Aloha: The man who wed Facebook and WSL flees to Hawaii!

Heads begin to roll over J-Bay fiasco!

Oh it seems like just yesterday that we learned of the groundbreaking, earth shaking, gorgeously choreographed marriage between the World Surf League and the world’s largest social media platform Facebook.

Did you pop the bubbs when you first heard? When you first read Forbes crow:

The World Surf League and Facebook have inked a groundbreaking agreement which makes the social media platform the exclusive digital home for the WSL’s live events for the next two years. It is the largest deal in the history of the WSL and includes significant promotional aspects in addition to the annual rights fee. The WSL is expected to net an estimated $30 million over the two years, according to industry insiders.

$30 million over two years ain’t nothing to sneeze at. It is an amount I wish I had right now but, moreover, wish I had unfiltered/unlimited/unconstricted access to Facebook itself. The bastards throttle like you wouldn’t even believe and so the future was very bright minus Russian trolls and Mark Zuckerberg’s overuse of the word “senator” and… whatever.

But then there was J-Bay and the oops and the glitchy feed and the straight up lies lofted from the WSL’s Santa Monica HQ about the numbers of concurrent viewers etc. The rollout was by any measure a complete and utter disaster and let’s turn quickly to Awful Announcing which wrote:

The league was forced to apologize earlier this week to fans who experienced issues watching live streams of events on Facebook. As fans have tuned in to watch the early rounds of the Corona Open J-Bay, they’ve been met with a slew of streaming issues, including being unable to watch the event at all. The organization released an apology on their site, including information on how to watch the event until the issues are resolved.

Well bummer. But who was behind this potentially wonderful relationship? Oh. It was a man named Dan Rose whose title was Facebook’s Vice-President of Partnerships who answered the following question:

Facebook has funded some of the shows. How did you pick which ones to invest in?

with:

Obviously, creating premium episodic content is expensive. Until we have a large enough audience – so the advertising revenue can cover the cost of creative — we helped fund some of them, so people see something when they go to Watch. Also, we wanted to inspire creators for what we think will work well for this product, to show the larger ecosystem what’s possible. The show with Mike Rowe [“Returning the Favor”], which has a real community focus, that was easy. World Surf League, which already has passionate community, is a perfect partnership. And the show with LaVar Ball [“Ball in the Family”] — that family has created a lot of conversation and interest.

Except then there was J-Bay with the oops and the glitchy feed and the straight up lies and now this Dan Rose is totally fleeing because the grumpy surfer was his unexpected end. Shall we read a touch from CNBC?

Dan Rose, one of Facebook’s earliest executives, is leaving the company, he announced on his Facebook page Wednesday.

Rose joined Facebook in 2006 and reported to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. He’s moving to Hawaii where his family has lived for the last year, he said, and will not seek another executive position. He plans to “stay active through advising and investing in companies,” he said.

Rose’s departure marks another key exit for the social media company as it battles scandals around user privacy and its ad-based business model and angry grumpy surfers furious at the less than quality rollout of a World Surf League something.

So long, Dan! Or as they say in Hawaii, “Aloha also means goodbye.” Or as they also say in Hawaii, “Haole want cracks?”