IF YOU THINK SKATEBOARDING can have a big-money contest without the help of outside corporate sponsors, then you obviously have never been a skate photographer trying to get paid for an ad.

"Oh bro, I thought you'd be stoked to get the photo credit!"

"Didn't we already pay for that?"

"How 'bout we send you a fat box instead?"

There are a few class acts, but in general the skateboard industry is still a pretty nickel-and-dime affair. Forget the teenage millionaires that get played up in some of the other mags, for the most part the powers that be are keeping a heavy hand over their back pockets. Even at the most hard-coriest of skateboarding's events, the prize money rarely makes it past 15 grand for first. That's a lot of money to ride a board for 45 seconds, but it's nothing compared to what ESPN and those dudes are getting.

The Boost Mobile Pro was billed as the Richest Event in Skateboarding History and sought to strike some sort of compromise between the type of event that a big corporation might want to sponsor and a contest that the best skaters would want to attend. Boost's Dave Sypniewski contacted Thrasher to help point him in the right direction. We were in, for better or for worse.

"SO HERE WE ARE IN TEL AVIV--we should totally go to the Hard Rock!"

For some reason, the idea of eating bacon cheeseburgers next to Nuno Bettencourt's guitar really does it for a lot of people and the Hard Rock does a sweet business in both food and merchandising. For a mere $189.95 you can bring home all the fun and excitement of your burger next to Bettencourt with a stylish white Hard Rock Cafe leather jacket.

In Sin City, they've managed to harness the excitement of the restaurants and repackage it to create the hippest of the Las Vegas casinos--complete with Sid Vicious-themed slot machines, full-priced drinks and exhibits containing (among other things) Gwen Stefani's tank top. From the crowd in the pool area, it seems the Hard Rock draws a heavy business from the stripper-and-the-sketchy-dudes-who-admire-them contingency and there was plenty of abused flesh on display. Unwind all the tribal tattoos in that pool, place them end-to-end and you'd have a grayish-black (but totally spiritual) strand that could reach the moon.

The pool had beaches of real sand a waterslide, a swim-and-gamble zone, and thin rivers that connected all of it. It was fun to watch the heroes of skateboarding, walk the waist-deep channels in an aquatic version of the man-train. The legion of cocktail waitresses kept everyone with a drink in their hand and I unashamedly drank pina coladas in plastic cups and peed in the pool at least five times. I'm pretty sure everyone else was peeing too. I mean, who wants to get up and find the can with all that sweet 'tang right in front of you, bro? Bro?

I'M NOT SURE who decided to hold the contest in June (shit, I guess it was us), but with daytime temps hovering near 110, there were few takers for afternoon practice. Heat victims included Austen Seaholm and Tony Trujillo, who both barfed during their runs, Peter Hewitt, who fried himself in practice and ended up spending his runs up in his room with a bucket of ice on his chest, and Eric Koston, who suffered a severe heat-induced thigh cramp which may have prevented him from taking the top spot in the finals.

The course was good-to-shitty, depending on who you talked to. It was a pretty standard banks, pyramids and rails set-up with a few dead spots and some bumps-to-flat bars that everyone seemed to enjoy.

The heats ran four dudes at a time lot three minutes and it was sometimes hard to watch everyone at once. Some heats were wild and in others, no one landed much of anything. Usually there was one guy who skated really well and everyone else pulled maybe one or two things. A lot of times it seemed more like an endurance contest.

To the delight of the critics, there was plenty of horrible, goofball shit that made the event seem not-that-far-removed from any average X-Games thing. For one, you had Fake Phelps, the cheese bag announcer and Jake Phelps doppelganger) who worked the crowd with the Boost

Babes, a bunch of chesty teens wearing highly-altered Boost tit-tops. For another, the featured musicians were the rap-rock hand Linkin Park, who, from the gigantic line that wrapped through the casino, are apparently extremely popular outside of skateboarding circles. At the pre-show press conference, Darren Navarrette got to ask them, "So, are you guys from Lincoln, Nebraska?" They're not. I guess they tried AC/DC but they wanted $2 million. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap my ass.

