What Shaun White's Backcountry partnership says about fame and finance: Shaun White builds on his gold-medal fame to create a sold-out brand.

• Author: Dodson, Jack

IT WAS THE X GAMES XVI in Aspen, Colorado, and Shaun White had already won. He didn't have to do more, but when he went down the superpipe on Jan. 29, 2012, he didn't hold back.

White landed a frontside stalefish 540, a double McTwist 1260, and others, but the most notable moment was his double cork 1260, which had not been done before. He ended up getting the first perfect score of 100 ever given during the Winter X Games.

Gold medals, groundbreaking tricks, and Olympic villages may be a thing of the past for White, but fame is giving him an opportunity to show off a new trick: pivoting fully from athlete to businessman.

Enterprise and retail aren't exactly new for White. In 2008, he turned his partnership with Target into a shared business venture through the launch of a clothing line. He also invested in a music and sports festival and became part-owner of several ski resorts in the past several years. But in 2022, White left competitive snowboarding fulltime. Now, in a media blitz, he talks about his approach to business.

Dubbed "the flying tomato" early in his career for sporting long red hair during his record-breaking snowboarding runs, White has been in the public eye for a long time. Even though he was born in San Diego, a city where snow falls only once every few decades, White became the nation's most famous professional snowboarder during his early career.

And that career started young. White earned his first sponsorship in snowboarding at age 7 and was a household name by the time he was a teenager. He holds the world record for the most Olympic gold medals for a snowboarder (3) and the most gold medals from the X Games (15). In the thirty years he's been a professional athlete, White has appeared in movies and television shows, been featured as the title character in snowboarding video games, and played guitar in a rock band.

White continued his award-laden extreme sports career until 2022 when he competed in his final Olympics in Beijing. Retiring at age 35, he has now shifted from action to business.

Last year, White partnered with the Utah outdoor retailer Backcountry to launch Whitespace--a lifestyle brand that features snowboards, jackets, ski goggles, and more. On the company website, White serves as the identity driving the marketing and a model showing off the clothing.

White's line of snowboards aims to make buyers feel like they are similar to him, to capture the mindset of a chart-topping snowboarder at the peak of...