a result, skateboarding has been made a crime. It is illegal in almost every municipality nationwide. Beyond the health benefits that skateboarding provides to skaters, data has shown that building skate plazas has been shown to reduce local municipal crime rates by as much as 19%.

The implications are clear. Our youth and communities desperately need safe and legal places to skate, exercise, and practice the sport they love. Street League Foundation is partnering with the California Endowment to help build fourteen skate plazas over the next three years within California. Specifically, the partnership would focus on the fourteen communities that the California Endowment has identified within its Building Healthy Communities Initiative.

Partnering with the California Endowment to fund the design, development, and construction of safe and legal skate plazas will go a long way in helping to achieve the Foundation’s short-term and long-term goals. Our short-term goals are achieved by providing youth with legal and safe places to exercise and practice the sport they love. Each skate plaza promotes skateboarding which provides the same positive health benefits that mainstream sports provide. This immediately impacts the health of those who utilize the plazas and the communities in which they live. Long-term, each skate plaza we build becomes a cultural shift of acceptance for future proposed skate plazas. Furthermore, it demonstrates to each municipality across the nation the positive mental and physical health benefits of skateboarding; and the need to provide the resources necessary to build and maintain enough safe and legal places to skate.

Sources: SGMA International. 2004; National Sporting Goods Association. 2008; Board-Trac. 2010.

Street League Foundation seeks to create and maintain healthy communities by promoting and providing the inherent benefits of skateboarding to communities throughout the world:

- Assisting municipalities, non-profits, and private donors with the design, development, and construction of safe and legal skate plazas throughout the nation.
- Bringing skateboarding into schools and communities nationwide as an alternative to mainstream sports and exercise.
- Actively advocating for skateboarding rights, funding, and representation in schools and communities at the local, statewide, and federal levels of government.
The design, development, and construction of safe and legal skate plazas achieve the Foundation’s short-term and long-term goals. Our short-term goals are achieved by providing our youth with a legal and safe place to exercise and practice the sport they love. Each skate plaza fosters skateboarding and the same positive health benefits that mainstream sports provide. This immediately impacts the health of those who utilize the plazas and the communities in which they live. Long-term, each skate plaza we build together creates a cultural shift of acceptance for future proposed skate plazas and becomes an example to each municipality that we need more resources dedicated to ensuring that our youth have enough legal and safe places to skateboard. Ultimately, showcasing to each municipality across the nation the positive mental and physical health benefits of skateboarding; and the need to provide the resources necessary to build and maintain enough safe and legal places to skateboard.

By bringing skateboarding into schools and communities nationwide, we expose the sport and its health benefits as an alternative to mainstream sports to our youth who don’t fall into the traditional sports category. Bringing skateboarding into schools not only exposes the inherent benefits of skateboarding to a wider audience, but will demonstrate to municipalities and the local community the need to dedicate adequate resources to build legal and safe places for kids to skate.
Although there has been progress made, skateboarding is still viewed as a nuisance and treated like a criminal activity amongst many key decision makers who do not understand the sport nor its popularity. It is important for Street League Foundation to identify advocates in all facets of society, from community based organizations, to elected officials, and the private sector who can effectively promote the rights, the needs and the benefits of the skateboarding community. This will help to ensure that skate plazas continue to be built and that skaters continue to have safe and legal places to skate.

Street League Foundation is perfectly situated to accomplish its mission and goals as the non-profit sister entity to the world’s first professional skateboarding league, Street League Skateboarding (www.streetleague.com). Since the launch of Street League Skateboarding (SLS) in 2010, the SLS mission has been to foster the growth and popularity of street skateboarding worldwide. In support of SLS’ mission, Nike SB joined forces with SLS to create the 2013 SLS Nike SB World Tour. As the most elite competitive series in skateboarding, the SLS Nike SB World Tour elevates street skateboarding and showcases the sport’s biggest stars as they compete in an easy-to-follow, instant-scoring format that airs live on ESPN/ESPN2.
The wild success and the international exposure of the Street League Skateboarding competitive series has helped to further the popularity and demand for skateboarding both nationally and internationally. Street League Foundation is in a prime position to establish partnerhips with SLS’s current sponsors and partners, such as Nike, to help achieve its mission. Beyond the natural partnerships and opportunities that SLS brings to the the Foundation, the Foundation has enjoyed its own success in establishing strong public and private partnerships over the last 4 years that have resulted in millions of dollars dedicated to the construction of skate plazas.
While the potential for the Street League Foundation is bright, our growth and success is highly dependent on our ability to raise the money needed to put skate plazas in the ground. The beauty of the Street League Foundation model is that we ask municipalities to match whatever funding we are able to provide.

Street League Foundation has enjoyed great success in fulfilling its goals. Since its inception, the Foundation has identified and raised over $4,500,000 to build fourteen safe and legal skate plazas throughout the nation. Each skate plaza has helped to transform the health and well being of skaters who now have a legal and safe place to exercise and practice the sport they love.

As a result of our short term success and our partnership with Street League Skateboarding, the demand for more skate plazas and the number of financial partners/sponsors has begun to increase significantly. Our short-term success has demonstrated to municipalities throughout the nation the positive health and social benefits that each skate plaza provides for their community. Our model of taking a corner of an existing park and building a skate plaza that each municipality owns, operates, and maintains has proven to be very efficient. There is no purchase of land necessary and the maintenance of each skate plaza is minimal and typically falls within the local Park and Recreation Department’s set budget for maintenance of the park as a whole. Furthermore, all liability for each skate plaza is covered by each municipalities liability insurance for recreation.
Furthermore, our partnership with Street League Skateboarding has generated international exposure of our Foundation and mission. In fact, we are now in the process of designing and building our first international skate plazas as a result of SLS’s success and international reach. As SLS continues to promote the sport of skateboarding throughout the world via its international competitions and globally televised events, the demand for legal and safe places for communities to skate has increased and will continue to increase.