THE VOICE OF ACTION SPORTS: SAL MASEKELA

CELEB SHRED
PHOTOS BY
EMBRY RUCKER
FALL
2006
YEAR 03
ISSUE 01
SNOWBOARD / PRODUCTS, PLACES & PERSONALITIES
snowboard-mag.com
THE VOICE OF ACTION SPORTS:
SAL MASEKELA
BY LARRY NUñez
Already well known for his work with action sports, Sal MasekEla’s first day as an
NBA sideline reporter could have been way out of his league. After a couple weeks of
training, his opening game was a preseason match between the rival L.A. Lakers and the
Sacramento Kings. The Lakers had just smashed the Kings in the playoffs the previous
season…again, and tension between these teams was running high. Sure enough, five
minutes into the game there was a bench-clearing brawl between Sacto’s Doug Christie
and L.A.’s Rick Fox. “I run back there and it’s crazy,” Sal exclaims wildly. “There’s cops, and
there’s Shaq and Vlade—bodies flying. It’s pandemonium! I saw a cop fly through the air.”
He tries to explain what happened to his producer, who responds, “Ok, we’re coming TO YOU live
from SportsCenter in 60 seconds—figure out what you’re gonna say.’” His heart pounding,
all Sal could think was, I wish I was in the halfpipe, I wish I was in the halfpipe. Nevertheless, he held his composure and delivered a memorable line at the close of his segment.
“Yo, they’re throwin’ ’bows! One thing’s for certain—you’re never gonna see that at the X Games.”
During the ’06 ASR weekend in San Diego, SNOWBOARD’s Jeff Baker
and I walk into The Omni Hotel across the street from the convention
center. Attached to The Padres’ newly built Petco Park, The Omni is
a luxury four-star retreat from the hustle and bustle of the tradeshow—and miles away from the last-minute rooms we lined up at
the Day’s Inn. Everything seems a little more grown to me now, and
here we were at a plush downtown hotel to talk with Sal Masekala—
the infamous voice of action sports.
“Man, I walked outta there today and my jaw hurt from talking so
much,” says Sal of the last two days of ASR. “I used to look at dudes like
Kelly Slater and Kevin Jones, and see the way they would get mobbed
and how they dealt with it. It’s a trip to find myself in a similar position,
’cause it’s not something that I ever expected. But it’s cool—it makes
you feel good when people thank you for what you do.”
Some may take the quality and credibility of the X Games for
granted, but without Sal things could be a lot different. He’s one of the
few liaisons between them (the television executives) and us (the riders),
carefully navigating his way through an American media machine for
the last 10 years. Now practically a household name, albeit a tough one
for some to pronounce (Kevin Jones used to refer to him as Salmonella
Mashed Potato), few know the story of how Sal got there.
While working in an Encinitas restaurant in 1993, Sal noticed
a group of guys with ASR badges around their necks. He struck up
a conversation with Chad DiNenna, a Transworld magazine ad sales
rep at the time (and later, the founder of Nixon.) Chad handed Sal
his card and said, “Give me a call, I might have a job for you.” Sal was
blown away by Chad’s offer, so much that he was afraid to pick up
the phone, thinking, This is too good to be true! Sal finally made the
call only to find that he had waited too long. “Where were you dude?”
asked Chad. “The job’s gone.”
After three days of thinking he had blown his big chance, Sal got
the first of many life-changing phone calls. “We just fired the receptionist,” said Chad. “If you hustle, maybe you can work your way up.”
“That was the beginning for me,” says Sal. “It was the first time
I worked with people who were like-minded; people who wanted to
have a good time and not give me shit for wanting to pursue this
lifestyle.” After starting out on the phones and later moving into
video sales, he eventually went on to Planet Earth’s snowboard
outerwear division. He spent a lot of his free time at Big Bear, and
at one of the first Board Aid events Sal got his next break.
“Those first Board Aids were wild,” he remembers. “They had
all these great bands like Bad Religion and The Beastie Boys. At one
point I overheard someone say they didn’t have an MC. And that was
it; that’s when I started rocking the mic.”
From that first gig announcing at Board Aid, Sal started to
get more calls about hosting snowboard events. Soon he was doing
ASR Vert Ramp demos, Bud Light Big Air series and The Westbeach
Classic. The jobs didn’t pay much, but free lift tickets and lodging
seemed like a pretty good deal at the time. But all the side work
had an effect on Sal’s sales job at Planet Earth, and although
he had strong ties with company owner Chris Miller, Sal soon found
himself out of job—again.
