Imagine for a moment that you're a venture capitalist, and you're looking for your next big investment.

And I'm making a pitch to you.

And I tell you that my business is seasonal, labor intensive, weather dependent, capital intensive,

and is based on a discretionary recreational activity that has inherent risks. I don't know if the conversation would go much further,

but that kind of sums up the ski industry. That's Rob Goodell. He's the chief operating officer

of Loveland Ski Area, near Silverthorne, Colorado.

Leveland is 11,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains, just an hour's drive from the Denver metro area.

Been in operation for 85 years. We're owned by one family from Texas.

Chet and Virginia up them were investors back in the 50s. And then in the early 70s, 1972, they became the outright owners.

Chet and Virginia's descendants own Loveland today. And Goodell's been working for the family for

32 years. It takes a lot of intest fortitude, because there are seasons that are late to get started,

early to close, dry spells in between, and you have to be committed to it.

Over 70% of ski areas in the United States are independently owned, like Leveland. But the industry has

become more consolidated over the years, and the bigger companies are less vulnerable to the

inherent instability of the ski business. Their model is global. They have resorts around the

world, so they're kind of hedging their investment by saying that if the eastern part of the United States doesn't have a good winter, hopefully the western part, or the Midwest, or the southern hemisphere.

So what does it take to stay independent?

There is a joke in the industry that says,

how do you become a millionaire in the ski industry?

You start out as a multimillionaire and buy a ski area.

For the Freakonomics Radio Network,

this is the economics of everyday things.

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