What can we learn from these tumultuous times?
All this chatter, the last few days, of brands dropping athletes (Reef x Luke Davis) and athletes dropping brands (Dane Reynolds x Quiksilver) has got me thinking. My phone is still screaming, my MacBook Air molten lava (a smashing rumor coming to you soon!), but instead of indulging immediately, I am sitting back with an early morning vodka x ginger beer and pondering the value of loyalty.
In traditional stick and ball sports, fans generally speak highly of the days before giant paychecks and free agency. When players and teams would be bound for life. The fans, who don’t think twice about tattooing team logos on their bodies, wish the athletes would exhibit a similar commitment and die-hard love. When an athlete leaves the fans crow about greed. Likewise, when a team cuts an underperforming but well-loved athlete, the fans crow about greed.
Does loyalty, then, have any value aside from sentimental?
It is the same, more or less, in surfing. Our brands act as teams and build rosters of surfers who get paid very well…until they don’t and are cut. It seems both brand and surfer live in an unhealthy symbiosis. The brand pays the surfer but can cut out at a moment’s notice (from what I hear Luke was cut without excuse), especially as the surfer ages. The surfer gets paid to ride for the brand but often feels put upon if ordered to appear here or go there or surf in professional contests. It seems, over time, both grow increasingly suspicious of each other.
I suppose the crux of the issue is best summed up with Kelly Slater x Quiksilver. The brand paid him millions upon millions upon millions of dollars over the years. The surfer helped make the brand iconic. Should the two ever have broken up? It seems to me no. It feels like Joe Montana playing for the Kansas City Chiefs.
At the end, in our capitalistic environs, it is naive to think brands will be benevolent and surfers grateful but, we can dream like schoolgirls, like Boston Red Sox fans, can’t we?
I have always wanted these questions answered:
1. Did Kelly have a $12 million bonus in his contract if he won a 12th world title?
2. If so, did Quik pay the judges to score Fanning a 9.5 at Pipe for a wave that was a 7.5 in order to avoid paying Kelly a $12 million bonus?
3. If so, did Kelly leave Quik because of the above conspiracy theory?
No.
I always thought brand Kelly would end up surpassing brand Quiksilver much like Jordan. Except surfing brands don’t really understand loyalty, creativity and progression. Instead they put all their energy into Dark Rituals and three quarters of the intelligent surfing world sighed and looked the other way.
I think what we are seeing is that surfers don’t move product, and the era surfers getting paid loads of $$ by companies is over.
How about the WSL sets up its business model after the NFL or NBA? Surfers should be bought and sold by billionaires and sold at their owner’s whim. Or why not get rid of the sponsored event and force red bull, quick, and Samsung to duke it out?
Unless a brand drops an injured surfer I see nothing wrong with them dropping someone from their team. The surfer is not getting paid to surf, they are getting paid to shift product, if they are not doing that then tough shit. Lucky fuckers getting to travel the world and surf the best waves without having to get a real job, my heart bleeds for them.
contracts are contracts. If a pro surfer has a contract that allows him to just be dropped on a whim, he deserves what he gets.
Funny Chas, thought you’d be more for every surfers individuality and the company is a means to an end. Seems like companies and athletes split when they don’t see eye to eye. Why should either be stuck with a subpar product?
And to be sure, athletes are replaceable. Tomlinson to the Jets. Ronaldo to Real Madrid. Slater to Outerknown. Same in business – Twitter exec to Google. Nothing to see here.
if anyone is cutting anyone “without excuse” then somebody needs a better lawyer when negotiating a contract.
Pro surfers are like adolescent emo kids. always cutting themselves.
I could honestly care less who these guys surf for. I enjoy watching them surf, but as far as what logo is on their stupid hats on the podium…who freakin’ cares
Please, for the love of god, it’s “I couldN’T care less.” Look, I don’t like pointing this out either, but for God’s sake, you’re writing the exact opposite of what you mean when you write it wrong. A line in the sand must be drawn.
Even though it makes no sense, the phrase “could care less” is so engrained in American English that it’s come to mean the same thing as “couldn’t care less”. I understand the phrase may have originally been introduced in the 1950’s or so with a sarcastic tone (oh, I COULD care less), or as a question (ask me if I could care less). For your own health, get over it because it’s not going away.
I agree. perhaps yeah_dude_whatever intended said statement to provide us with the notion he could potentially ‘care less.’ Who are we to say? Both statements prove that he has less caring that could be done, we don’t need to split hairs in order to find out how far into the negative yeah_dude_whatever intended this statement to go.
the problem i have with it, is that people who say “could care less” aren’t using that phrase with a nod toward 50s colloquialisms: they’re using that phrase because they’ve heard it that way, and they’ve never thought about what it actually means. it’s the not thinking about it that bothers me.
at this stage it doesn’t matter. It’s taken on the same meaning even without making sense. Just like the word irregardless, it’s here and not going anywhere any time soon.
Way to draw your line in the beachgrit.com comments section. TomHouse, like it or not, it’s an American colloquialism. Also Tate MacDowell is spot-on in the logic department. Man, I’m surprised you didn’t jump down my throat for not using a question mark at the end, too.
What can I say: words matter. Use them wisely. Use them well.
My personal favorite is, “Who gives a fuck?”
But then there is the more elaborate but somewhat more confusing, “I don’t give a flying fuck.” Anyone know the linguistic history of the “flying” part of the latter?
what’s even more interesting, is that the same people who say “could care less” are often the same people who’d say “no fucks to give” which is actually a less formal way to say “couldn’t care less.”
I gave a fuck to my missus last night. Unfortunately, should couldn’t have cared less.