"Keep up the great work, losers…"
Earlier this week, the world’s biggest surf website Surfline, which has three million or so visitors every month, ran an interview with WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt.
It was called One Apology, a Dozen Promises and a Thousand Thanks from WSL CEO: After one year on the job, Sophie Goldschmidt’s learned plenty, but she probably taught us more.
It was a cordial back and forth that read, to me, as an email interview. These are now the norm in what might politely be called journalism. You see ’em everywhere. Stilted sugarcane pulp.
The subject likes it ’cause they can vet everything that gets printed; the journalist is happy because it removes the need to talk to a human being and then transcribe whatever you record. All you gotta do is cut and paste the answers, file story, go home and be destroyed by your self loathing.
The uncredited interview, which initially had the byline Matt Pruett and which was later removed, is the usual inanity, the same fruitless labour.
“We thank the fans for their patience and support as we continue to work through the transition and the challenges with some devices, and we want to remind everyone that we’ve re-instituted the broadcast across our WSL channels until further notice.”
“We want to make sure that the correct decisions are made for the fans and the sport — so it can grow and thrive, and so we can continue to strategically invest in its development.”
“Gender equality is an incredibly important issue for us.”
“Who isn’t amazed by some of the waves ridden, such as Rodrigo Koxa on an 80-foot monster? Mind-blowing! The attention that great feat garnered for surfing was fantastic.”
“(Kelly) is a huge force for good in surfing, cares deeply about the environment, is the visionary behind a game-changing wave system, and more. We are very lucky he is close to WSL in many ways.”
Nothing offensive to beat the keyboard jockeys out of their peaceful drowsiness.
But, then, the kicker.
Surfline: Finally, how did the new partnership with Surfline come about?
Sophie Goldschmidt: It was a logical and successful matchup benefiting everyone, most importantly the fans. Our Surfline partnership is a critical tool that helps to inform our WSL team to plan run days at times when there are optimal conditions. Beyond the detailed forecasting and support the Surfline team provides our event officials, fans benefit from the wealth of wave data that brings to life each wave on the Tour, as well as on-screen graphics and educational information shared with our broadcast team to create engaging content for our fans.
And the fans went fucking nuts.
The atmosphere was malignant.
Ninety-eight comments, a helluva response to a tame Surfline story.
All of ’em, except for whomever the moderator is, screaming “asshole!” and making obscene gestures.
Sample.
Overall, this is like a “D” grade performance, and not something to be described with “growing pain” euphemism. Get back to Rabbit’s original model – go watch the original Billabong challenge and the 1995 G-land comp if you need an idea – and win back the serious fan.
She tried to bully City and County of Honolulu. Screw these suits, dicks.
Eds, please fully explain Surfline’s “new partnership” with the WSL. Mr. Pruett’s article looks like a corporate press release.
Is this garbage interview for real? Seriously. Are all of us who love this sport supposed to buy this junk?
No Triple Crown. No Trestles. No online viewing. Sorry, Facebook-only online viewing (which, btw, if you’ve been following the news and value your personal info, you might wanna stop using Facebook)
If I performed this poorly at my job I would be fired and so would most others. However, she’s a woman and an executive so she gets ‘special treatment’. What a joke. For the last 8 years I have watched almost every event. This year I have missed every event except for one. Keep up the great work losers.
One apology? How about apologizing for cutting Fiji and Trestles?? How about kneeling and begging for forgiveness for killing the Hawaiian leg??? Pipe? the Triple Crown?? She should be on the street by now
No Triple Crown, no Pipe Masters, this is the death of the sport.
It is not about the CEO. It is about the surfers and the product. By making it about her, she is setting herself up for failure.
If you want it to be about the CEO, ok: No CA contest (huh??) No Pipe masters? No Fiji? In any other business, a CEO pooches and event like Pipe masters, they are fired on the spot. It would be like the CEO of Nascar losing Daytona, he would be gone that day.
