On March 3, 2021, it was announced via The Bunt skateboard podcast that Cyrus Bennett and the entire Call Me 917 skateboard team had left the company.
In the interview, Cyrus explains how after recording his recent Slap Pals Questions interview he realized “how over it (917)” he was; he goes on to cite poor communication, challenges organizing trips and getting products made as reasons behind his decision.
Cyrus also says how he wouldn’t go out of his way to announce his departure from the brand (which is ironic, as that’s what he effectively did on The Bunt).
Nevertheless, this news makes me ask a few questions:
1) Where are Cyrus and the team going?
2) Did he quit in-person, or by calling the 917 phone number?
3) What can we learn from this?
To answer the first question, at this point it’s unclear what plans these free agents have. With their education and background in design, I’m sure they could easily start their own brand; but perhaps the easiest path is to follow their friends (Aidan, Nik and Vincent) to the FA Camp aka Plucking Awesome by Alex Olson.
The second question is a joke, but isn’t it funny that a company whose name is a phone number allegedly has poor internal communication?
Lastly, I think what we can learn from watching the potential unravelling of Call Me 917 is this — don’t start a brand with people who aren’t your friends.
From an outside perspective, it seems as though Alex just wanted to start a brand but to do so he needed to find a group of talented, well-acquainted skaters to comprise the team — he found this group in “the Johnny Wilson squad”. However, by building his company around a group of skaters for which he was not truly a part, he ran a major risk. The risk being that if the team became dissatisfied with 917, they wouldn’t have a problem leaving as it wasn’t like he was their close friend — he was just a guy who gave them boards.
And based on Cyrus’ Bunt Interview, it seems like this separation between the owner and the team combined with the group’s loyalty to one another drove the mass exit. This sort of thing has happened in skating before, most famously with Rick Howard and Mike Carroll taking several World Industries riders from Steve Rocco to form Girl Skateboards in 1993.
Hopefully, like what happened with World following the formation of Girl, 917 will be able to rebuild and keep the phone lines open for another group of skaters.
