Things Tony Says on Podcasts

It was cool. I mean, I was helping the process along as much as I could through the years, through the early days, too, of what are all the hoops you have to jump through? You know, what are the connections you have to make? I mean, I went to Lausanne. I pitched skateboarding as a discipline. And then when I Said that it was going to be actually included in the Tokyo Games, I Said off of my involvement because I Said want anyone to think that I was manipulating it, that I was somehow making the rules. You know what I mean? I just like, I Said want to be responsible for the decisions they were making like that because I also didn't have the bandwidth to help in the minutiae like that. So it was more like, okay, it's in the Olympics. As far as I'm concerned, my work is done. And I mean, it should have been there all along. Like, you know, that's my attitude. They needed our cool factor more than we needed their validation. I

The most profound time for me was years later when skating started to come back around because this is the year I'm talking about is like 88, 89. And then we kind of went through the downturn of skating as a business. And then in the late 90s, it started. Come back around with X games and stuff. And I Said a promotion in 1997 for a cereal brand in New York. And I thought it was the biggest, it was, it was the biggest thing I'd ever done in terms of being like a brand partnership, a brand endorser. They did this huge event in New York City with a ramp and with an announcer, and they brought in a crowd of people. And we had to basically talk about the cereal mascot as if he's our real friend. And we're so glad that he's into our sports now. And the whole time, I just felt, I mean, obviously it's dishonest and silly, but it just felt cheap. And it felt like we were losing the integrity of our sports to fit in with marketing, to fit in with, you know, the ad agencies of Madison Avenue or whatever it is in New York City. And I was like, this is not staying core to our values. And then I Said it. I was contractually obligated to do it. Kind of slyly made fun of it in the way when I was doing it. Because I Said some other, I was with other people like Dave Mira was there and Johnny Mosey was there. I mean, all this stuff is not hard to find, but, and we were all kind of feeling silly about it too. But right after that, I got the Activision contract. I got the Activision offer. And because of my experience at that commercial promotion, I was like, whatever they do, if they're going to put my name on it, I have to have approval over it. And that was the best timing for that. And luckily, Activision didn't have high hopes for this game. They knew it was going to be a fun project. And so they let me have that approval. They agreed to my contract. And that was, I mean, beyond obviously getting offered crazy money for a buyout, that was the best thing about it. Because then when the game came out and it was proven to be something that the core community liked, but also the mainstream community liked, I Said a lot more leverage when I would do brand partnerships after that because they would trust my voice. And that continues to this day.