What a corperate hack job I have not and will not watch another contest broadcast. A non surfer running the WSL WTF. She has done more in one year to destroy Surfing contest then the WSL did in building the WSL.
I just read a commercial. Shame on me.
Maybe you’ll like the story. Everything we try to embroider around surfing is sterile, anyway. I wasn’t overly concerned but, then, I have a profound need for doom.
In its own strange way it’s nice watching pro surfing die a slow agonizing death
If WSL did an IPO would anyone here buy in? To be honest I’d probably throw a little bit in to see what happened.
How much would you toss in LC?
Jeez, that be fun to see !
Classic Pump n Dump. In an out within 7 days.
And don’t look back.
25k then when they sign their first major rights sponsor off the back of the olympics hype I’d sell… at least that’s the theory
Yeah I did that with Billabong. So good.
Ouch
Worst investment ever.
The tribe runs the casino! Rigged 100%.
Natures arr only hope, and with the tribes new billion dollar industry “weather modification”, chemtrailing and GWEN towers even natures being controlled…do the research!
I dunno, a lot of those read like angry teenage Boys Right Activists. I’d be v cautious about judging the WSL viewership on the basis of a comments Snark Attack.
Some of the surfers are bigger than the WSL. That’s where the sponsorship money will go.
Who needs who more, John John or the WSL?
WSL needs JJ, for sure.
JJ doesn’t need them at all.
I hope he says, “Fuck the tour.” But who knows what’s in his contracts.
Maybe he’ll have to come back. idk
Saw a recent article he made..at home with his bee’s.. sailboat and more..JJ is way above the WSL sinking ship.
If he can find a better surf direction vehicle… he’s gone!
They didn’t test the Facebook load capability which was unprofessional. Unfortunately the numbers would have reinforced sponsor concerns.If ‘someone’ did a deal with ESPN it would be all over.
Good point. Initially I thought that Ziff was in with the networks and had the whole broadcast end covered. One phone call and it would be a done deal.
But it hasn’t played out that way.
I believe that the networks knew what the viewer numbers would likely to be and that surfing is a basket case and not worth them throwing any money at it. Leaving ziff with very few alternatives.
So he’s had to prop it up and go down the streaming path.
Fuck who knows, maybe he woke up one morning and thought, “I’m tired of throwing money at wsl. I’m gonna give Soph a carrot and a stick.
Here’s a deal with fb. That’s your budget. Now make it work.”
Pure idle speculation on my part.
I do know billionaires don’t like to lose, though.
OK so here’s what’s actually happened
– Paul Speaker brought Dirk Ziff to the ASP table in 2012
– The ASP Board reluctantly, then with somewhat increasing enthusiasm, bought into Speaker’s sales pitch, since the surf industry was gagging
– Dirk himself turned the Board vote at the final meeting with a compelling speech about why he was involved etc
– Speaker spent a colossal shit load of money yet his vision of the tour luring in a bunch of non endemic global “partners” didn’t eventuate
– Dirk’s Praetorian Guard suggested it was time to change course (euphemism)
– They bought the wave pool
– Sophie G was hired and given a mandate: stop the bleeding. Which she did. (The CT itself is breaking roughly even, maybe even black by now.) Also another mandate: get a few more pools going. Which is kinda slowly happening.
– Joe Carr did a deal with Facebook.
– Everybody is wigging out.
Mr Ziff is much richer than anybody has ventured to guess so far. People in a position to known reckon he probably spends five minutes a week thinking about the WSL. His whole business life has been based on giving people power to act, and watching them like hawks via his Guardian squad.
I’m pretty sure he’s not motivated to bail on pro surfing as long as he can see it breaking even.
But man! It is weird that surfing attracts philanthropic billionaires.
Thanks, Nick. Really.
Your end sentence is the bit I can’t understand. Truly weird.
Why the fuck someone like him would even give a fuck about something like surfing ? Something that really is just fun, or supposed to be.
