Is a huge media package right around the corner?

I read Sam George’s poetry last night and was so excited to write a rebuttal until this morning when I read each and every one of your comments and laughed until my sides hurt. There is nothing else to say on the matter except to wonder who BeachGrit’s “resident critic” is. A great and grand mystery that only Sam George truly knows. Sam? Will you ever reveal or will you take it to your grave?

Speaking of, what sort of “grave” do you think Sam George will choose when that time comes? Something rococo or understated? A plot in a historically important cemetery, like next to Jim Morrison in Paris, or will his ashes be taken to Sunset, on a big day, and windmilled in to a bomb?

While you are pondering, can we quickly discuss our World Surf League? Oh what a week it has been with sizzling rumors, sizzling rumors half-punctured then sizzling rumors resurrecting again. Santa Monica rarely reaches out directly, but when they did following the first sizzling rumor of a Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch-less future and my phone exploded I thought, “Something must be up.”

Could that something be a robust media deal worth tens and tens of millions of dollars that is currently being negotiated, pitting Facebook against Fox against ESPN for the grand prize?

Maybe.

And let us turn to Front Office Sports for more:

The sport of surfing will be part of the Olympic Games for the first time in Tokyo in 2020. The timing couldn’t be better for the World Surf League (WSL) to commence negotiations for future media deals, with an eye toward richer rights fees and greater visibility.

The surfing governing body currently has a linear TV deal with Fox Sports and a digital deal with Facebook. As the exclusive U.S. broadcaster for the WSL’s Men’s and Women’s Championship Tours as well as the Big Wave Tour, Fox and FS1 are expected to televise more than 500 hours of WSL programming this year.

But those deals expire after this year. WSL and Fox announced a one-year deal in February. Previously, WSL and Facebook announced a two-year deal in January, 2018. The league is expected to reap $30 million from that deal, according to Forbes.

Pri Shumate, the former Nike marketer who joined WSL as chief marketing officer earlier this year, confirmed the governing body has begun negotiating its future media deals.

“We can’t disclose a whole lot of what’s happening because we are having media rights conversations at the moment. But we have had incredible success with both Facebook and Fox,” Shumate said. “Facebook has expanded our audience in the digital universe in a huge way. Obviously, our linear audience has grown as well through Fox. Both of those have been incredible partnerships for us. We are in the process of figuring out how do we move forward for 2020 and beyond.”

Given ESPN’s global reach, they would seem to be a natural contender for WSL rights. But Shumate declined to name possible bidders outside the incumbents.

Etc.

On the piece goes with extremely bullish talk regarding the size and engagement of professional surfing’s audience and much business-speak from WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt but a sentence, near the end, caught my eye. Let’s read together.

With a young, funky and opinionated audience, sports insiders view WSL as a league with plenty of financial upside.

A young, funky and opinionated audience? That sounds a lot like us doesn’t it? And is Santa Monica selling itself to media partners based on the biggest little surf website in the world? I haven’t read or seen anything even close to “opinionated” anywhere but right here. Well before we pat ourselves on the back and head out to our mailboxes, awaiting royalty checks from that future financial upside let us read nouveau Backward Fin Beth Pri Shumate’s final quote:

“We’re expanding from competition to community. If before our goal was to have this amazing home for core surf fans, we’re expanding into creating a community through surfing. Those people don’t have to necessarily be surfers. They need to love what it is we represent.”

It’s a VAL world, baby. We’re just living in it.

But the corporate retreats are booming!

I knew it. I knew something smelled fishy in Lemoore, California which struck me as particularly odd seeing it is 100 miles from the nearest beach and surrounded by cow stink but my nose always knows (buy here).

Something real fishy.

I had heard a sizzling hot rumor from impeccable sources yesterday that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, halfway between an Indian casino and the sixth circle of hell, was being mothballed, employees laid off and canned future World Surf League Championship Tour events, including but not limited to the Founders Cup, the Surf Ranch Open and the Freshwater Pro.

The WSL’s Santa Monica headquarters came swinging in, almost directly, with an excoriating rebuttal, issuing a rare direct statement.”The Surf Ranch Lemoore facility continues to invest in new staff and experiences and the WSL is excited about the venue’s potential in 2020 and beyond.”

Solid, no? But that fishy scent still lingered and lingered so heavily, blowing out the dung and industrial farm waft, that it cocked my eye straight into my brain.

Something didn’t smell properly.

Well, my nose, which always knows, was right.

Maybe.

For today two other sources even more impeccable confirmed that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch will be dropped from future WSL Championship Tours because, “The pros hate it and are bored with it partly because the heat, partly because the location and partly because they have simply done everything they can on that wave.”

