Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Paul Rodriguez win in Maloof Money Cup

There was a time not long ago when skateboarders competed merely for fun, on crude ramps and with a few hundred bucks for the winner.

On Sunday afternoon, after a 45-minute jam session on a U-shaped composite ramp the athletes raved about, Pierre-Luc Gagnon earned, for his dazzlingly display, a dizzying sum of $75,000.

"I've never made as much money off of one contest," the Carlsbad skateboarder said, in apparent disbelief, after winning the inaugural Maloof Money Cup pro vert championship. "I'm at a loss for words."

It was the most lucrative individual payday in the history of competitive skateboarding -- until later in the evening, when Paul Rodriguez won the men's pro street championship and $100,000.

While they were peak moments for Gagnon and Rodriguez, it became a special weekend for skateboarding, as it marked a vastly successful entry into the sport by the Maloof brothers, Joe and Gavin, who own the Sacramento Kings of the NBA but are suddenly action sports heroes.

Said Bucky Lasek, who finished third in the vert contest and claimed $20,000: "It just goes to show what you can put together when you have guys like that, and money is no problem."

Maloofs come through

The inaugural Maloof Money Cup, which helped kick off the Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa, paid $478,000 overall.

The six-figure prize for Rodriguez -- the top payout of the three-day competition -- is double what ESPN's X Games paid street winner Chris Cole last summer.

Joe Maloof, 52, who dreamed up the idea for the Money Cup after noting the booming population of skateboarders, said he's not trying to show up the X Games, which later this month will embark on their 14th summer season in Los Angeles.

"I just think it's time for skateboarding," Maloof said. "I know it's a lifestyle and not considered a sport. But it's time for these guys to make some money. What's wrong with that?"

Nothing, but skateboarders will argue, politely, that skateboarding is a sport.

And chances are, the X Games brass is monitoring the situation.

Gagnon, whose previous high payday was $66,000, after he won the vert and finished second in big-air at the 2005 X Games, recently spoke with X Games officials.

He half-joked, "Are you going to let [the Maloofs] get away with that?"

Here today, gone tomorrow