Chasing the action

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 | 2:56 p.m. | By Tripp Mickle | Comments | Print

A month after leaving his job as chief growth officer for the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour to join Omnicom's action sports event company, ASA Entertainment, Gabby Roe said he is still overwhelmed by the size of the action sports industry.

"If I've learned one thing, it's gigantic," he said, speaking in the hallway of the St. Regis. "The genre of action sports is so much larger than I anticipated."

Roe cited a 700 percent increase in participation over the last several years as an example of the industry's staggering growth. He added that 70 percent of interest in action sports is overseas.

"Nobody's really wrapped their arms around that," Roe said. "That's one aspect we're considering."

He also talked about the range of sports that are growing from twin-tip skiing to snowboarding and street skateboarding to motocross.

"We could probably throw a dart in one sector of the business," Roe said, "but we want to be sure and do it in a strategic way."

Roe said determining where and how ASA grows along with the industry will be the central focus in his new job.

"Do we try to be everything?" he asked. "Do we try to carve out a niche? There's plenty of room in action sports and we just want to be strategic in how we attack it."

He said he will also be working to expand ASA's sponsorship base of 30 clients, adding that the agency will work to tap into its parent company Omnicom, which acquired the agency last year.

"We haven't really tapped into the Omnicom client base yet," Roe said. "We have 5,000 people to talk to globally."