But, the sources added, “It’s supposedly doing great for corporate retreats and private buy outs.”

I also heard yesterday that Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch is the one jewel in the World Surf League crown actually turning a profit.

A VAL bull market!

A VAL paradise!

Google, Facebook and Perdue Pharma employees splashing each other whilst straddling soft-tops while their hardcore co-workers gorilla squat five feet in front of a barrel (I can’t remember the genius that used this line in the comments but I tip my drink to you).

So that’s where we are. Surf Ranch, as a business model and place, may be healthy but as the high performance future of professional surfing it’s unofficially officially a wrap.

More after the World Surf League’s Santa Monica brass get furious and call me again.

Let's make pro surfing a safe space…

I know a little something about being scared in big surf. More than a little, as in one particular case my obvious trepidation was exposed to peers in the sport’s most public forum.

The year was 1982 and I was in Hawaii competing in the Pro Class Trials at Sunset Beach.

Back then the Pro Class Trials were a pretty big thing, a one-shot ‘QS of its day, through which pro hopefuls qualified for the prestigious Hawaiian events like the Pipeline Masters and Smirnoff Pro, when only the top-16 surfers on the IPS Tour were seeded.

Which meant that along with a bunch of hot young Hawaiians like Mark Liddell and Louie Ferriera and Aussie upstarts like Mike Newling and Steve Wilson, there were guys like me: pretty good surfers who had eked out enough marginal placings at various events throughout the year to earn a Pro Trials invite.

That year, I’d surfed my way through to the main event at the Stubbies at Burleigh, losing to Critta Byrne, and somehow finished fifth at the U.S. Pro at Malibu, seeing my name shoe-horned in among real surf stars like Rabbit, Dane and Shaun. Which is why, come that winter, I found myself standing on the sand at Sunset Beach, wet jersey in hand, shivering in the warm Hawaiian sun.

Like I said, though only a pretty good surfer at the time I had a distinct advantage over some of my more naturally talented competitors: I had Al Merrick’s first Thruster. As in, the first Thruster Al ever shaped, with other CI team riders like Tommy Curren, Davey Smith and Willy Morris all still riding twins. And I put it to good use on the first day of competition, held in four-to-six foot Sunset Point, actually winning a couple heats.

But on the next day Sunset got real, breaking at what everyone but me was calling clean, eight-to ten feet out of the northwest. Which, ignoring the bullshit Hawaiian scale, means the actual size was sixteen-to -wenty feet.

I call that big.

So, I’m ready to paddle out for my third round heat, and all I have to do is place second to get into the Show. I’ve got Al’s second Thruster under my arm, a 7’4” four-channel that Shaun kindly lent me, I’ve got Willy Morris as a caddy, paddling my 7’6” single fin, and, at the sight of those ferocious NW peaks unloading through the inside bowl, a belly full of snakes.

Big day at Rincon? Stoked!

Double overhead at the Lane? Bring it on.

Serious Sunset? Try serious gut wrench.

I was scared, and you could tell because I was uncharacteristically quiet. But I paddled out. Had to. And it went like this.

First wave on the unfamiliar 7’4”, I dropped into a medium-sized inside double-up, landed a bit further forward than I would’ve liked, leaned into the bottom turn, the board tracked straight and I flopped off the inside rail face-down. Rag-dolled until I thought my head was going to explode. Maybe it did. But the leash held, and I came up, dazed but still game.

Second wave, pretty good size with more north in it and an easier roll-in. I actually did a few good turns, racing under the inside curl all the way to the channel. Third wave smaller and fat but I zigged and zagged, imagining I was surfing like Mark Warren.

The answer came with a minute left in the heat. A big West Peak jacked up outside, the biggest set of the heat so far.

I was the only one in position. Except that to me this thing looked like a drive-in movie screen that was about to topple over and crush me, impossibly tall and steep and bearing down on me with what seemed like evil intent. I put my head down and stroked for the horizon as if my life depended on it, because at that point in my blind panic, I believed it did.

“Bradshaw’s winning,” yelled Willy as I paddled past him in the channel, “But one more good one and you’ll get through!” I distinctly remember thinking at the time, “Do I really want to get through? Am I really up to Second Reef Pipe, or worse, Waimea?”

The answer came with a minute left in the heat. A big West Peak jacked up outside, the biggest set of the heat so far.

I was the only one in position.

