What does it say then that the tour set a single-day attendance record Saturday (25,996) and outdrew the Utah-Utah State game (19,061) in Logan? Can skateboarding and freestyle motocross really be more popular than a game involving a Top 25 college football team?
"Football? You know, it's on its way out," deadpanned Andy Macdonald, who won the skateboard vert finals Sunday as the Dew Tour wrapped up a record-setting weekend. It was the 35-year-old Macdonald's first tour victory.
The Dew Tour set its second overall attendance record in as many years as it has come to Utah, drawing 63,481 to the four-day event. That was up from 61,910 last September, a record broken a month later in Orlando, Fla.
Jeff Robbins, president of the Utah Sports Commission, noted that Brigham Young and Weber State also were playing at home Saturday. "Certainly there's a great action sports following," Robbins said, "and the young demographic is following this sport."
"I thought this year and next year we'd maybe get more traction," Robbins added, "so it's great to see that in a down economy."
B.J. Carretta, the tour's director of marketing, praised officials from EnergySolutions Arena, the sports commission and the city for their cooperation, especially in shutting down streets. "I think they really grasp how big of an event this is," Carretta said.
Although Salt Lake City is the smallest of the Dew Tour's five markets - Baltimore, Cleveland, Portland, Ore., and Orlando are the others - it has arguably been its strongest. That didn't come as a surprise to skateboarder Ryan Sheckler.
"I feel like us coming here opens the floodgates for any fan of any sport to come out and witness it," Sheckler said. "There's a lot of action sports fans in Salt Lake. That's cool."
The crowds were so thick Saturday that 300 West was almost choked with people. There wasn't a seat to be had at Sunday's BMX park finals, with a line of people hoping to get into the general admission bleachers that stretched on and on.
"I walked through the festival village and it's amazing," Macdonald said. "I have a 2 1/2 -year-old at home and I'm just like, 'I can't wait to bring him out to this.' "
As for the final day of competition, Macdonald broke through with his first tour victory, which he compared to his hometown Boston Red Sox finally winning their first World Series in 86 years.
"That's just this one event," Macdonald said. "I've won the X Games before and I've won almost every big event once before. But I've never won a Dew Tour in four years of doing it, so I'm psyched to get a win."
After a strong first run that put him in the lead, Macdonald went even bigger in his second run. He landed a spinning 720 in the middle and then went straight into a McTwist (a 540 variation) on the way to earning a 90.50.
Pierre-Luc Gagnon took second with a 90.25 on his third run, which featured a 720 and several kickflip tricks. Bob Burnquist was third (88.25) and Bucky Lasek, the season-long points leader coming in, finished fifth with a run that included seven 540s.
In the BMX park finals, Daniel Dhers won for the fourth time in four tour stops this year. The only other athletes to win four times in one summer in tour history are Sheckler, Jamie Bestwick and Nate Adams. But Dhers could be the first to go 5-for-5.
Fourteen-year-old skateboarder Chaz Ortiz, who upset Sheckler in Saturday's park finals for his first pro victory, won the Utah State of Sport award and a $10,000 bonus as the weekend's most outstanding athlete.
rsiler@sltrib.com
