Does a tour with Martinique, the Mentawais, Bali and Hawaii thrill you?
Trying to squeeze money out of pro surfing is an erratic business as the various owners of the IPS, ASP and, now, the WSL can attest.
Do you chase eyeballs on the beach with contests at mostly city beaches or do you sell the dream and broadcast from glamorous tropical reefs? Do you run contests wherever and for whomever can stump up the cash? Or does the quality of the game matter?
In the eighties and nineties, you got the former. Then came along the ’78 world champion Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew who headed the ASP in 1998 and created what became known as the Dream Tour.
In a revealing interview with Sean Doherty for Surfer magazine in 2011, Rabbit described the transition.
“It was a revolving door at the ASP in 1998, because as I walked in Kelly Slater was walking out in disgust. There was a lot of unrest and here was the six-time World Champion and the most decorated surfer ever, saying, ‘I’m over it.’ There was a lot of unrest amongst surfers because the thinking of the Tour at the time was still very much ‘the endless summer,’ bums on bleachers, and surf quality was not an issue.”
As the Champion Tour got better, the Qualifying Series was correctly regarded as a terrific grind, spitting good surfers into the wilderness as they burnt ’emselves out chasing contests for little prizemoney in one-foot waves.
Recently, however, the table has been upturned.
While the best surfers on tour have been dumped at a couple of crummy old-school reefs in Victoria and WA, and soon Rio, surfers on the Qualifying Series are reaping a cornucopia of riches.
The Martinique Surf Pro starts this weekend with events to follow at Lance’s Right in the Mentawais, Keramas in Bali, Ala Moana in Hawaii, Cloud 9 in the Philippines, Santa Cruz in California, and all wrapping up with three events on the North Shore.
Yeah, sure, there’s still the usual despair in between (Fistral, Virginia Beach, New Jersey etc) but if you’re smart, you could have the year-long holiday of a lifetime and, if you nailed a contest or two, you might even qualify.
Think: while Jordy Smith, John John Florence, Wilko, Joel and the rest are in Rio, what we’ve come to regard as the bottom-feeders of pro surfing will have just wrapped up a contest at Keramas, Bali, draining champagne bottles and god knows what else in one gulp.
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if i could give a 1/2 up vote i would for the Kimmy’s dad part so instead you get a full..
Ooh, so now it’s gone from not liking shitty surfing to BraziIian surfers being annoying… starting to show your true colours, keep it up boyo!
So you want to ban “Brazzos” from the CT because they annoy you? You do know you can always tune in to athletics and watch sprinting instead if that’s not too “gay” for you?(homophobic as well – you’re a peach and btw most of the sprinters also run hurdles or did at a certain point in their careers)
Yes it’s scary that someone thinks like that and even more scary that anyone would agree with such dribble but as for “most” I’m pretty sure you’re only considering the vicinity of your cave…
Have a lovely day
You’re a fucking kook or a stupid racist to even try to coin shitty surfing as coming from one specific nation… nuff said!
Brazzo air flick, what the fuck are you still whinging about you kook? Pls go to Stab’s comments section for that kind of nonsense. Geez!
This article is seriously misleading. All of the glamorous QS stops are worth diddly shit when it comes to qualifying, as they are mostly 1 stars (Triple Crown events not included). Guys go to these events because they’re fun, not because they’re worthwhile for their careers.
Also, New Jersey is the shit. What we lack in waves we make up for with unjustified arrogance.
Can we crowd fund an avid Beachgrit commentor a year on the WQS please? Please?
OK, just as long as it’s not Michael Kocher. I’ll bite the bullet and volunteer…
good story, but where will the QS guys be while the WSL is in Fiji and Tahiti?
Nailed it….the WSL is doing everything right except the contest venues. We are analyzing Kelly’s losses at fucking sloppy bells, non-barreling snapper, and fucking main break Margie’s. Who in their right mind would imagine this ten years ago? WSL should charge the fans 20 $ a year for a viewership membership and run at the best waves in the world….period. Everyone of us would pay that much to see the same product at Keramas, Lobitos, Mentawais, Soup Bowls, anywhere in Mexico, El Salvador….. Fuck, even have a whole event based on best spot for a Typhoon or Atlantic hurricane.
Imagine the WA comp being held in Kalbarri… Now that’s a real wave!
Fistral isn’t on the ‘QS anymore, even though it damn well should be. Today it’s 1ft and clean and going OFF
People driving across the country for it. Onerous car-park descriptions of super late drops and gnarly close out pull-ins. High fiving and hooting. Promises of doing this again sometime. Tears at departure. Enthusiastic documentation on instagram. Nostalgic next-day-dreams.
Could somebody please explain to me, how does one qualify for the qualifying series? This is unrelated to my other post but I will grant your suspicions are justified.
Ive always wondered this but have never quite given enough of a shit to actually figure it out
you sign up and pay. Pretty easy.
That’s great. Donald Trump and Tony Abbott could easily self fund WQS careers. I’d tune in.
Not really as access to higher ranked QS’ like 3* and over depend on rankings anyway… fk now I’m confused.
and if the bi-product you want is women the worst QS surfer is still gonna be the most prized possession to the surf-scene-desperate women and girls of Cornwall.
Karl Von Fanningstat, step forward sir! Now is your time! Cornish Pasty in one hand, worshipful Newquay schoolgirl in the other, you can stride into one of the numerous local Armses and regale all present with tales of how you shoulda won that heat against Taj in 1908 and how Speaker has personally tapped you on the shoulder to take over from Pete Mel in 2017. The world’s your oyster son. Go get ’em.
With great humility, I will.
I have an unrelated question: you know the girl in the WSL advert who wags her finger and goes “nah, nah, I’m De Souza”?
Anyone else reached the point where they want to rip her fucking head off?
Yes.
Um … I’m pretty into the first girl.
I watch the contests on mute now.
i have figured out that Turdpel is a robot. He says the same exact things day in and out. Every comp, every surfer, same exact excerpt for them. they just wind him up on a timer and he goes.
Late to the party Lemmy, I’ve been onto hacking Turpel’s software for years, I’m almost in!
short circuit that cunt! re-program him to explode in the booth
I think the correct term is to “reset” his software
I was actually kinda thinking more along the lines that I wish she would rip my head off and play with my balls whilst she did so.