The Future of Ski Media is Already Here — And It Looks Like This
Nick Reimer’s journey from gaming streamer to skiing’s top YouTube channel hints at the future of action sports media.
If you don’t know Nick Riemer, you should. His @SteepSteep channel on YouTube has over 360,000 subscribers and has amassed 175 million views. For context, that’s more YouTube views than The North Face, Patagonia or Yeti. And consider this — Nick launched his channel as a teenager with gaming videos, and he now covers the cutting edge of freeskiing, a niche within a niche, where even he admits that most tricks are undecipherable to the public and look like “a Category 5 tornado.” Logic tells you that none of this should work, and yet this channel is thriving.
Nick’s journey, which does not include time as either a professional skier or a traditional media producer, says a lot about where media may be headed. One of the most telling comments he made during our hour-plus conversation was that all of his videos are shot on an action cam and an iPhone, and that this style of content always out-performs because, “It doesn’t feel like some sort of high-end Hollywood production is being shoved down your throat.” Generations of media people, myself included, always strived to create the highest-possible production value storytelling, but suddenly that isn’t aspirational, it’s being “forced down the throats” of digital audiences.
If you’re looking for a representation of the next generation of media, producers like Nick are the kinds of people you’re looking for, so I was excited to get his take on why his channel works, where he sees it going, and how it runs as a business.
PC: Nick, give me the 30-second story about how you launched your YouTube channel, and how you’ve gotten here.
NR: Long story short; I grew up skiing. Eventually, I had a pretty dramatic injury — I snapped my L5. It wasn’t the biggest fracture, but was right by my sciatic nerve, so I had a lot of numbness in my legs. That ended up putting me on bed rest for about two years, and I had to do something with my time.
One morning my mom said, “I found a video game called Steep where you can ski in the virtual realm.” So I started skiing in this video game, fell in love with it, started creating YouTube videos around it just because there weren’t many people doing that at the time.
I managed to build a little bit of a YouTube community around this game, and I decided that when I eventually made the return to skis I’d try to bring what I’d been doing with Steep on YouTube to the real-life ski scene. And it’s kind of been history ever since.
PC: What was it like as you transitioned from a gaming channel into a real-world skiing-focused channel?
NR: It’s really interesting because even when I started out playing the game, my content had two value-adds.
First, there was a kind of first-mover advantage. There was some traction, some videos on the game, but more or less it was an empty space. There weren’t a lot of content creators on it.
My next value-add that I brought into that content was combining real-life skiing terminology, jargon, tricks, and whatnot into the video game. So I say, I want to do a cork 7, I want to do a dub 10 — I want to do all these tricks we see athletes do in the real world, but then emulate them in the virtual setting.
A lot of the people who watched my videos played Steep purely because it was a fun action-sports game, and they really didn’t know any of the dynamics of new school freestyle skiing. So they got to kind of get exposed to this whole new part of the game they didn’t necessarily know was there.
When I did eventually make that transition over to real life, a lot of people followed through, even though their only introduction to skiing was purely that video game.
So it was kind of this cool, educational moment for some individuals.
PC: What does the business of running a YouTube-based business look like in 2025? Where does your revenue come from?
NR: There’s so many ways you can generate top-line growth for any sort of creator.
One, there’s obviously ad revenue on the platform. If you’re on YouTube, you’re making long-form content. A good chunk of your top-line, your overall revenue growth, is going to be due to ads placed on your videos. It’s like a 70/30 split — the creator gets 70, Google keeps 30 — to keep their business up and running.
As you move to short-form platforms, there’s a little bit of monetization for TikTok creators in the United States, but it’s all very marginal for most short-form creators. I’d say 80 to 90% of their overall revenue comes from product placements and brand deals and whatnot.
A lot of people create their own products. It’s really easy to onboard a bunch of loyal customers to something like a drink brand or a chocolate brand like we’ve seen from Mr. Beast, because you have all these loyal fans, and they’re willing to try anything Mr. Beast creates or endorses.
On my end, I do generate a good chunk of revenue from ads placed on my videos, just because you get more ads placed on a longer-form piece of content. But at the same rate, I have brand deals with my camera sponsor, ski sponsor and outerwear sponsor. Depending on your niche, there’s all these different brands you can work with.
PC: YouTube is now the number one streaming television service, ahead of Netflix, Disney, anybody else. Does that change how you think about production?
NR: It’s so funny. I feel like even the people who grew up with traditional media mediums like television and cable, if you were to sit them down and show them two pieces of content, one with an 8K camera, a full-on production crew, crazy music, and then another where someone is just on the side filming it with a phone, I guarantee you the phone shot is going to have more views and better engagement in the comment section as well, because it feels organic. It doesn’t feel like some sort of high-end Hollywood production being shoved down your throat.
I think what YouTube does so well is it creates organic content. When you’re watching it, it feels authentic. It feels real, versus something that’s staged and highly produced that you’re so used to only really seeing in the movie theaters.
I have shot every video I’ve ever made with an action camera and my phone. I’ve never once taken out a DSLR that’s over $1,000. Maybe I’ll include a drone shot here and there that somebody else filmed for me. But everything has purely just been on my phone and my action camera.
