Snowboarding-Shaun White looks to revolutionise snowboarding again with Snow League

Snowboarding great Shaun White brought the once outsider sport into the mainstream as a competitor and is now looking to carve a path for the next generation of professional riders with the launch of his Snow League.

The inaugural season kicks off with a halfpipe competition from March 7-8 in Aspen, where 36 athletes including reigning Olympic champion Ayumu Hirano of Japan, will begin a quest to be crowned the first-ever Snow League world champions.

White, a three-time Olympic gold medallist who hung up his board after the 2022 Beijing Games, said he is not done innovating in a sport that was often misunderstood and even ridiculed in its early days.

"I entered the sport in a crazy time period where a lot of snowboarders weren't allowed on resorts and halfpipes were hand-dug by shovels," White told Reuters.

"My goal was to bring about a professionalism and an athleticism that wasn't really there before.

"What I did within my competitive career I'm hoping to lap with this next chapter. I want to leave the sport in a better place than I found it and usher in a new era for the next generation."

The 38-year-old White has come far from his younger competition-obsessed days when fans nicknamed him the "flying tomato" for his long red locks, recruiting big name sponsors like INEOS Automotive, Marriott Bonvoy, Pacifico and Hublot for the league with a $1.6 million prize purse.

"It's all coming together," White said.

"We've got the biggest prize purse out there, the best athletes in the world, the most incredible resorts in the world.

"It's coming to NBC and Peacock, Tiffany & Co. is making our trophies, we have all these incredible sponsors and we have a plan to grow."

Male and female athletes will compete to accumulate points