The perilous magic of being a non-surfer in a surfer's world!
Let’s drive the French Revolution metaphor into the dirt, yes? Last Tuesday, the WSL’s new CEO, the former tennis pro Sophie Goldschmidt, wrote a kind letter to surf fans explaining the surf ranch event, which appeared on the organisation’s website.
Let’s read a small part.
Today, we’ve brought a cross-section of the world’s best surfers here to test this groundbreaking new WSL facility, technology and also showcase what an event can be like and we’re very excited. Having the ability to replicate, even partially, the power and shape of ocean waves for anyone in the world, in any location and at any time is a truly magical thing.
One thing that will never change for the WSL, however, is that surfing in the ocean remains foundational to what the WSL is and we will always have ocean competitions. As this technology continues to evolve, we see significant opportunities in the competitive arena…and we look forward to bringing you along with us when that happens.
But while the tone of the letter was beige with the business-speak that so bedevilled Billabong and Quiksilver and SurfStitch as they chased corporate gold, I found it charming in its inoffensiveness.
Readers on the WSL site, however, were stirred into action.
Oh they combusted!
From Mik:
Sophie:
since you have no idea what’s happening in the surf world, here’s a plan:
find out how many viewers are online @ each location
find out the total cost of award money plus cost of event staging
find out the total income from advertisers
then determine a fee for online access to @ event, and package deal for entire season.
If there’s a million viewers, then $5 per event / $29 entire season.
no fee for wave pool event. because we’re not paying, and after 10 minutes,we’re not watching.
eliminate the shit waves and replace with Indo or similar. cheaper because less scaffolding costs. film from boats.
maintain contest structure and overall sequence. it works.
get rid of the 3 of 5 Aussie Judge bias: throw Porta overboard and 1 other Aussie Judge — whomever else is also most blatantly crook. replace with equal representation from USA Oz Hawaii Brazil EU; all former pro surfers.
And again,
Yeah. wave pools are fun. this one is the best.
but what happens if there are 50 of them in the USA; and they are training 200 newbies a month. 12 x 200 = 2400 newbies a year x 50 wave-ranches = 120,000 new surfers a year, with skills, heading to the better surf spots, of which there may be 30 truly good spots in CA. That’s 40,000 potential more people heading your way. The first year.
Do the math, know it all.
I can surf BTW. Cloud break, Pipeline, Indo, entire West Coast… Probably better than you…
And I’m not stoked about this possibility.
The WSL is dreaming if they think people will watch wave pool events in the same way as real surf spots. They’ll watch 15 minutes, and done.
If Sophie doesn’t realize this, then the WSL just hired a CEO-clone of Carly Fiorina.
Ask HP how that went?
John: How does this not end up like Olympic snowboarding? ( how can we make sure this doesn’t become sanitized and predictable? )
Bad Medicine: Thank you for taking us back 22 years to a classic AOL style live blog and chatroom style event that most of the readers of this comment section were not even alive to witness at the time. At least the video clips are higher res!
And, cuttingly…
Nicholas Tee: Welcome Sophie …. which waves were you surfing in London?
The perilous magic of a non-surfer in a surfer’s world!
Sensitive gentleman of the jury, let me ask: will the new CEO last?