"Mother Nature is the Main Character" · Natural Selection Tour CEO Carter Westfall on Brand Building

Get off the sidelines—subscribe to Under the Number on Substack: https://underthenumber.substack.com/Carter Westfall is the Co-Founder and CEO of Natural Selection Tour (NST), the outdoor action sports platform he's building alongside snowboarding icon Travis Rice. Joined by guest co-host Matthew Jester (CNC Partners), Brent Peus unpacks how NST is counter-positioning against the X Games (now owned by MSP Sports Capital under CEO Jeremy Bloom), Shaun White's Snow League, and the World Surf League (Dirk Ziff) by building a brand-first platform rather than a league. Carter walks through his winding career from Wall Street to the Sacramento Kings, the NBA league office under David Stern and Adam Silver, the Beijing and London Olympics, and the PAC-12's China expansion with Joe Tsai, before partnering with Travis Rice to fill the void in elite, mountain-based snowboarding competition.→ Why Mother Nature is the main character of the NST brand→ The Teton Ridge / TWG Global comp and why NST is a platform, not a league→ How Red Bull, Yeti (Matt Reintjes, Bill Neff), and GMC came on as anchor partners→ The three-bucket business model: content, experiential, and commerce→ Inside the events: Revelstoke, Jackson Hole, Queenstown, Micronesia, and a South Africa surf event on deck→ The destination hospitality fund ($30-50M) targeting heli operations and boutique adventure lodges→ Powder Mountain (Reed Hastings), Patience Capital Group in Myoko Japan, and Bald Face as the comp→ The "Natty Selects" derivative brand and a surf-meets-Survivor episodic concept with Skydance/Paramount→ $15M raised across convertibles and a Series Seed, Series A closing mid-June→ Matthew Jester on cultural capital, Rick Hess's CAA-to-TPG track record, and why NST fits the thesisWatch on Spotify → Listen on Apple Podcasts → Check out Skybox → https://www.skyboxmedia.com#surf #ski #bike #actionsports #UnderTheNumber #SportsBusinessWatch on YouTube → https://youtu.be/BHthoUe-BvUWatch on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/episode/4mtedvVZPoLeQJwT5WQMra?si=E_ersxSnQv6lQHHEQOXotgListen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mother-nature-is-the-main-character-natural-selection/id1730764733?i=1000768576107Check out Skybox → https://www.skyboxmedia.com#surf #ski #bike #actionsports #UnderTheNumber #SportsBusiness