He still had announcing gigs here and there, and while announcing
another Board Aid event, someone asked him to interview Tony Hawk
for a low-budget TV show—Planet X. “Man it was sketchy,” he recalls.
“The cameraman literally had a flashlight duct-taped to the top of the
camera and a wire that wasn’t long enough for me to move.”
He did get another job with a Reebok-funded shoe company
called Box, for about a year, but one day his Australian boss called
with some bad news. “Mate,” said the voice on the other end,
“I’ve got some bad news.” “Whaddya mean?” Sal asked. “She’s gone
belly up, mate,” said the Aussie. “They pulled out; Box is done. Tell you
what, though, mate…we’re gonna stick it to’em. Take your credit
card, pack your bags and disappear for a few months.”
Embarking on a worldwide tour of surf and shred, Sal maxed
out that card until it would swipe no more. He went to Hawaii and
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surfed the famous breaks of the North Shore. He had an epic winter,
even taking his old boss Chris Miller to Banff for their first snowboard trip. And he attended the Transworld Industry Conference in
Vail. It was in a large room with hundreds of industry leaders that he
let his voice be heard.
Addressing a panel of media experts from mainstream sources like MTV, ESPN, and Spin magazine, who were trying to withstand
an onslaught of criticism from the crowd about their misrepresentation of snowboarding, Sal stood up and said blatantly, “Why don’t
you guys hire me? Someone who knows what is going on; someone
who snowboards!” Their silence was met with cheers from the
audience, and Sal had clearly made his point. When the meeting was
over, the producer of the upcoming MTV sports and music asked
Sal, “Were you serious about what you said?” “Sure,” Sal answered.
“I think I could do that.”
When he finally returned to
SoCal, he made his way to Hollywood
for the audition—on the bus. After
dropping off his tape and meeting
with the producers, he got the call.
“Sorry, young man,” they told him.
“We don’t think you’re cut out for
this kind of work.”
Sal was assed out again.
Broke, no job, nobody hiring. “Shit
was starting to get real,” Sal says.
“I started to think, Maybe I’m gonna
have to back to go back to the
civilian life.” With $20 in his pocket,
an old friend dragged him to SIA
(Snowsports Industry of America
tradeshow) in Las Vegas, where
he spent the weekend handing out
resumés and sneaking in on company dinners. On the last day of
the show, his buddy was lining up
Swatch to sponsor a new television
show—Board Wild.
“He told the producer
straight up, ‘If you don’t hire my
friend here, we’re pulling out.’”
“He didn’t even have the juice or
the power to do that, but he just
gangster’d the guy into hiring me!”
laughs Sal. So I played along and
said, ‘Yeah I’ll do it, but you gotta
pay me up front.’ I went from being completely broke to ballin’ outta
control with an all-expenses-paid job and a condo in Whistler! To
this day it was still the best two weeks of my life.”
When he returned home, he got a call from his old friend
Chris Miller who needed a new team manager. Things were starting
to turn back around, and Sal finally had a real job and a steady
income again. But over the course of a few months, Sal met with a
group of friends at a small coffee shop in Encinitas, discussing the
state of the snow and skate industries and the inherent lack of cool
brands—brands that appealed to kids across the board whether
hip hop, or punk rock, skateboarding or art. And the next year at
SIA one of the friends at that table, Alyasha Moore, made Sal an
offer he couldn’t refuse. “This thing we’ve been talking about,” began
Alyasha. “It’s here. Are you in?” “What do you mean?” Sal replied. “I
just got back with Earth, man; things are going good for me right
now!” “Look,” continued Alyasha. “I’ll pay you $50,000 a year. We got
$3 million, and they’re gonna let us do our shit. And we’re gonna call
it, Alphanumeric.” “So when do I gotta give you an answer?” Sal asked.
“Right now,” Alyasha said. “You gotta decide this weekend.”
It was a tough decision, but on Monday morning he walked into
Chris’ office and handed in his two-week notice. As a longtime friend
and supportive boss, Chris wished his friend well—but not before
he schooled Sal on the problems of running a business. Even more
scared than before, Sal walked out on the only solid job he’d had in
years. But it turned out to be a smart move, as Alphanumeric (@#)
was well received from the jump. With a clean logo and a unique ad
campaign, they quickly differentiated themselves from other brands.