Never was supposed to be a dog eat dog sport. Jeez throw a few $$$$ in and everything changes I suppose.
Well I don’t have an answer either, but rich people do unpredictable things around sport. I feel this is actually all quite in line with pro surfing’s historical curve; it’s now basically experiencing its Major League Baseball moment, wherein some very rich person kicks down to buy it out of sheer desire to be part of it all.
Thanks for the info Nick. I think your forgetting the agenda. Quick rundown… Surfing a art of individuals was always given a bad image… flacks, don’t work, partiers. Keep the masses away! The tribe that runs the plantations we all live on, and it is plantation…look at the police state.. don’t pay your taxes…debt slaves, the group knows the ocean is the last frontier of nature that’s not totally controlled/taxed. Now look at the value of beach houses….they are well aware that surf is going to be the pass time sport of rich people. So whats happened is they are well aware and are purposly take down of the global economies…buy up all the real assets, on the cheap, and Walla they are taxing the slaves for everything in living six days from Sunday…..if we let them pull off this crime on humanity.
Ask yourself this…do these guys create anything? Parasites all of them!
Thanks Nick, so any idea what the WSL/Surfline deal is? Oh, and it may be that surfing’s rebellious, ecologically conscious aspects might be attractive to billionaires with respect to street cred. Sort of penance.
No cares about the faceless names, who did what or the Ziffs who are trying to get oil from the barrier reef. In the age of Insta, sponsors would rather be associated with someone like Steph.
https://forum.surfer.com/fo…
Seems WSL is regretting their decision- I just received a survey via email from WSL asking about my live viewer experience watching Jbay.
Did it surprise you, the stirring of Surfline’s usually docile readers?
Well snark attacks often feel as if they are kinda small-group performances. Like West Side Story. These are Jets, all rushing on stage at once, then departing. I doubt they represent an actual cross section of the readership.
Tell me: pro surfing in five years. What’s it going to look like?
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… I’m thinking this.
I’m hoping this.
That might be Jordys last shot – the doubles.
A trans continental partnership.
Him and kolohe. A WSL first !
ha if I could tell you that, I’d be worth more than Dirk Ziff.
Glad u asked Chazzy! The WSL will suffer the same fate as “Quikbong”. In a desperate attempt at profitability, WSL has turned to a non endemic figure head who has seen success with a larger scale brand (like Quiksilver did with the short lived Disney/Nike CEO) to regain relevance.
The one thing that surfing/ers see through is a lack of authenticity and will quickly clench their wallets tightly in protest. And this is where we are unique as a culture, but also an unwise investment. Sophie will watch her failures and lack of understanding of surf culture bury her, and WSL will be forced to retool, reset, and have another go with a smaller sample size and more palatable format to showcase its atheleted. I am shocked that a “mixed doubles” format has yet to be implemented. I would actually watch that…..
Maybe Oak Tree Capital will double down and buy the WSL since they own 45% of surfings apparel market.
So, 5 years…. wavepool becomes its own circuit (like the air shows of the early 2000’s) and quickly loses relevance like the air show did. Eventually moving from spotlight to sideshow. Longing for a lack of diversity in regional participants, WQS qualification becomes a regional qualification series where the top surfers will need to qualify via their home circuit for a spot on the CT, quickly calming the Brazilian Storm to a Tropical Depression…..
It’s worth considering what triggered the comments, likely the veiled announcement of a WSL/Surfline partnership with no explanation. This on the heels of a WSL mandated requirement to join Facebook to view the Corona J-Bay live. No excuse for the poor manners and personal attacks though.
Hey Sophia,
We know your reading this… Tell the top brass that’s floating your boat. That you and them are clueless and the hull of the ship is taking water…you all best get to the lifeboats…….and don’t come back!
You’ll never get it you don’t surf!
“All you gotta do is cut and paste the answers, file story, go home and be destroyed by your self loathing.”
