Photo: North Face website https://www.thenorthface.com/en-ca/about-us 

Author: Jon Heshka, LLM, Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University Adventure Studies, contributor to Adventure Risk Report.

Using extreme athletes in marketing campaigns has become commonplace. They are regularly featured as backdrops for ads on television, print media, and social media. It works because the setting is spectacular and the nature of the activity pulls in the attention of the viewer.

The upside is almost unlimited. Extreme sports hit all the right buttons. A company can strike it rich and their film win an Oscar – as was the case in 2019 with the award winning documentary “Free Solo” featuring Alex Honnold – or social media campaign generates millions of hits.

The corollary to high reward is high risk and sometimes that risk materializes. If a company rolls snake eyes, its campaign is a dud or worst-case scenario, an athlete dies on camera. This happens. One example is a ski guide and snowboarder died in an avalanche during the making of the film “The Alaskan Way” in 2012. Another is Shane McConkey dying during a ski-BASE jump in the Italian Dolomites while working on a film. 

The featuring of extreme athletes in marketing has become so pervasive that it’s no longer unusual but almost to be expected. With any high risk sport, companies are essentially rolling the dice getting athletes to perform extreme feats. The industry must not become inured to the risks inherent to these activities and merely shrug its shoulders and chalk it up to “shit happens” when things go bad.

Athletes getting critically injured or dying during a shoot or while on a sponsored adventure is fortunately rare. That explains why this issue has been in the shadows or sidelines and not fulsomely addressed.

Recent events, however, have moved this issue to the bright lights of centre stage.

What has moved it to the forefront is that six people all connected to the same outdoor company have died in Western Canada within six years as either sponsored climbers attempting a peak or heliskiers/boarders prepping for a film shoot.

An avalanche killed three heliskiers in March 24, 2025 in British Columbia. They - the guide, the pro snowboarder, and the global sports marketing manager at The North Face - were there to do a film shoot. Four years ago, Hilaree Nelson, the first female captain of the North Face athlete team, died in an avalanche while skiing from the summit of Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain in Nepal. And in 2019, three world-class climbers, sponsored by The North Face did a first ascent of an impossibly difficult route on Howse Peak in Banff National Park but died on the descent.

By no means is The North Face alone in having its sponsored athletes die.

These deaths made headlines around the world and were devastating to the skiing and climbing community.

It was less off a concern when extreme sports were on the lunatic fringe of society participated by, watched by and cared for by few people. Now that it’s gone mainstream, it’s attracted the attention of not only the outdoor adventure market but more established, traditional blue chip businesses. Car manufacturers, banks, insurers and others regularly use adventure in their marketing. Extreme athletes have been featured in commercials during the World Series. Mainstream media are on board too, even the New York Times often run stories - and not just obituaries - about adventure.

At issue is the ethics of sponsoring an extreme sports athlete to do things that by their very nature give rise to the very real possibility of them dying or getting critically injured.

This is about how companies can walk the razors edge of producing exciting and engaging content balanced against not unnecessarily exposing their athletes to unreasonable risk.

Not to be glib but it’s a rule of thumb to not kill the talent. This maxim is tested in extreme sport. Individually, businesses can hire experts to oversee production, have proper risk management, emergency and evacuation resources, and medical and life insurance for the sponsored athletes. There should be clear lines that cannot be crossed, and good judgement should not be clouded by production schedules or budgetary pressures. This, sadly, doesn’t happen all of the time.

Sarah Burke was a Canadian freestyle skier world champion and five-time Winter X Games gold medalist who died in 2012 after crashing in the superpipe during a training run. She died after nine days in a Utah hospital and incurred a reported $200,000 USD worth of medical bills. Burke was sponsored by Monster Beverage Co., an energy drink competitor to Red Bull, who provided her with no medical insurance. This purportedly was standard practice throughout the industry at the time. The medical costs were ultimately covered by a fundraising campaign. This was all widely reported in media outlets from the National Post to the LA Times and NBC.