There were lots of other complaints you can come up with depending on how hard-core or bitter you are, but I think there were a lot of things that made this contest pretty rad.

First of all, it was invite-only. You know the weirdos who always win the X-Games or whatever but who have no board sponsor and who you've never seen in any magazines? They weren't invited. Instead, the kids were treated to runs by such non-contest skaters as Matt Mumford Daewon Song and even Heath Kirchart.

And you know the corny announcers who ask ridiculous questions to the skaters right after their runs like, "So, how'd it feel to land that kick-flip?" Well, they still had those, but at this event they were Mike York, Mic-E Reyes, Lindsey Byrnes and (gasp!) Jason Jessee. (They were pretty good--especially York and Byrnes. Sal Masakela, watch your ass!)

AND YES, the title sponsor was Boost Mobile--a cell phone company that has nothing really to do with skateboarding. Well these dudes paid out the nose! I'm not kidding. They must not have heard about the recession, 'cause they were shelling out money like Rocco in '89. First place got $40,000, second got $20,000 and everyone got at least two grand just for showing up. This is pretty much unheard of--to botch your run and still walk away with enough, to buy a good used Hyundai. Regardless of their motives, at least. Boost Mobile played fair and put the money in the hands of the skaters, instead of some multinational media conglomerate like ESPN. When's the last time anyone in skateboarding got a check from Slim Jim?

The only other complaint I kept hearing about was the judging. This is a tough one since, in theory, the skaters judged themselves. Rather than rely on the crew of mysterious over-the-hill dudes who usually pick the winners, the Boost contest had these little remote-control devices that the skaters could pick up and use to vote with after each heat. It was a slightly inconsistent system, since different skaters voted each time, but it wasn't like the team managers were voting or anything. I don't think it worked out perfectly, and there were some dudes who definitely got ripped off, but it seems like that happens at every contest. At least no one left empty handed.

IN CLOSING, yes, it was totally weird to have Thrasher involved an event like this. After playing the shameful badge games and sitting in the photo corals of the first few X-Games, I had forsaken the big time contests to concentrate on the action going down in the streets. It seems like most of the pros had too. Although I had nothing to do with the planning or execution of this event, I thought it went over pretty well, considering. The best skaters were there, they ripped, and they all got some cash for their talent and effort.

Maybe I'm being naive and this is the first step toward big-money corporate ownership of skateboarding. Perhaps I'm just a pawn. Maybe there should be a kickflip test for anyone who wants to sponsor or even come in to watch a skate contest. Then all the kooks would be left out in the cold and it'll only be the true skaters--the people who love 'boardin' to the fullest, value progression over profits, and would rather fight than be without their boards for five minutes, You know--like it used to be. How much was the prize money at Savannah Slamma, anyway?

HERE'S THE FUN PART OF THE ARTICLE--THE HIGHLIGHTS!

* Austen Seaholm not only got invited, but barfed mid-run during qualifiers and kept on skating. Spike that

* Tony T barfed too and had his own display case in the Hard Rock Casino. It had his board, Budweiser shirt, and a TV playing a loop of him ripping

* Tosh Townend qualified on the Wild Card day, in which uninvited dudes got to battle it out to make the cut. He ollied the big pyramid to tailslide. Herman and Spanky were ripping too

* Heath Kirchart sported a modern mohawk and kick-flipped the hip humongously. His close pal Dan Rogers had a 'hawk too, as a show of solidarity

* Bastien got ripped off--pulling kickflip back lips on the rails, big spin flips over the hips and Cab kick-flips past the gap. He manhandled tire big rail with a kickflip frontside board followed by the showmanship he's famous for

* Matt Mumford sparked up the shitty black quarter-pipe with man-sized egg plants