Dead on accurate. I’ve done a few of these for pay and you think you’re being efficient, but really you’re selling yourself short. Meeting a person face to face, or even on the phone, gives you so much more information.
I love it. I love watching the whole thing crumble and be exposed for the corporate money grab that pro surfing always has been but you just didn’t notice. Pro surfing now has nothing to do with surfing (or the fans) the same as Surfline has nothing to do with accurate surf forecasting (unless you’re in So-Cal or are at a contest they sponsor).
The new reality….One big shit show!
way to hitch you wagon to the falling star that is facebook wsl… whats next, hiring Cambridge Analytica to manage your user data?
Let us not forget:
“I was like, ‘Wow, this really exists?'” – Sophie Goldschmidt on being presented the opportunity to be the CEO of the WSL.
Literally has no fucking clue.
Was anyone else completely unaware of Rodrigo Koxa’s existence and also his having rode an “80 footer”?
It was a typo was to be 8 foot.
And Rodrigo is a clown!
“Gender equality is an incredibly important issue for us.” Ok Soph, then please explain to us all how and why we haven’t seen any exposure of CT’ athletes in another wave pool besides Surf Ranch? Allegedly, the WSL has it written in the contacts of the athletes that they aren’t allowed to surf, with any media present at least, at any other wave pool venue. On the flip side, Carissa Moore had a go at Waco very recently. Did she get authorization from the league? Can anyone on tour get the same authorization, or are there different rules between the men and women?
These fascists go on and on about their pursuit for innovation, progression, etc., yet they restrict their athletes from riding any wave pool but their very own. Noa Deane is a goddamn soothsayer, FUCK THE WSL!
Gender equality is lip service only…and only that. It’s all rigged!
Death to the current system!
I understand all of the hate but she could redeem herself by leaking some nude photos, perhaps she could be wearing glasses and be doing some housework.
Oh man, I think about 3 years ago I commented on a post, saying in about 5 years surfing was going to go through the same shit that happened to bodyboarding. The industry would die out, the tour would turn to a shit show, no one who was into the “lifestyle”(I fucking hate that word) would could be considered cool anymore.
So far im Nostradamusing the fuck out of surfings story arc. But dont worry, it gets cool again when all the money leaves and it goes full underground. 🙂
Its the death of a era, new money,new arseholes who dont surf selling a stale format to people who love a lifestyle not a sport..i wont watch after tahiti they will probably kill the vibe there too
Breaking News – Online Surf Fans are Outraged!!!!!
I’m getting so over it. Everything that back-ends the actual surfing has become a theatrical dance performance like pro wrestling. Bullshit and frothy lies.
I wish the entire WSL organisation a swift but painful death. Can we arrange some Novichok please?
Long live the new tour. (When it comes)
You nailed it…..WSL go home…take Kelly your corporate core front too…my ass he cares about the environment…if he did he would comment about our leaders spraying/chemtrailing us like rats.
I like watching surfing. It’s a kind of porn.
I don’t think wsl has the worlds best surfers anymore.
The tour did have – but not now.
What we get to watch are the worlds best contest surfers in arguably the most contestable waves. err umm that ain’t true. but whatevers. The worlds best contest surfers ride waves and get scored. We get a shit show if the waves aren’t firing.
We got a bunch of non surfers administering the whole dealeo and that is doomed to fail. Try their little arses off they cannot sell surfing to me or to anyone. Soph is as enthusiastic as a wet tissue and as about as much use.
What the wsl has got that is positive is the backend guys. Cameramen and ob crew that produce the show. Hats off to them.
The 3 best contests I’ve seen so far this year have been da Shootout, Pe’ahi and Padang. All 3 use different formats than what we get served* up with under normal CT judging.
* tennis humour. hmm, oh well
Transgender porn. Got me thinking. Why is there not a transgender competitive surfer? That’s not very inclusive Sophie.
Westerly Windina?