Photo: Nick Hamilton for Transworld. Yuki Kadono at Air and Style in LA, 2015

The IOC has announced four new events at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, including the addition of Big Air to the snowboard list. This is, however, taking the spot of the snowboard parallel slalom… I’m feeling like that’s a good move.

There’s a quote about the inclusion of big air that talks about inspiration and getting new participants but we all know what this is about – snowboarding events like this one rate like crazy on TV and will keep the price of the broadcast rights high.

Now all we need is to see that money, and the influence of that ability to rate, translated into a better representative body and more money for the sport in general. Either that or they’ll be saving the funds for when they need to truck snow into the 2022 Beijing games.