Legendary snowboarder Shaun White says he and the other organizers of the Snow League have looked to Formula 1 racing as their “north star.”
F1’s popularity has surged in the U.S. in recent years, fueled by the breakout Netflix series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” Drivers are celebrities, and the races are multi-day events.
“It looks different everywhere they go but it really, kind of, keeps this quality standard,” he said at Park City’s Grand Summit hotel Wednesday. “And you can kind of curate your experience. You're really getting the race, and you're also getting the things around it.”
The three-time Olympic gold medalist and 15-time X Games winner was the featured speaker at the 2026 Tourism Fall Forum.
The Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau hosts the event annually ahead of the winter season.
And this winter, snowsports are center stage.
The Park City Chamber wants to fill the hole left after the Sundance Film Festival’s departure with back-to-back competitions: the Snow League at Park City Mountain and FIS Freestyle World Cup at Deer Valley.
For its second season, the Snow League will stop in Aspen, Park City and Laax, Switzerland. The touring competition will be in Utah from Jan. 21 to 23.
White said the season will resemble that of traditional sports in some ways, even down to the jerseys or bibs where athletes can pick their own numbers, display their names and countries.
“You follow, start-to-stop a whole season, and this is the story arc of that athlete: Maybe having a rough patch in the beginning, finding themselves at the end, and then you know stealing the win from the favored athlete,” he said. “We just don't really have that. So I was so thrilled to bring it about.”
White’s own arc, he said, was one of fighting for the legitimacy of action sports as serious competitions, not gimmicky spectacles.
He remembers wanting to do deals and press after his first gold-medal win at Turin, Italy, in 2006. But talk shows wanted him to do something that might undermine his vision of professionalism.
“I had to really kind of cement and be like, ‘I’m going to walk out in a suit. I'm going to talk about my sport. You can air the clip; it'll be great,’” White said.
That’s what White said he wants to do with the Snow League: elevate action sports into the upper echelon where the athletes deserve to be.
“It was all about getting the world's best, getting the highest prize purse within the sport,” White said. “Really leading through example — equal pay for men and women — things that weren't happening at other events.”
The Snow League will be aired on NBC, Peacock and YouTube domestically. White said the Snow League will be available to watch in about 175 countries.
The Park City Chamber of Commerce is a financial supporter of KPCW.
