Digital Social Hour
Paul Rodriguez Explains Why Social Media Made Skating Progress EXPLODE | DSH #1804
02 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What new sneaker is Paul Rodriguez launching?
When I started skating, it was pre-social media and a skateboard video would come out and we would live off that skateboard video for like a year or two until the next big skateboard video came out.
Chapter 2: How did Nike reverse engineer the Nike SB POD retro shoe?
So content wasn't dropping as fast.
Chapter 3: How do pro skaters actually make a living?
So we would sit with these videos that we had for a year or so and study them, rewind them, pause, slow-mo, try to learn all the tricks that your favorite pros are doing.
Okay, guys, got Paul out here in Los Angeles on the show. Great to meet you, my man.
Chapter 4: Why is skateboarding difficult for casual fans to judge?
Great to meet you, too. Thanks for having me. Yeah, what's new in your world right now?
Chapter 5: How has social media impacted the progression of skateboarding?
Just actually my new sneaker just dropped two days ago on the 13th. Oh, nice. And so I guess that's the newest. Yeah, my P-Rod 1 Nike SB Retro release. Dude, those are sick. Thank you, yes.
I'm going to definitely rock those. I'll cop a pair for sure.
Chapter 6: What mental challenges do skaters face, like resilience and burnout?
Thank you, brother. They're online or?
Yeah, online. Well, actually on the 16th, they dropped like all over online, all the stores. On the 13th, they just dropped in selected skate shops. Nice. And so tomorrow, they'll drop like full drop.
Dude, that's awesome. What goes into launching a sneaker? I'm sure a lot of work, right?
Well, this was good because it's a retro shoe. This is my first shoe and this came out in 2005. So we just re-released it now for the 20-year anniversary.
so it wasn't as much at least not for me for the designers it was a lot of work because i did not know this but nike doesn't keep their shoe molds after five years like if they stop making a shoe they get rid of it after five years because these molds are huge and they're heavy and with all the shoes that nike makes they would have nowhere to store all these molds wow so after five years they get rid of them so the designers
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Chapter 7: How does judging in skateboarding differ from traditional sports?
didn't have the mold so they couldn't just make them on demand. So we had to take, luckily I had some pairs saved in storage and they had to take them, cut them open and like reverse engineer them and recreate the shoe. Yeah. So for them, it was actually harder to make, remake this shoe again than it was just to make a shoe from scratch. Yeah. So for me, it wasn't too much work for them.
Shout out to those guys. Cause they worked hard and made it happen.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure that's a big part of the business, right? Apparel.
Sneakers, apparel, you know, product.
Chapter 8: What insights does Paul Rodriguez share about the future of skateboarding?
Yeah, in our world, that's really where we make our living.
Yeah, because the money is not in the competitions, right?
Not really. No, competition money these days, it's pretty low. There was a period there where it was like, you know, you could win 100, 150 grand in the street league contest, but I just think they couldn't sustain that kind of level payout. Yeah, they couldn't sustain it.
So I think it's down back to like 20, 25 grand, which is, of course, a nice little payday for the day, but just for your everyday bills, yeah.
yeah because you got to travel you got to train all those costs the food yeah yeah yeah so it's just um it's it's it's too hard to do it just off contest but if you if you're winning contests consistently you'll get sponsors so that that's where all the skaters you know make their make their money because so you get a sneaker sponsor clothing sponsor so you're just helping to push product and when did that start happening for you was it after that first x games win or was it before that
No, it was early for me. I was very lucky. I turned pro at 17. And I was like, you know, back then skateboarding wasn't as big as it is now. I mean, there was the X Games, it wasn't as big a deal as it later became. But it was just kind of like a small core industry.
And we had like our few brands that were just basically like our few sneaker brands that weren't like mainstream clothing brands, board brands. So
at the time I was with this company called s a lot of people might know it as es and that was like my first big sponsor and then I got sponsored by a Couple of different board brands, but the biggest one was like girl skateboards and then later on once I
won x games and started getting known in that world that's when i got sponsors like mountain dew and target and at&t yeah those came along after that so um but i was fortunate enough to where like i was doing pretty well sponsor wise before i started um doing contests wow yeah and that was a pretty new lane at the time right like that wasn't really a live considered a living
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