Welcome geriatrics, to the greatest show on surf!
America’s National Football League (NFL) gets slapped with the moniker “No Fun League” from time to time due to its litigious nature, love of fining players, disallowing elaborate end zone celebration, etc. It really can be a soggy wet blanket but an even soggier, wetter blanket has just dropped on the professional sport scene and it is called the WSL!
CEO Paul Speaker and crew have gone out of their way to make pro surfing a game for geriatrics. Take this latest KFC commercial dust-up, for instance. If pressed, I have to admit that Chick-fil-a makes a better sandwich but the piece was light and funny and completely unoffensive. And yet, the WSL is siding with Mick Fanning’s mom in trying to get it removed from the airwaves. I am sure that Mick Fanning’s mom is a lovely woman (she once got very angry with me!) but she is also old. Are the sensitivities of old people really where the WSL wants to be positioning the brand? When it gets out that the league has its singlet in a bunch over a South African parody will younger consumers say, “Rad. The WSL is like the cranky elderly man who shouts at me for skateboarding down the sidewalk. I like it…”?
Likewise with forcibly removing cute videos from your very own BeachGrit and the much less provocative/totally vanilla Surfing Life. “Take those down, youngsters!” CEO Paul Speaker crows from his rocking chair. Take those down dagnabbit!” Graham Stapelberg echoes waiting nearby to rub Vics Vapo-Rub on CEO Speaker’s chest.
I get that professional surfing is a different game than “free” surfing except for it’s not and it shouldn’t be and it used to not be. I’ve told this story many times but I will tell it again. I made tons of fun, a few years back, when the WSL was called the ASP and CEO Paul Speaker was called CEO Brodie Carr. I made fun of the surfers, events, locations, and CEO Carr, especially that he wore a deliciously tight baby blue t-shirt, like, always. What did he do? Challenge me to an arm-wrestling match. He bounded into the bar where I was drinking a beer, hood over his head like Floyd Money Mayweather, and smashed me very easily. I have loved Brodie ever since and it is because he doesn’t take himself ultra-seriously. It is because he knows, above all, surfing is a laugh.
And CEO Speaker, any time you want to have a go I’ll be waiting. Graham Stapelberg can even come rub Vics Vapo-Rub on your bicep before I smash you.
The decision makers running pro surfing are NOT surfers.
They do not listen to the surfers
they do not listen to the fans.
They have some talented and passionate individuals who are smeared over by the thick stenchy cream of the self entitled under skilled trash that needs likeminded others to survive and strive to weed out anyone who is not drinking the mediocre coolade.
We now have a Valium version of what could be the greatest show on earth.
They have no clue what they’re doing
And they have no sponsor worth mentioning..
WSL Don’t spend millions on your fucking gay office and irrelevant ex surf industry dinosaurs as advisors, spend it on pro juniors and cultivate the worlds next pro surfers ensuring growth for you and your fans, spend it on taking the level of surfing we have now to the waves and locations we WANT to see.. But you’re not going to do that are you WSL?.. Because that would mean you gave a fuck.
So keep on believing there’s a ring to kiss on your CEO’s finger and we’ll turn off.
you just suggested they aren’t listening to surfers – what do you hope this little tantrum will do?
The WSL simply are presenting themselves to the public as champions of their champions, if you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down. Any professional organization worth its weight in bylaws would do the same.
Does Speaker even surf? that`s right, end of story
Chas, Speaker would smoke you in any physical confrontation. He’s huge! Look at the jawline.
Mr Carr was a far better head of the organisation, Speaker, and Stapelburg, are money/power mongers
NFL ?? Seems like a wonderful corporate model to follow. Kelly is basically surfings Brett Farve (his last year at minnesota) or maybe Peyton this year……
Cool!!!!
What’s the matter, could you not think of a witty acronym for WSL?
I’ll help you – Where Surfing (once) Lived. RIP.
I thought for a minute but the no fun league is just so catchy! And accurate!
How about “World Shart League?”
No comment.
GOT YA!!!!
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