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The Snow League arrived in Aspen on Thursday, with, appropriately, some flakes.
The training day was slightly stunted by the snowfall, but gave athletes their first look at how Shaun White’s invention is trying to refresh the sport of halfpipe competition.
They donned bibs that were not just a piece of fabric, but included sewn-in numbers and their last name — much like the professional athletes in other sports — plus microphones. The VIP enclosed section at the bottom of the pipe — a staple of other events like X Games — stands as a triple-deck behemoth, framing the finish area.
The real changes, however, will come on the first day of competition on Friday.
“We have this moment in time to really make a difference, make a tour of our own,” White said. “I’m just so thrilled to be here and I can’t say this enough: It’s not about me. It’s not about the event organizers or the people running the resort. It’s about (the athletes) and building the future for you guys.”
White announced the Snow League in June, touting it as “the future of winter sports competition.” Now, nine months later, the inaugural event comes to Buttermilk, capping a three-month stretch of professional freeskiing and snowboarding that started with X Games in January.
The Snow League will function in a tour format, focused on promoting athletes and compensating them: First-place finishers this weekend will earn a $50,000 prize purse; second place $20,000; third place $10,000; fourth place $5,000; then fourth through eighth places earning $2,500. That’s on top of a $5,000 appearance fee each athlete receives.
The competition itself is different in format than that of a World Cup or X Games: Rather than a full pool of the athletes all competing against each other and best score wins, the Snow League will feature heats of five athletes in qualifying day with the top two out of each heat advancing to a head-to-head knockout tournament on finals day. In those one-on-one matchups, they’ll be scored run-by-run, earning a point for outscoring their opponent in each individual run. First to win two runs advances to the next round.
Ryusei Yamada, No. 1 seed in the fourth heat of the Snow League qualifiers on Friday, trains at Buttermilk on Thursday.
Jason Charme/Aspen Daily News
And rather than athletes being able to just put down their well-rehearsed, singular top run, they must drop in on both the left and right walls in their first two runs, with the hope of forcing athletes to show creativity and a diversity of tricks.
“The Snow League, in general, feels pretty big, so I’m stoked to be here for the first one,” Chase Blackwell said. “Not even for myself, but I feel like for future generations this is going to grow the sport. … Once people do recognize our sport and kind of get the fan base going, it’ll just show a lot more. All of our contests at the moment really don’t showcase anything until the finals, and then it’s a great show at the finals.”
Blackwell, of Summit County, is one of several Colorado-based athletes in the competition. Madeline Schaffrick of Steamboat Springs and Lucas Foster of Telluride were original invitees. Alternates Aimee Wild, Rochelle Weinberg (both of Steamboat Springs), Jason Wolle (Leadville) and Ryan Wachendorfer (Frisco) were added after drop outs.
Japanese superstars led the men’s seeding, making up all four top seeds in the men’s heats, plus Misuki Ono taking a top spot in the women’s seeds. Schaffrick and Maddie Mastro of California are the two Americans occupying top seeds.
Seeding tiers were created using World Snowboard Points List ranks, then randomized. The men’s second heat features World No. 2 Ayumu Hirano, No. 8 Campbell Melville-Ives and No. 11 Chaeun Lee. The fourth heat features No. 6 Ryusei Yamada, No. 7 Shuichiro Shigeno and No. 12 Alessandro Barbieri.
A total of 36 snowboarders will compete: 20 men and 16 women. The first event of the season in Aspen will only feature snowboarders. Skiers will be introduced to the circuit in China in December and in February 2026 back in Aspen. The first season will feature four events, while White said he hoped to expand to 10 to 12 events in a season in the next few years.
The qualifying runs will take place on Friday and the finals will be on Saturday, followed by a performance on-site by Big Boi and including a “special guest performance” in the middle of the competition.
The weather that slowed some of the training on Thursday started to clear out by the afternoon, and officials said that renowned pipe cutter Frank Wells would be working in the wee hours of the morning to make sure it was ready for the first day of competition.
The gates open to spectators at 9 a.m. on both days. The women’s qualifying heats begin at 9:40 a.m. and the men’s start at 12:10 p.m. on Friday. The quarterfinals start at 9:40 a.m. on Saturday. Competition is scheduled to be completed by 3:10 p.m. on Friday and 2:10 p.m. on Saturday.
Tickets for both days of the Snow League are still available. Prices are listed as $20 for Friday ($24.37 after web fees) and $55 for Saturday ($62.90 after web fees). Prices were bumped up at the beginning of March.
Children under 12 get in free with a paid adult. The Snow League also allocated tickets to Roaring Fork School District students and Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club athletes free of charge.
For those who can’t make it to Buttermilk, both days of competition will be livestreamed on NBC’s Peacock in the U.S. The Snow League said it will be livestreamed in 95 countries on different streaming platforms. More information on that is available at TheSnowLeague.com/how-to-watch-global-listings/.