Except that to me this thing looked like a drive-in movie screen that was about to topple over and crush me, impossibly tall and steep and bearing down on me with what seemed like evil intent. I put my head down and stroked for the horizon as if my life depended on it, because at that point in my blind panic, I believed it did.

Willy broke the spell.

“It’s not going to break!” he screamed. “Take it! Take it!”

A veritable slap in the face. I sat up, spun around and paddled just as hard to catch the monster. I’ll get through the trials, goddammit, and I’ll surf Pipeline and Waimea, too, if that’s what it comes to.

Sure, I was scared, but I was out here, wasn’t I?

Too far, as it turned out.

Paddling again as if my life, or at least my pro career, depended on it, I wind-milled like crazy, but it was no good: my initial flight not fight response had already doomed my shot at the wave of the day. It rolled under me and peeled empty all the way to Vals Reef as the horn sounded, ending my heat and any chance I’d ever have to be taken seriously as a pro surfer.

Later on the beach the announcer read the results, and I don’t remember who it was, only what they said. “Third place, Sam George. Too bad, Sam, but you know what they say, no guts, no glory.” How’d you like that being said about you on the beach in Hawaii, in front of half the pro tour?

Later on the beach the announcer read the results, and I don’t remember who it was, only what they said.

“Third place, Sam George. Too bad, Sam, but you know what they say, no guts, no glory.”

How’d you like that being said about you on the beach in Hawaii, in front of half the pro tour? But, in fact, that’s exactly why I’m telling you this tale.

Because while following BeachGrit’s coverage of the Tahiti Pro I read where their resident Critic smugly called Willian Cardoso and Yago Dora cowards for not charging gnarly Teahupoo, but riding only one wave each, and tentatively.

Cowards.

And man, I thought my shaming at Sunset was bad.

At the same time, though, it brought to mind a quote a good friend recited after I told him what happened to me that day, paraphrasing Theodore Rooseveldt, no less:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Cowards? Scared, maybe. Probably.

But they paddled out anyway, a simple act of courage that those smug Critics, safe on shore, will never understand.

What kind of sport has two entirely different ways to become a world champion? Surfing, you are such a weirdo.

The ISA world championship event for women is over! Did you even know it had started? I’m going to go ahead and answer for you: you did not.

No shame.

This is a loving, joyful community of surf people who would never shame you. At least, not today. There is always tomorrow.

Scrolling through the round one heat sheets offered a dizzying array of unfamiliar names. I did learn that Claire Bevilacqua, who I had previously thought to be Australian, is now Italian. The Olympics are wondrous in their transformative powers.

Each participating country could send three women to the event. Steph Gilmore, Sally Fitzgibbons, and Nikki van Dijk represented Australia, while Carissa Moore, Courtney Conlogue, and Caroline Marks surfed for the U.S., a sentence that still stutters a bit on the tongue, but we shall overcome.

Lakey Peterson is currently ranked ahead of both Marks and Conlogue, but did not go to Japan. According to the ‘gram, she’s already in Lemoore.

There were a lot of heats.

I’m not going to tell you all about them, because there are far too many. One thing we learned: There are no losers’ rounds in Olympic Surfing. That is far, far too plebeian for such a grand occasion. No, my friends, from now on, the elimination rounds will be known as repechage! Say it together: Repechage! The ISA World Championship event featured ten repechage rounds. I feel smarter already.

The winner. You will want to know about the winner. Sofia Mulánovich won gold ahead of Silvana Lima, Bianca Buitendag, and Carissa Moore.

If you’re wondering what kind of medal you win if you finish fourth like Carissa Moore, it’s copper. Gold, silver, bronze, copper. Now you know. I have seen Olympic medals of all colors, but never a copper medal, so I now have a new ambition.

Mulánovich previously won an ISA world title in 2004 in Ecuador. She is also the 2004 ASP world champion, a title she secured after winning three of the six tour stops that year. Mulánovich remains the only surfer from Peru to win a CT world title, an accomplishment that transformed her into something of a rock star in her home country.

If you’re wondering what kind of medal you win if you finish fourth like Carissa Moore, it’s copper. Gold, silver, bronze, copper. Now you know. I have seen Olympic medals of all colors, but never a copper medal, so I now have a new ambition.

If you’re like Chas, you are probably thinking fuckyeah, Mulánovich is going to the Olympics. She won the ISA world title! Of course, she’s going.

Not. So. Fast.

Mulánovich must win the 2020 ISA world championship in order to qualify for the Olympics. Thanks to the Pan-American Games, Peru has already qualified Daniela Rossi for Tokyo 2020. As a side note and because surfing is a small world, Mulánovich mentored Rossi during her early career.

tl;dr: Winning the Pan-Am Games qualifies you for the Olympics, winning the 2019 ISA world title does not.