More than just a skate or snowboard company, the brand encompassed all forms of the lifestyle, and Sal and company put together
a diverse group of athletes from
all genres—appealing to skaters,
snowboarders, musicians and even
import-car racers. With people like
Jeremy Jones and Kareem Campbell on the roster, the guys knew
they had something special. “We
just wanted it to be about lifestyle,”
Sal explains. “This is what we do, but
this also who we are. It was this ill,
dope, tight family. And it worked!”
As @# started to take off, so
did Sal’s television career. MTV
called and apologized for not hiring Sal the previous year and
brought him in to do the Sports
and Music Festival. He also continued to do the Board Wild show.
He was announcing snowboard
contests left and right, and the
whole time he wore @# head to
toe. At a Vans Triple Crown event
in Breckenridge, a guy approached
Sal at the bar. “Hey Sal, I’m Phil
from ESPN. I’m here looking for
you. I want you to come work for
us.” “OK, whoever’s responsible
for this little trick…f--k you,” Sal
screamed back at the room full of
his shred buddies. “No, really,” the
man said. “I’m the executive producer of snowboarding for ESPN,”
and handed Sal his business card. “Oh man, I’m sorry,” said Sal, and
the two soon got into a lengthy discussion about the future of
snowboarding on ESPN. “Looking back at it now,” he remembers, “I
didn’t say one good thing to the guy. It’s a miracle I even got the
job! But he was cool about it. He knew that if we could communicate what snowboarding is, as opposed to just what these guys
were doing, they would have a hit on their hands.”
Two weeks later and two days before the event, Sal got the call.
If he wanted the job, he was in. Even though it was a great opportunity,
it was still another difficult decision to make. Things were going good
with Alphanumeric, and he was a bit hesitant about tarnishing the reputation he’d worked so hard to build. “You know, back then the X Games
was something you watched with the volume off,” he jests. “They were
the ‘extreme’games. And I was doing the Vans Triple Crowns, The U.S.
Open, ASR gigs, the Westbeach Classic… I had a nice little thing going
on the side. I was afraid people would call me a sell-out.”
But after some encouragement from his buddies, Sal agreed
and found himself in the center of a full-fledged television production. “The first thing I thought,” he recalls, laughing. “ESPN is
not Board Wild” on Fox. There were no flashlights strapped to the
camera; it was a machine! Cameras and trucks everywhere…this
was amazing.” His very first interview was with Kevin Jones, who was
one of Sal’s closest friends. “I sucked, looking back,” he pauses, “but
I was enthusiastic. And the riders reacted and starting being themselves and showing some personality.” The producers were thrilled,
and Sal proved to be a success—all the while, dipped out in dope
@# gear. The two ventures went hand in hand, and Sal’s television
presence help drive Alphanumeric sales through the roof.
“Everything just exploded from there,” he says. “The next
thing I knew I was never home! I was doing Alphanumeric during the
week, and doing events on the weekends. The first year we did $3
million; the second year we did $7 million—this was unheard of!”
But the rapid growth soon took its toll on the business model, as
@#’s parent company, Mecca, decided to expand on the brand name
and move into more widespread distribution. The whole hands-off
approach became a dictation into where the product would be sold.
Things got progressively worse. And the more Sal and his partners
studied the details of the initial investment agreement, the more
they realized that they didn’t own much of anything. As much as they
loved what they had created, the group decided they weren’t going to be a part of something that sold out the soul of the brand.
They all went to the computers, drafted letters of resignation, and
simultaneously hit send. “They flipped out,” says Sal. “The president of
International News called me up and said, [in Sal’s Dave Chappell
white guy voice] ‘You will see that we are going to make Alphanumeric
the biggest brand in action sports, and you spoiled bastards cannot do
what you’re trying to do. It will be big, and you will not be a part of it and I
am sad for you.’” Sal replied, “I guarantee you that this year, this brand will
do two million, and the following year it won’t even do a million.”
Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Alphanumeric took
a dump, with quickness—and nowadays it’d be tough to find anyone
who even remembers the name. As fast as it came up, without the
right team behind it, the company was doomed. But in a weird way,
it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Up until that point, Sal had
never taken television too seriously. He would miss flights, party ’til
5 in the morning the night before a broadcast and exude a generally “semi-cocky” attitude. Between the success of Alphanumeric
and the television gigs, Sal was no longer a struggling surf bum. He
was ballin’ outta control. He was co-hosting both the winter and
summer X Games. He went on tour with Tony Hawk, where all-night
blackjack tournaments on the tour bus would often end up with the
players writing the house big checks. He was riding the fun train
and wasn’t planning on getting off anytime soon. “I had like $20,000
in the bank,” says Sal. “I’d never even seen $20,000, and it’s in the
bank so I can’t even comprehend that it’s mine so f—k it, let’s party!
