SPORTS MARKETING Extreme kids

By NICK PERRY
SEATTLE TIMES
ITCHIE BRUSCO, CHOCOLATE mouthed, is springing from bed to bed like a pinball. It's his latest trick.
"I'm in California and I'm on a talk show today," Mitchie explains when he slows down. He's actually in a Vancouver hotel. But one town can seem like another when you're on the road, in demand and 7 years old.
Kindergartner
Mitchie is a 49-pound dynamo with short brown hair and ears that stick out. He is a Kirkland, Wash., kindergartner with cheeky one-liners who on a skateboard has the poise of a ballerina and the hustle of a pool shark. He has already been featured on the "Today" show and in People magazine. He has an agent in Maine and 11 corporate sponsors.
So far, those sponsors have mainly given him free stuff like soda, skateboards and hotel stays. That could all change now that his parents have signed a deal with the world's largest toy maker, Mattel. The company is developing a line of Mitchie Brusco skateboards to sell in Wal-Mart, Toys 'R' Us and Target stores across the country.
"He is perceived as the best athlete in his sport at his age," said his agent, Peter Carlisle, who also represents several teen clients at the sports-marketing company Octagon.
Extreme sports
Mitchie is part of a fresh young breed of "extreme sport" athletes who are reshaping advertising campaigns, lowering the age of target consumers and changing buying patterns. With more people skateboarding than playing baseball, big companies want a piece of the action. Yet even as the mainstream embraces the extreme, at least one cutting-edge company, Seattle-based Jones Soda, is moving on.
Extreme sports are those that push at the limits of gravity and adrenaline. Some of the sports are new. Others -- like skateboarding -- distill the extreme elements from pursuits that have been around for years. Extreme sports tend to be individual, nontraditional and without regimented rules.
For the young
The sports are especially attractive to children, teens and young adults, perhaps because their bodies bounce back more quickly. Whatever the reason, advertisers are going after young children to represent their products in a way they have not for traditional sports.
"These are uncharted waters for marketing," said Mike May, a spokesman at the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, "although using a child to influence consumers is not a new idea. It's just going in a different direction."
Mitchie is not the only young athlete marketers are chasing. Skateboarder Skyler Siljeg, age 9, lives just a few miles north of Mitchie in Bothell, Wash., and is also sponsored. The two boys often ride together.
"They have a focus and, it seems, a path that is unique," said Skyler's mom, Pam Miller. She added that Skyler has sponsor commitments that take effort. "Life is work," she said. "I don't think it would be reality if life was all fun."
Mitchie's agent said there would be pressure on young athletes like Mitchie with or without sponsorships. "The pressure comes from the fact that you are that good," Carlisle said. "There's no getting around that, unless you stop skateboarding."
Controversial deals
Some deals with children are creating controversy. Last year, Reebok signed Mark Walker, a then-3-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., with an uncanny ability to shoot hoops. Many criticized the arrangement, especially because it may jeopardize the youngster's eligibility to play college basketball someday. Reebok now appears to have backed off the campaign. But unlike Mark Walker, extreme-sports athletes don't face eligibility dilemmas.
May said that the kids have genuine fun pursuing their sports and often see advertising as an extension of what they are doing. "As long as they can still get 10 hours of sleep and get their homework done, it's probably OK," he said.
Mitchie's OK
It all seems to be OK for Mitchie, who isn't focused on the big picture right now anyway.
To Mitchie, life is a giant skate park, an endlessly changing terrain of banked turns, ramps and rail slides. A world of small physical challenges to master, like running through a stack of bell trolleys at the hotel or jumping down steps six at a time. He's a small kid having a whale of a time. A kid who knows how to "ollie" and "pop-shove-it," but not yet how to multiply 2 and 2.
"He's sick. That stuff's taller than he is," said Brandon Aird, 20, who was watching Mitchie at a Woodinville, Wash., skate park a few days before the Vancouver trip. Mitchie carefully tested each surface he was about to hit by running his hand or skateboard over it first.
Later, jumping on the family trampoline with a skateboard deck beneath his feet, Mitchie announced, "I'm going to do a sex-change." His mom, Jennifer Brusco, good-naturedly scolded him, asking him to remember another name for the trick. "It's a 'body-varial,'" Mitchie sighed. "But it's a much longer word."
Kid stuff
The next day Mitchie was cutting carrot-shaped paper hands for a Peter Rabbit bunny clock at the Helen Keller Elementary school near his home. He got upset for a moment when he cut one hand too thin, but seemed happy with the result. "My sister would probably marry it," he informed a friend at his tiny table.
Mitchie has jumped ramps and ground rails at many schools. "He has a cult following at my school; every day I tell a story about Mitchie," said Deirdre Taylor, a teacher at Hidden River Middle School in Monroe, Wash. But he hasn't performed at Helen Keller, and his classmates don't know about his other life. He told his mom that he didn't want to be signing autographs there.