What the WSL (and a mountain lifestyle blog) is missing about its fanbase.
What a fantastic few days of professional surfing we all just experienced. Monumental even. Each professional surf fan across the globe pleasantly surprised by joy. 100s of people, sometimes even 1000s watching Filipe Toledo grab the reigns and bear down on the rest of the League. Does anyone now stand a chance? Can anyone knock him out of the Jeep Leaderboard Yellow Yellow Jersey?
Sure, the Facebook rollout was, can we say, less than ideal. Laughable even but we professional surf fans endured and applauded at the end. Oh, not the Facebook rollout nor Facebook nor the rising tide of surf fascism no no no. We applauded the show, the whole show, and we laughed at the WSL and we laughed at each other and we laughed in the warm sun and felt happy even though 100s, sometimes 1000s, of angry emoji faces rained down upon the feed.
When I read the World Surf League response to the botched rollout I almost felt sorry for Soph et. al.
Our switch to Facebook was to enable the entirety of our audience to continue to view each event for free, and also to further expand our fanbase throughout the world.
That being said, we apologize for any issues you may have experienced during our transition over the last two days and we hope you continue to enjoy the Corona Open J-Bay.
Then later…
There has been much conversation about the concurrent viewership number displayed in the top-left corner of our live broadcast.
The number displayed on your stream does not represent the total concurrent audience viewing the event. Because we’re serving localized ads against our programming, what you’re seeing is the audience total for the regional stream that you’re connected to.
The total cumulative audience will be defined as the summation of all regional streams across all platforms and connected devices.
In short, what you’re seeing is a much lower number of people viewing than actually are.
Certainly cute but something seemed… off and I couldn’t quite tell what until this morning when that damned outdoor lifestyle blog residing almost spitting distance from Venice, California posted the story Opinion: The WSL’s Facebook Live Stream is Proof that Surf Fans are Fickle A$$holes.
Shall we read a paragraph together? No? Well, will you humor me? I’m still smarting from Instagram stealing my surf-related meme account.
We’re a fickle bunch. Remember when we hated the ASP? We called for more professionalism. We called for better webcasts. We called for legitimacy. Now we have the WSL, with its Sophie Goldschmidts and Dirk Ziffs and droning commentators and jerseys with numbers and athlete profiles. We have (had?) a webcast that worked with heats on demand and heat analyzers. We had it! But we hated it. We shouted for change. We shouted for a better viewer experience and we shouted for no experience at all. Now, the WSL’s weird switch to Facebook Live has given us something else to shout about.
And leave it to The damned Inertia to push out ill-thought propaganda whilst trying to be radical. Core surf fans are not fickle at all. Core surf fans endure all manner of ’89 world champ and strange Kieren Perrow calls and bizarre judging decisions and extreme time zones and the World Surf League itself in order to simply watch surfing.
Surf fans may even be the most long-suffering of any sort of fans on earth.
The World Surf League, while chasing non-endemic dollars and the giant pool of “potential” utterly ignore the core while also shaming us with their condescending “…enable the entirety of our audience to continue to view each event for free…”
For free. Like they are doing you and me and Longtom and that one guy on Twitter a humongous favor by offering each event for free.
That is where they are totally and completely wrong.
The World Surf League has zero idea what the core surf fan wants because they have studiously ignored her and him from inception. The ASP may have been clunky but its CEO, Brodie Carr, was himself a core surf fan and never shied from arm wrestling another one. The ASP was a reflection of its derelict base. The WSL is a reflection of branded marketing.
But hope springs eternal! Soph, Backward Fin Beth, Herr Speaker… I know you all read BeachGrit. Pop into the comments and ask for honest feedback from the greatest surf fans on earth. You won’t be sad! Or maybe for a second you will be but if you stick around long enough you’ll discover what makes professional surfing special and how you can exploit that for great gain while charging many dollars per contest and re-alienating everyone.
The world is still your oyster!
Yes, believe that quote above was from Alexander Haro at the Inertia, with his own special form of propaganda. And yup, the post about the Inertia catering towards a bunch of Santa Monica newbies and yuppies (as their target audience) explains a lot of their juvenile type articles. Surfer mag? Facebook? Here we come?
I believe that was Alexander from the inertia with his own special form of propaganda.
I posted the comment and it was not there so posted again. Very strange.
I enjoyed watching JBay and appreciate that it’s free. Prefer the previous setup.
I once heard people say surfers are true rebels. Will people be labelled as such if they complain about FB streaming? So if we do rebel are we rebelling against the establishment FB and WSL or the prevailing commercialisation environment we are in? Maybe both. Here lies the fundamental irony. A passion based on freedom in every sense of the word is corporatised at the highest and most international level by a private company. As long as WSL being a for profit company commercialisation will always come first. A radical idea is to turn it into a non profit but private organisation. Run it purely for the benefit of athletes and members. Decisions are to be made by both the board and the surfers representatives. A democracy. Is that a too outlandish idea? Maybe we will never find out.
Maybe there can be a hybrid form. Owners of wave pools act as simple asset owners. But they don’t own or control top surfers. WSL becomes not for profit and works in partnerships with other players for the advancement of the sport in a wholistic way including money making.
It is possible that such an organisation may be less business savvy. But given the millions of surfers I am sure there is a way for this organisation to do well and thrive.
Sorry for the rant. Just pointing out what I see as a fundamental disconnect between the top brass and the base. Even in Roman Empire times people got to elect the senate. This FB issue has allowed surfers to come forward to tell the top brass what they really think. A gladiator show run by a money making machine has its limits and it better adapt.