We raged so hard, that I didn’t really realize the opportunities I
had. It wasn’t until my producer came up to me one day and said,
‘You know, Sal, we’re grooming you to be the host of this whole
thing—step up to the plate.’ Next thing you know, this is my life,
my job. I was basically getting a paid education on how to be a
broadcaster, talking about what I loved!”
Things got even better for Sal in 2003; the year ESPN acquired
the NBA. During that summer, Sal again got a phone call that would
change his life. It was Phil, the original producer that approached
Sal in Breckenridge, with another important question. “Hey, Sal, are
you a basketball fan?” he asked. “Are you kidding? It’s the only other
sport I care about!” Sal blurted back. “How would you like to be the
sideline reporter for the Western Conference of the NBA? Start
brushing up, ’cause I think I’m gonna be able to make it happen.”
Three weeks later, Sal was at the initial conference to
welcome the NBA to ESPN. Brushing shoulders with Bill Walton, Tim
Hardaway and the commissioner of the NBA David Stern—little
Johnny-Dreadlock-shred-dude was the talk of the weekend. “Here’s
all these legends,” Sal recalls. “The biggest names of the NBA, and
here’s me…like hey, shaka dude?” Although there were plenty of
hater eyes looking Sal’s way, most of the guys warmed up to him by
the end of the seminar.
There’s nothing ESPN likes more than colorful commentary,
and after Sal’s initial broadcast it was game-on for the rest of the
season—even with a few scathing articles by high-profile sports
writers in the pages of USA Today and the NY Post with comments
like, “Sal Masekala doesn’t even deserve a credential to sit on the
sidelines much less hold a mic.” Facing criticism for the first time in
his career (no one really cares if you miscall a 540 in the halfpipe),
Sal got through the season, interviewing basketball superstars like
Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. “These guys just welcomed me
in and showed me love,” says Sal. “And it showed in the interviews.”
The dynamic between Sal and the players was unique, but nonetheless they pulled Sal from the Finals, using a more experienced Jim
Grey. His contract for the X Games was about to expire, so there
were several deals up in the air. Sal wasn’t worried though, after his
producer told him he was about to sign the contract that would
cement his career. Sal returned home to SoCal, awaiting the call.
But instead of the good news he was expecting, he was told
that his weekly ESPN Show, X-Today, was cancelled. Another week
passed, and the second call came. The NBA was not bringing Sal
back, and it turned out his producer had to use him as a bargaining
chip of sorts for other concessions. Within a couple weeks, two
thirds of his salary was cut. And after paying his agent, his manager,
his publicist, his business manager, his lawyer and Uncle Sam—
Sal was virtually broke again. Luckily he renewed his X Games contract, but Sal’s “ballin’ outta control” days came to an abrupt end.
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I needed to be humbled,” he
reflects. “I was having so much fun that I forgot the basic principles
of what had gotten me there in the first place. The next couple
years were rough. Everything looked good from the outside, but
really I was back to the hustle.”
Little by little things started to come back around for Sal.
He did a pool show called Ball Breakers. He hosted a game show and
an import-car show. He started Stoked Mentoring, a big-brother–type organization for at-risk youth. Eventually he began to get
excited about the little things in action sports again. He discovered
that he still had a lot left to learn, and his broadcasts started to
improve. After his best Winter X ever in 2006, he signed a four-year
deal for a show with E!—The Daily 10. “In the end, I decided that I
don’t really need that much,” Sal admits. “As long as I can still skate,
snowboard and surf, have my friends and family…I’m set.”
Through Sal’s determination and belief in himself, he has
carved his niche and made himself an indispensable part of the
action sports culture. With the support of that family, he’s achieved
more than he dreamed possible. “When I look at the amount of talent
that people in this industry have, most of who are not collegeeducated and have figured out how to run multi-million dollar budgets,
it blows me away,” says Sal. “Look at all the artists, the musicians,
the photographers…these are amazing people. I’m lucky to be part
of it, and I’m more fired up about it now than ever. I think I’ll feel this
way until I’m old and gray. It’s just who I am.”
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