That’s just kind of my own style that I’ve created, and it gives that level of authenticity that I think a lot of people can relate to.
PC: I’ve read that Hollywood produces about 15,000 hours of TV and film per year, and YouTube users upload 250 million hours a year. So, 20,000 times more content. Most of what’s uploaded is crap, but it doesn’t matter, because if 0.001% is really good, that’s more than Hollywood can make.
The definition of quality is really arbitrary, and it used to be that you had to go to Alaska for three weeks with a bunch of heli hours to make something that we would have said was quality.
I still think that’s amazing and there’s a place for that. But it’s not the only definition of quality anymore.
NR: No, absolutely. It’s kind of almost like a negative correlation between the two. If your production budget goes up, your exposure almost goes down nowadays.
But again, there still is a total place for that high-end quality because there’s two parts to a view, right? You could have all the views in the world, but if none of them are engaged, it’s meaningless.
If your production budget goes up, your exposure almost goes down nowadays.
And that’s why you have a lot of brands, a lot of companies valuing the YouTube views more so than the short-form platform views on TikTok and Instagram. Because if I were to ask you what was the last YouTube video you watched, you could probably tell me what it was. You’d remember the premise, the narrative — you were sitting there watching the video for eight minutes, versus scrolling on your phone.
I scroll a lot. I succumb to it. But I couldn’t tell you 10 of the past Reels that I watched because it’s fed to me. I don’t deliberately choose it, and I’m just kind of paying attention but brushing past it, right?
I feel like on some of those high-end productions, especially some of the ski films that you see from Faction — obviously biased because they’re a sponsor of mine — but before I was sponsored, every single Faction film that they put out every year, I was so stoked to watch.
It was such a well-done project, right? Yeah, they got a lot of views. But the beauty of that project was it also created incredibly engaged views. You’re watching Faction skiers, Faction products on your screen for 40 minutes straight. So I think, you’ve got to find the balance between the amount of views but also the engagement of those views.
PC: If the CMO of some company is reading this, what should they be doing differently than they probably are when working with creators?
NR: I started in the space before integrated and dedicated advertisements in your YouTube videos were even a thing.
It all started out with the same structure. They would say, “How much do I need to pay you to talk about my product in your video for 45 seconds?” You would give them a rate, and you’d do the ad.
And when you look at the actual engagement of that YouTube video, you can see what percentage of viewers are watching this part of your video. What do you expect? It’s just like conventional television. When that advertisement hits — that 30 seconds starts of you talking about this product — everybody skips it.
Now they’re starting to realize that it doesn't translate to products sold or services used. So now people are starting to blend integrated ads throughout the entirety of the video.
When that advertisement hits — that 30 seconds starts of you talking about this product — everybody skips it.
So a skiing example: Say you’re filming with your action camera, whether that’s a GoPro, DJI, Insta360 or whatever. They want this video to be an ad for their product. They will say, “Maybe show off one of the features here for 15, 20 seconds within the video.” It’s really hard for the creator to balance the authenticity of that advertisement while also not annoying your fanbase.
But if you’re about to boot back up to this peak, and you’re gonna have some cinematic shots along the way, and your audience is anticipating that, if you just do a five-second shoutout that, “I’m gonna swap to the 8K30 mode, they have 8K30fps on their camera, yada yada yada,” that little plug is in their brain.
And then showing it, showing how it performs, is what we’re seeing the ad space translate into. Because brands are starting to become aware that just because you’re investing in advertisements into a new platform doesn’t mean that same framework, that same structure we saw in conventional TV marketing, is going to sustain.
PC: So how do you quantify that for your sponsor?
NR: Starting out, so many people didn’t track the amount of downloads of whatever app they wanted to show off to your fanbase. They didn’t track how many products were sold through the affiliate link that they included in your description.
But now, there’s a lot of people who will do a different type of payment structure. So they’ll say, “If you get X amount of views, we’ll pay you a certain amount of dollars. If X amount of people click your affiliate link, then we’ll give you X amount of dollars. And if people even go further than that and actually purchase the product that we’re pitching, then you’ll get this bonus on top of it.”
So for anybody looking to get into the space of social media marketing — not from the creator’s perspective but from company’s — I think a big thing is to negotiate different payment structures that make sense for your brand, and also the creator.
As a creator, you love seeing the fixed rates. You love just seeing, “Okay, if I do this ad for you, I’m going to get a fixed rate. Doesn’t matter how it performs.” But there also needs to be a check on that, because if it’s not leading to any transactions or it’s not leading to any traction to their pages, then it’s worthless.
And it’s also a good gauge to creators as well, because if you just keep pumping out shit ads — ads that don’t seem authentic or aren’t quality — your fanbase is going to get frustrated with you. They will be quick to label you a sellout and all these other derogatory terms and not want to put up with it — rightfully so.
PC: The affiliate model obviously has been around for a while, but I think it’s interesting that you lay out other metrics like views and engagements. It sounds like you would take a lower baseline if you get more upside on the other end.
