How would you turn the damn thing into a profitable biz?
Y’seen the forecast for J-Bay? Oowee, the volume is hot. A brisk start on Tuesday, a sizzling overhead middle and a reasonable enough back end for the finals.
Even Kelly Slater is back. Will he crack? Will gravity finally bring the famous ego to earth at last?
But, tell me, real talk etc, how do you feel about day one? Those twelve, thirty-minute, three-man heats where no one is ejected from the event? Six hours of pointless surfing and twelve passive interviews with handsome dumb men turning their profiles this way and that to look best on the webcam.
How do you feel about that torturous first half of day two, watching B-listers jerking through six heats? It don’t get good, in that heart-belting, slap-your-forehead, sports way until round four, sometime on day three or four.
Sixteen surfers left.
Round four til the final. One day of surfing.
That’s an event.
Therefore, if I was the CEO of the WSL I would draw my battle axe and cut down one score of surfers, leaving us with the magic sixteen-man, one-day event. One glorious highlight reel.
“But what about monetising the whole damn thing?” the reader asks.
Fuck knows.
Do you?
Because that’s the thing ain’t it.
It’s why a non-surfing former tennis exec, who once helped broker an $88-mill deal for the WTA, is running the joint.
So.
What would you do if you were handed the reigns to the WSL?
How would get the League to turn a profit?
How would you drive traffic to your Facebook Live broadcast?
Would you broadcast your events on Facebook?
Would you turn contests into pay-per-view?
What sort of tour would you construct?
Would you do it?
Could you do it?
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“professional” surfing , unlike most “professional” sports, has no “athletes” that have ever completed, or even attended, college. so give ’em a beak. they are not there to give honest, insightful, meaningful, intelligent after heat interviews, they are there to surf!!
Surfing lost its meaning, the day becoming world champion meant something
perrow got 98% in his high school certificate cant he work it out
World champ defends title at every event final, the rest battle it out in sudden death 2 man heats to make said final, sure the top sixteen only with QS guys in the mix whatever, at waves like Pipe,Sunset, Gland, Tahiti, Fiji, J Bay.
You can’t solve the ISP, ASP or WSL’s problems without making the product the priority.
16 men maximum tour, 12 qualified, 4 of the highest ranked on the QS.
2 day max run time for each event.
Fire Sophie and her staff.
Demote Snapper, Bells, Margerets, Rio, France and Portugal. Make these highly coveted QS stops. Fewer CT spots makes the QS much more interesting. 4 QS spots on the next CT event available makes the contests very competitive.
Womens tour independent and tied to “festival format”…. bands, skate ramps, flea markets, etc.
4 hour long heats surfed, 4 man heats, accumulative scoring….80 max points, 20 per heat. Efficient and rotating surfers make heats fresh, hour long heats make for less tactics and as the contest matures, more “hail mary’s” and go for it approaches. Each heat builds momentum for the next and anyone within in 20 points is still “in” the contest.
Don’t fuck with momentum…. historically a pro surfing challenge.
Fire Sophie and her staff.
Money can’t be the decision maker… allow the money to follow the best decisions for surf.
Tahiti, Cloudbreak, Gland, Kandui (Rifles, Bank Vaults, Kandui), Deserts, JBay, Macaroni’s, Nias, Keramas, lose the pools…. 72 hour notice for competitors within a contest window. Guarantee high quality conditions/performance.
When the sport creates it’s own leverage because of the purity/quality of it’s product, it will be easier to sell to a broader market.
“When the sport creates it’s own leverage because of the purity/quality of it’s product, it will be easier to sell to a broader market.” thats the secret. needed in the branding as well.
… where’s Westerly Windina?
Once a week sounds totally affordable!
What if round 2 was 3 man heats, only the winner of each advancing? Not sure the math works but might be interesting ….
Well I cringe in horror at its black hole of vapidity every day I use it, the justification is that it makes me money right now but still, fuck the Zuck.
Do tell…what’s your caper, if you don’t mind telling?
I’m a low-rent mad scientist by day and professional sleeper by night.
…ah, security monitoring.
haha nope 😉
have 4 majors a year and make the rest of the CT / QS events only count towards your world ranking / seedings for events.
everyone will tune in to watch the most prestigious event of the year – the Masters (Pipe), JBay, Cloudbreak and whatever else, and we don’t have to pretend to care about Rio, the Euro leg, 2/3 of the australian events etc.
I’d end it.
Pro surfing is lame charade.
Just give up. It’s broken and cannot be fixed. Hopefully less people will be inclined to take up surfing as a result..
“May the bridges i burn light the way”
build a website and sow a seed twillo. you will be out of that boy racer rugger hellhole before you Know it!!!
Venice adjacent maybe?? sky is the limit
oh this sounds fun and should totally be a thing! would watch!
yeah baby
Fuck Facebook and my reptilian neighbor for a start, then followed closely by fucking the WSL and their kingdom of kookery right in the arse with a handful of sand.
I vote no live broadcast and the only journalistic coverage available world wide should be Longtom’s write up on the dirty old Beachgrit.
I could live with that.
The question is, wouldn’t we all be unhappy if it went away?
I deleted my WSL app as soon as they announced the move to Facebook live, I don’t use social media and refuse to sign up just for the WSL’s elistist bullshit, hoping many others will boycott viewing as well
Utilize the QS regional systems and make much more robust with equitable continental quotas feeding the Mens WCT, top 32 including 2 wildcards, head to head, all elimination rounds, overlapping heats until the semis, done in 2 ridiculously action packed days. Who wouldn’t want that? Hand the keys over, I’ll take the wheel Mr. Ziff