Why Chris Cole Quit Zero After 13 years

you left zero you do have the hard hitting questions this is sick where'd it go girl how why leave zero after 13 years right I don't know something like that wasn't doing a long time yeah it was 13 years 13 years that was what was the top graphic said 13 years 13 years of top graphic of his last board why did you leave I think there was a like I well I'm I'm sure well I'm sure there's two different sides of it right um I felt like there was there was a like we were growing apart in a lot of different ways and I think in hindsight there was a lot of a a dynamic shift in in my life as as a as a dude and like you kind of have your home and then you stray from home to kind of figure out yourself and because I've just always been under this Camp you know in like the mentorship and you know it's just always been this reality right and then I went and I started doing like contests and all these things that weren't the priority of of zero necessarily you know okay and so and that got very very consuming the contest thing got like a bit too much consuming what are we talking about the Street Leagues and yeah yeah like because Jam style Jam style contests are different um but with the three Week contest specifically like any run contest or like you have a number of goes and that's and you have to put up scores it was very very difficult for me so I had to hyper focus on it and like really figure out how I could like beat the game in a way um and and that became such a such a priority that it actually made me kind of a pain in the ass to have on the team in a lot of ways because if they're on tour I've got to fly in and fly out Kelly probably knows all about this you have to fly in to a Street League from tour and then fly back to the tour from a Street League because there were a billion stops at that point but that's in your own mind though or is that something that Jamie like would you agree with him one is we were going into some tough times during this time got you so what we were living I was like we were having like camping trips the budget was cut to nothing and we're going on camping trips and this dude's flying out of bougie hotels and coming coming in to slum it with a zero team for a week and his new contract or his new you know and I'm I'm communicating with an agent about his time and then the agent is telling me that he only has seven days this Summer that he can give to zero you're dealing with you're not even dealing with crazy he's he's wow he's a business and this is the peak of his career and he's being pulled in all these different directions and zero is just one more person putting in a request for his time wow so I agree with him that it was Mutual in the sense that he is focused on another aspect of his career that is not conducive to what we were doing with zero so I wouldn't say a pain in the ass but it is difficult to go to a demo and not have your biggest dude at the demo and then to have him come in and only have a limited amount of days and then him also feel like what the hell why are we slumming it so hard I'm like one of the biggest names in skateboarding and he wouldn't say it exactly that way but that feeling was felt oh no he definitely was leaving some bougie hotels and coming and we're like we don't know where we're camping tonight and we're we're gonna Renegade this campsite and then and then we're gonna get kicked out first thing in the morning and it was hectic that actually happened but I got it at any rate it was a tactic yeah it was I have to use her anybody would be like this yeah yeah it was from the Ritz Carlton to get kicked out of a campsite yeah it was pretty harsh I'm like I can I can definitely do the the the slumming uh trips this one was pretty pretty Buck but at this time at this time we were growing apart because we weren't we didn't have our normal Rapport we weren't filming video Parts together we weren't spending the time in the van it's just like any relationship if you're not spending time together yeah it's tough it's growing apart you know and he still was our biggest guy and we were committing the most funds to him like he was our highest paid team writer right by a long shot and we're getting the least from him than any other team Rider so it's starting to make less sense for zero and then you know him going on these camping trips that we're getting kicked out of campsites he's making less sense for him and I felt like the nail in the coffin was is when the company was struggling and I was completely wrapped up in trying to keep the Train on the tracks I signed a licensed deal with dwindle and didn't even call him to tell him that's where our relationship is wow and so I remember getting a call from him going dude I just found out about this through the industry is this real did you do this do I not and then that was that was the end of the year that was it and for me I was you know my communication with Cole wasn't so frequent that he was the first person on my mind that's my fault you know what I mean he still was the biggest guy on zero at the time and I should have had a priority list and his name been near the top of the list also I think it could it kind of sucks too that like here you guys were like the best of friends communicating but now you're going through an agent totally and that and that's like you know can't even talk to your buddy well that's that's the thing too like that happened like gradually that I