It appears that Monster never anticipated one of its sponsored athletes getting killed or the blowback from not insuring them. Their initial messaging was handled by an LA-based PR firm that, among other things, basically blamed Burke for not having insurance (“the athlete … understand(s) that it is a dangerous sport and that they are responsible for their own well-being”). The company posted on its website much later that they were working with Burke’s family to “assess their needs and are committed to helping them financially.” The former statement came across as callous while the latter was anodyne and ambiguous. None of it looked good. It invited attention – and anger – and turned a tragic story into one in which the company tried to spin its way out of covering Burke’s hospital bills. It’s unclear if Monster ever did.    

Any company that sponsors an extreme athlete must go in with eyes wide-open and know that the possibility of the athlete getting critically injured or killed is real. Not only does this mean putting in place all the prophylactic risk management measures to prevent it from occurring but also being prepared if it does.

It is not good enough for these companies to hire extreme athletes as independent contractors and say they’re responsible for their own insurance. While it may be appropriate in many corners of the entertainment and sport industry, given the power imbalance, who benefits most and who bears the most risk, companies should insure their sponsored extreme athletes.

Crisis communications and messaging in the aftermath of a critical incident are critically important. While it’s impossible to get ahead of the story, it’s possible for a company to at least keep up. Legal counsel may advise a circle-the-wagons approach and to say as little as possible out of fear of saying the wrong thing. It’s recommended though that the company stand up and be seen, acknowledge the obvious, and show that it cares. To hide and hope the story goes away and effectively pretend that the incident hasn’t happened – running out the clock and not pouring fuel on a fire are tried-and-trued approaches to crisis management – but runs the risk of coming across as cynical and uncaring. That is an especially risky proposition if community, compassion and trust – to name but a few – are the brand promises of the company.

The facts need to be communicated in a manner that does not assign blame or accept responsibility. The story will be fluid and will evolve as more information becomes available. Initial information will often be inaccurate and incomplete. The full picture comes into focus only after an investigation is undertaken, and this is an honest answer to questions asked at the time about the cause of the incident. 

It is a delicate balance to be compassionate and express sympathy while simultaneously explaining what happened in an objective manner. It’s an easier assignment to explain when everything has been done by the book and the incident can be chalked up to the inherent risks of the activity (e.g., hydraulics or “holes” in whitewater kayaking or avalanches in skiing and snowboarding) materializing. It’s harder to do when there may have been risk management mistakes or missteps in the lead up to the incident. At such times, being extraordinarily conservative and minimizing what is communicated would be the best course of action.

At issue for companies is how much should be done to encourage extreme athletes to keep upping the ante. There’s a societal drift towards the Olympic motto of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Faster, Higher, Stronger) and “Anything you can do, I can do better.” With shades of Icarus, extreme sport continues to push the boundaries of what is humanly possible. Appreciating that companies reward extreme athletes for their adventures, thereby effectively incentivizing them to take ever greater risks, they should be cautious about fanning those flames too much lest they and the athlete get burned.

Clif Bar is one such company that felt morally obligated to walk away and pull back from sponsoring its extreme athletes who highlined (tightrope walking high up), BASE jumped, or free solo climbed (climbing without ropes). At the time, they sponsored about 100 extreme athletes and this decision affected only five of them. The company said, “We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no willing to go.” Clif Bar further said that they “no longer feel good about benefiting from the amount of risk certain athletes are taking in areas of the sport where there is no margin for error; where there is no safety net.” Ironically, the company took some heat for its stance but was supported by one if its five athletes, Alex Honnold.

As Jimmy Chin, co-director of Free Solo, said: “It’s hard not to imagine your friend falling through the frame to his death.” That simple line captures the crux behind the marketing and sponsorship of extreme athletes. The company, and everyone involved in the production of an ad or film, must be at peace with its decision to support the athlete. Given the risks involved, it’s incumbent upon the company to have robust risk management practices up front, proper insurance for its athletes, and a tested crisis communications plan if the worst-case scenario happens.