There isn’t even an option to pay. I’d like that option.
Saw this line in the wsl wave pool press release… “Thursday’s action will be available via livestream. On site viewing will be available Friday through Sunday.”
Does that mean the main comp’s not being live streamed at all?
I would like to give the WSL credit for pulling the camera back a little more than a little more often than usual. Twice as wide twice as often would have been fine with me; with the exception of Felipe, JBay is the true star.
Interesting little sound bite I heard the other day watching a round 1 heat. Pete ‘The Condor’ Mel was comparing the perfection of Jbay to Kelly’s “wave pool”, immediately after which he awkwardly shuffled words and spit out some bullshit like “wave system” or something like that. Came off very strange; borderline forced. Perhaps the WSL gestapo has outlawed any reference to the surf ranch as a ‘pool’.. could the Waco wave pool being a far more accessible, cheaper, and overall more appealing piece of ‘surf tech’ be the driving factor in Pete’s hurried correction?
Lol cuz the internet is a free and abundant natural resource
Sophie floats, comes unstuck and fails to complete.
WSL getting absolutely roasted from their site, to FB, to Instagram, and out across the myriad media outlets that report about professional surfing. Closing down accounts that don’t jive with their business model would be scary if it weren’t so laughably petty. To Sophie and the WSL I say ‘good luck’ weathering the next 1.5/2 years. They’ll be receiving exponentially more hellfire come end of the year when people start to finally understand how bad the WSL fucked up the pipe comp. Burn Babylon, burn!
Big test coming up for wsl.
JBay girls.
Viewer # will be in the toilet.
Tara Rottensnatch says womens viewership is low because the patriarchy!
well yeah, but how cool were the fake shadows on the water “created” by the foto/score boxes in the sky??!!
Is that what they were, I thought I was hallucinating.
David, and I’m not just saying this because I sat through your high school civics course, yes what the fuck was that? I spent the first six heats squinting, trying to make the weird steep peaks that somehow weren’t nearing shore make sense.
I pondered the aesthetics of those for a few mins last night. I decided that they were ‘clever’ but ugly.
the siren’s call of the drop shadow luring another eager designer onto the bricks…
I kept having to check the title of the vid (on youtube) because I wasn’t sure if i was watching a replay of a heat from the 90s.
serious question – is there a way to get the facebook feed in HD??
Chas! Need a favor.. DM me if you can thx Sir!
I don’t have a real Insta anymore! Email [email protected]
Chas, can I email you an idea I have for a possible scoop? It’s salacious and unverified, but comes with tangible audio evidence.. surely good enough to stir a few pots? Kindly awaiting your reply, Love Surfmom.
Put ‘em on midlengths and I’ll watch.
But, mid lengths with no fins, please, & I’ll watch too.
Boogie-foils.
but I won’t watch.
I’m pacified. I got to watch the heat replays pretty quickly (sansFB) after the live heats finished.
The turn-around for their edit was OK by my aging standards.
I kinda like the new heat analyser, but I wish we could see wave by wave.
I’m not a big Jordy fan, but I do think he was screwed vs. Wade, who could rarely finish a wave let alone catch one. Since when does a participation score outweigh actual ability?
I would have really have liked to see that local kid McGillivray advance. He got shafted too, big style. The judges were huffing jenkem.
Chas, we really want to know what the Insty/WSL/Facey goons told you!
Huffing Jenkem! 🙅🏾♂️
Well, it is South Africa after all.
Here’s an idea: forget the usual commentary and put Die Antwoord in the box for future J-Bays events.
I would pay to hear that.
The profitability of WSL is obviously paramount in the decision making of the user platform. I am sure the investment group that’s funded the bank account hemorrhage that is the WSL have brought in Sophie to scrap authenticity for ROI. These little back stories on the athletes, pushing Brazo’s (*whom make up a massive portion of the fanbase) through heats that really leave us scratching our heads, is all a ploy to drive marketing dollars. Even the guys on tour have to be feeling it. Is anyone else seeing the irony in how few of the 30+ athletes are making heats? The exception being that fucking Panda fella, since I imagine his 32 year old rookie status can be marketed to masses via “Chase Your Dreams” or “Never Give Up on Your Dreams” bullshit.
Captain Planet is a plus sized figure, and watching “Big Willy” (how did we miss that nick name?) labor through his turns and pump down the line like a retard trying to hump a greased beach ball….. We can all blame Kelly. Jussayin. The WSL sees itself as a brand, and a brand thrives through story telling…not impartial judging and authenticity. Suckit easy Sophie, because I still cannot turn it off.
You get what you pay for and we are paying for nothing, it wasn’t that bad, Christ what a bunch of pussybitches the core surf fans are!
I agree. I am an exquisite pussy.
Marica!
(Sorry, just binge-watched 30hrs of ‘Narcos’ to beef up my Spanish. That and ‘puta’ are the most popular words.)
such a great show
WSL are geniuses! We’re all so focused on complaining about FB disastrous livestream that we no longer complain about judging. These evil brains have played us…
Talking of propaganda – actually watched final circa 11pm east coast oz time. The viewers got up to 22.4K as max.
If it is purely a location thing I am calling bullshit – no way were 22K “thirsties” watching – its a total!!
Was same number (22k) watching in Perth… so maybe it was everyone in oz.
I reckon it was global!!!