Meanwhile, in more Olympic qualifying, four women provisionally punched their tickets to Tokyo this week. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the continental qualifying route. The top finishers from Africa, Oceana, Europe, and Asia each secured an Olympic slot — assuming no one from their home country finishes ahead of them at the 2020 ISA World Championship or in the WCT rankings.

Got that? Yah. I know, you totally got that.

The four lucky Olympic probably qualifiers are: Bianca Buitendag for South Africa, Shina Matsuda from Japan, Ella Williams from New Zealand, and Anat Leilor from Israel, which is considered part of Europe for surfing.

Look, I don’t make the rules here. In an odd twist, all four secure provisional qualification, while placing below winner Mulánovich.

Though Moore is the highest finishing U.S. woman at the ISA event, her qualification for Tokyo remains dependent on her WCT ranking at the end of 2019. The copper medal is a nice souvenir for her trophy chest, but doesn’t play any role in the Olympic selection process.

I’m not sure that it should, but it’s an odd thing to have an event that sorta counts, but sorta doesn’t at all.

This is all totally fine. But you know what’s really keeping me up at night?

Surfing has two different world championship titles. Mulánovich has won three world championships in surfing — two at the ISA world championship and one from the ASP.

What kind of sport has two entirely different ways to become a world champion? Surfing, you are such a weirdo.

In the long run, I suspect this situation will not continue to confound us. For just last week, or maybe it was the week before, the WSL got out of the business of crowning a big wave world champion. When Chas wisely asked Pat O’Connell whether the CT might go the way of the Big-Wave Tour, the answer wasn’t yes. But it was also not a firm no.

It is easy to imagine a future in which the World Surf League runs a series of events and makes media about surfing. It might look something like professional tennis.

ISA would then be in charge of the whole world championship medal business, including the copper.

I never really expected that pro surfing would try to be tennis and Red Bull at the same time.

Weird flex, pro surfing, weird flex.

"We are delighted at the initial level of interest from partners and key stakeholders," says CEO Sophie Goldschmidt.

Heady times around the BeachGrit (official Yellow Jersey Holders of the World Surf Media PT Cruiser Leaderboard) HQ of late.

Great White blood feuds. Alleged wavepool culls. Ratings release webcam parties so wild they’d make the Marquis de Sade beam with pride.

It’s been so heccas, in fact, that we missed some sorta significant news for all the Jaddy Andre enthusiasts out there.

The WSL has announced an apparent overhaul of the QS for next year.

From their website.

“In 2020, the WSL will launch the Challenger Series, a new level of competition that will provide athletes more opportunities at the highest level to qualify for the elite Championship Tour.”

“This is another important step in our evolution. We are delighted at the initial level of interest from partners and key stakeholders for the Challenger Series. We expect the series to further enhance the career path for future CT athletes and to also become commercially positive,” stated CEO Sophie Goldschmidt.

Read more here, and marvel at their ability to say so much while conveying so little.

The 2020 Qualifying Series, the new name for the development and qualification tier of the CT, will feature two primary segments: the Challenger Series (consisting of eight 10,000 point events) and the regular QS tour with its 5000, 3000, 1500 and 1000 events.

Whether the increase in 10,000 events will be offset by a decrease in small ones is not clear.

On face value it’s the equivalent of printing more money in a recession. Increasing the number of 10,000 comps will only decrease their value.

Current wisdom is that around 30,000 points will see you re/qualify for the tour. That number will now jump significantly.

So, what’s changed?

Perhaps the locations are better, you say. Maybe the 10k comps will be held at world-class locations like Indo, Mex, etc.

Not really. The eight venues are Piha, Ballito, Huntington, Pantin, Ericeira, Phillip Island, Haleiwa and Sunset. A smattering of quality in a sea of mediocrity.

Perhaps qualifying tactics will change? Possibly.

Top-tier pros are more likely to focus on the 10k events, which could allow the next rung down more of a chance at the lower queys.

But, I still can’t see that having any impact on who qualifies overall, and it certainly does nothing to address the fact that the CT itself is already more inflated than the Weimar republic.

Why not cut the CT in half? Sixteen competitors, five comps. Make the remaining comps part of the Challenger Series.

Ya? No?

There’s also a glaring omission from the new 10,000 events. Not one in Brazil. Is this…problematic?

Finally, if the name of the new series rings a bell, it’s ‘cause they stole it from second-tier tennis tour.

Just how prescient was Bobby Martinez?