Nick: Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of works both ways. Say, for example, you have a fixed baseline where you say, “Hey, give me X amount of dollars because I’m putting this ad into my video regardless.” But let’s talk about how we can lower the fixed fee a little bit but then increase the upside in the case the video does really well. And we can attach some bonuses or some metrics onto that.
There have been some cases where the fixed fee might not work in the creator’s favor, right? Say, for example, you gave them this fixed fee with the basis that you average X amount of views on your video. But then out of nowhere, this one hit the algorithm and you got millions of views on it. As a creator, you’re not getting paid for that extra viewership, and you could have earned a lot more than on that fixed fee. It works both ways, and it’s in the company’s and the creator’s favor to do a hybrid model of a fixed and variable rate, for sure.
PC: Are many people doing that, or do you feel like that’s kind of at the edge now?
NR: Absolutely, a lot of people pitch that — mostly for one-off advertisements. So if you’re coming in and just wanting to test the waters with a creator, that’s a great way to go about it with minimal risk.
But another model that’s been super huge in the skiing space is just a long-term relationship. Another way, as an advertiser, for you to get around a couple of videos that might have done poorly in terms of exposure, is to create a long-term relationship with that creator.
There’s a lot of videos that did not perform well and they do not deserve the rate that’s associated with that post. But the ones that do extremely well more than make up for the lackluster performance.
I'm currently working with brands where, by the start of the skis season, I have all my deliverables lined up — the amount of posts that I have to make on short-form platforms and long-form platforms throughout the entire ski season, from November to April.
And I can tell you there’s a lot of videos with these brands that did not perform well and they do not deserve the rate that’s associated with that post. But the ones that do extremely well more than make up for the lackluster performance.
So yeah, test the waters with a hybrid model maybe, and then go ahead and pursue that long-term relationship once you’ve kind of vetted that creator.
PC: I think a lot of marketing people think of “athletes” as long-term and “creators” as short-term. I’m curious where you see yourself. What’s your explanation of your value versus that of an athlete, like a classic athlete contract?
NR: Well, let’s talk about the athletes for example.
You’ll find the vast majority of pro skiers are actually incredibly introverted, which seems so ironic to somebody who hasn’t been in this space for a long time. And what’s kind of frustrating is now, people who have become a pro athlete in the skiing space can’t sustain a career in it by just being a skier. They have to do all these social projects, all these one-off independent projects with their sponsors, because that’s what translates to clicks and product sales and whatnot. That’s how they get their mass media exposure, because nobody knows who won the last World Cup podium anymore. That’s not a thing.
Versus a content creator, you’re going to find it’s mostly personality-forward. There are a lot of good skiers out there that are content creators. There also are a lot of athletes that are fantastic content creators.
If you as a brand can find not only a pro athlete that has the exposure to that side, but also the personality to take on content creation — sit down, have a chat with their viewers — that’s the golden ticket.
PC: Where do you think your business and your channel will be in three years?
NR: Full disclosure, I don’t know, man. I really don’t.
It’s not going to be what it is now, I can tell you that. Because after doing ski vlogs and videos for the last two, three years, I’m tapped out of narratives for my own professional skiing. I have so many injuries.
So for me, what I’ve transitioned into over the last couple of years is using my platform as a way to show off other athletes, other skiers. A lot of the brands I work with, we’ll go out on a shoot — say to Finland, to Austria — and we’ll just have a park in front of us. And I will use my platform to show off their skills and their talent.
And it’s worked out really well because they tick off the skiing side of the spectrum — the incredibly gnarly stunts — and then I’m there to provide the personality and the context to the clips.
It’s been lost in the state of skiing that nobody understands the degree of difficulty in the sport anymore. Every trick looks like a Category 5 tornado. So if you can provide that little bit of context behind why you should care about the skiing in front of you, I think it drives engagement in content.
If you can provide that little bit of context behind why you should care about the skiing in front of you, I think it drives engagement in content.
So for me, it’s worked out really well. But whether or not that’s going to sustain in the next couple of years — who knows, right? It’s like a business. Some people just might not like eating chicken nuggets anymore. So you gotta come out with curly fries. You always gotta be innovating even on your content game. So we’ll see, man, we’ll see what happens.
PC: In the media space, we all built models that we knew were sketchy because they were so reliant on Facebook or Twitter to drive website traffic. And then all of a sudden, Facebook’s just like, “We’re over it,” and it just shuts off your whole business model.
If you’d asked me in 2016 if Facebook would ever throttle down link traffic, I would have said it was pretty stable. But your audience is largely on one platform. How do you adapt to that?
Nick: Absolutely. It’s like the regulatory board or whatever coming in and just putting in some sort of stamp of disapproval and YouTube’s off the map. You never know. Even with the whole TikTok scare, it’s incredible to see how quickly an app can grow in exposure.
It’s not that we’ll ever stop producing content — but like you said, which platform is it going to be hosted on? You never really know.
It’s something you always have to think about. I think the biggest risk is if the actual drive to produce and watch content were to dissipate.
But we know as a human race that will never happen. So at least the demand will always be there — it’s just the question of how do we deliver the supply? And yeah, that’s always changing.