didn't notice it was happening because my brain was so wrapped up with all the all the places I was being pulled that if if there was anything other than just like figuring out how to do hard tricks first try it it went to somebody else like somebody else deal with it emails somebody else deal with it like everything somebody else deal with it I'd like I'm I'm spread too thin phone calls as as do I would take I would take phone calls I do interviews and stuff like that but it was like I couldn't commit to anything so if you told me anything I felt like yeah I felt like Bilbo Baggins like butter spread over too much bread yeah so I don't know what that reference means I don't know either but I like it yeah but the people that get it they'll get it that's my guy so I almost feel like that breakup was Mutual at that point I I think it was I mean we couldn't and to be honest zero was getting really small and his salary was not small and so you know there was two parts one was like me calling his agent and saying hey we're having a tough time paying coal can we try to potentially revisit how we pay him and how we come up with the dollar amount and we were trying to figure out if we could do quick strike of boards and pay him a different royalty on the website and like we were trying to get creative I was trying to get creative to get him the same dollar amount but could get there in a different way but then not have it all in the company that if he doesn't sell that many boards each month we have a guarantee that's Way Beyond what we're what we're capable of paying so it was another scenario where there was a contract in place it was a five-year contract we were like year three and a half and I had um due to the the height of his career I had offered him a stock option in zero which would have been Ben if we ever sold the company he would get 10 of the revenue from the sale at this at this point when we were talking about this there was a real concept that we would sell the company someday but I didn't see this this is three years before what we're talking about totally no no no so it wasn't the beginning of his contract it was like a year into his contract okay we put in an ownership and it was kind of like a bonus Clause that if we ever sell the company because he had the potential to get ownership elsewhere at this point because he was at the peak of his career and so we're like how do we make all this work and to make it work um yeah it was a separate agreement to his five-year deal okay but it was like in order to make it all work there had to be some incentive for him to stay on zero that would have been similar to what he would be offered if he started something yeah and ownership is great only ownership is only great if you sell the company yeah that's true that is definitely true but there was a hope to sell the company because I didn't I knew I couldn't do it forever at this point and I didn't know what the future held but then when the bottom fell out it didn't make sense to sell it for pennies on the dollar right so by the time he we're talking about his contract the I the scenario of me ever selling the company for something that's going to give him a payday is is not happening so the agreement was let him out a year and a half early to his contract and then we get rid of the 10 oh you would dissolve that yeah dissolve the 10 Phantom stuff it equals a bonus so that was that was dissolved and that's basically how we handled it and got you you know to be honest it was sad but at the same time it was you know fairly obvious yeah and relieving but it was obvious for both of us that we needed a break and that he needed to go do his own thing so yeah what it was not there wasn't like hard feelings but it wasn't like we were hanging out the next time so it wasn't it was tough though no or was it just at that point in time where you're just like I gotta go do my own thing uh no I mean every breakup's tough right but totally totally but like yeah it was it was definitely a weird it was a weird feeling but it was also a weird time in in like the skate thing like I said with the contest being so like stretching me too thin it was um because we're talking like 2014-ish it's almost like it's almost like after after a breakup you try to stay busy so you don't think about the breakup distraction yeah like I was just I was distracted so like even even if there were feelings of of being like man you know that's kind of home it always felt like home too you know it always felt like a break from home because it was like I can't get away from zero because zero and I are one and the same to everybody so like yeah and and it was it was pretty funny because when I got back on zero there were people that were like like what he wasn't on like they didn't even know like at all because if they didn't see any announcement and didn't pay close attention they would just see me see my skating and go zero zero yeah 100

Channel: Nine Club Clips

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Keywords: chris roberts, roger bagley, kelly hart, crob, the nine club, nine club, 9 club, sk8ing, tricktips, funny, double rock, action sports, x games, nike sb, hall of meat, skateboarding 2020, podcast, comedy, clips, highlights, skateboarding, chris cole, jamie thomas, zero skateboards, quitting, plan b skateboards, why, 13 years, street league, famous, skater, quit

Id: NPdbqrvNN-s

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 15 2023