"On TikTok, two of the five most-followed North American sports leagues are non-Big Four: UFC (674.3K) and The World Surf League (611.4K)."
You into TikTok, the two-year-old Chinese vid share network adored by teenage girls?
Yeah, me neither.
But maybe we’re missing something.
The World Surf League, which is a surf-content creation company owned by a non-surfing billionaire and former waterman of the year, is all over it.
And, as revealed in a story in Front Office Sports, the WSL was one of TikTok’s earliest sports accounts.
Come, read, it’s good.
Over time, (WSL Chief Community Officer Tim) Greenberg saw the synchronicity between TikTok’s musical inclinations and WSL’s surfing background. “Video surfing is aspirational, and music is aspirational in a lot of ways – therefore, we have this very natural space to begin programming content because it is so endemic to who we are as a sport,” he said.
On November 20, WSL posted a close-up of waves merging under a sunset with the song, “Can We Kiss Forever?” by Kina playing in the background. In only 12 days, it has mustered more than 14.4 million views – the most of any WSL post – and 2.1 million likes. As of December 2, the WSL has surpassed 611,400 followers – the fifth-most of any sports league, according to Conviva.
With the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo on the horizon, Greenberg wants to further the WSL’s diversity efforts. According to him, 70% of its followers are female and its three biggest countries are Australia, Brazil, and the U.S. But with TikTok, he sees the Olympics as a perfect chance of broadening both the WSL’s audience and geographic reach.
“As our sport is put on the world stage, it’s going to be important for us to keep [the Olympics] in mind and have a very focused, deliberate content strategy heading into 2020 that focuses on supporting our athletes,” Greenberg said. “As [TikTok] creates enhanced tools and more opportunities for us to reach newer audiences, we want to make sure that we’re focused on what’s going to drive our business and that consumer journey that connects back to the WSL.”
Stand there while I unpack the best quote.
“We want to make sure that we’re focused on what’s going to drive our business and that consumer journey that connects back to the WSL.”
Does this excite or does it signal, to you, the final capitulation of a once-great culture to phone zombie VALS?
Tik tok please stop and uh
Tik tok you gots to stop and uh
tik tok is epic. how can you not like it. in fact BG should be wholly tik tok. the first tik tok surf site – not wozzle – will make mega bucks. mega. most of the world uses it, and the demographic is young and spend lotsa coin or influence the spending of. missing the boat here …
and there are no goddamn popups with little Xs i cannot see to close them.
xox
Ever since I did all that acid for years and years I see little x’s swirling around sometimes when I look up at the sky. And then they usually go away.
Chas and Derek are quietly loving this pandemic – Can work from home and satisfy all the people at home with nothing to do but scroll. Hello hits…..
Facebook has built in spyware.
Google has built in spyware.
Disqus has built in spyware.
Woozle don’t give a fuk.
BG don’t give a fuk.
Hurluley gives a fuk!
There’s no spyware on our website or apps!!!
Yet. How will you know what the public wants?
‘We are the music-makers and we are the dreamers of dreams’
Well there’s the mission statement for about 136 surf industrial megacorps from the 90s.
Yer a good corporate cunt, aye.
https://theintercept.com/20…
“In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a “Huawei-sized problem” that posed a national security threat to the West,[67][68] noting the app’s popularity with Western users.
They included armed forces personnel and its alleged ability to convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data to the Chinese government because of the China Internet Security Law.[68
Observers have also noted that ByteDance’s founder and CEO Zhang Yiming issued a letter in 2018 stating that his company would “further deepen cooperation” with Communist Party of China authorities to promote their policies.[69] “
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
From someone who is recently picked up a gig lecturing at the local uni, I love that your reference is a South Park video.
Thanks Professor Lemon.
The genius of the south park creators is certainly deep.
Just clarify, they bought a niche ‘professional league’ not the entire ‘sport’ or the activity.
Ziff bought the right to crown a world champion. Nothing more.
The rest of their bullshit is smoke, mirrors and snake oil.
Not “The” world champion.
“A” world champion.
How good would it be to have rival leagues with somewhat differing criteria and then match their champions to a finale?
Tbh – I want less contest bullshit coz it’s pretty much just wank. As we all know.
But I do want to see the Woozle get a knee in the nuts for the giant claim act they’re rolling with.
And I wouldn’t at all mind if another tour claimed a world champ just to show that the whole thing is a giant wank fest. Like boxing !
Still I trust there’s a few scumbag production houses that know how to take Elos cash while he tries to make the WSL into some kind of curated archive of a giant video vault of positivity that no one watches or gives one fuck about.
Quite correct
Yes! Red Bull league VS WSL league VS Kelly’s Rebel Tour.
What’s this TikTokToe the kids are on about?
It’s a short-life social media platform owned by the Chinese government.
We’re on a consumer journey!!
what a cunt of a world this is.
There’s a Talking Heads lyric for everything, including the current ownership of surfing:
We’re on a ride to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
Oh, and I SURF the consumer journey.
Or Rufus Wainwright
Men reading fashion magazines
Oh, what a world it seems we live in
Straight men, oh, what a world we live in
Bit extreme from a resident of pure indulgence
Oh, why don’t you just go look at the Unbelievable Photos Taken At The Airport.
All looks normal round the peachy avenues of Dee Why
It’s just sex all day every day with you isn’t it bex vidina.
I don’t think I’m as bad as DR
Just quietly
I’m right now working in an all girls live in college and will be here till friday.
Theyre so lovely.
Yung boy sound the alarm, there’s a wolf amongst the sheep..
As the old saying goes.
The more ya talk about it, the less ya do…
It’s so true
Don’t be jealous, Nick.
Yep, I think you’re right, Nick.
Its all tampons, hair spray and yoga retreats from now on.
And that’s just for the men.
Did you hear about the 8 and 10 year old brothers who went to the store and asked for a pack of tampons? The lady behind the counter asked cautiously if the knew why they wanted them, hoping they would say they were getting them for mum. The elder kid replied; “I’m not sure how they work, but it seems everyone who uses them can swim at the beach and ride bikes, and Billy here can’t do either”.
Tik Tok is a fuckin pedophile`s dream app, this thing should be destroyed immediately
This is all a nonsensical blur of words I’ve either never heard of or seen put in the same general area.
I admit to be obviously not youth friendly and the pandemic has taken over my endemic
I’ll just stick to adoring teenage girls on barely fake legal agent
The VAL has won. Resistance is futile. Capitulation is inevitable. Before we know it, we will be promoting a shit wave in Palm Springs as core and directing our respect to the fat ginger elf behind its development… wait…
… meanwhile, during the hiatus, I’ll be rewatching Stranger Than Fiction, wondering how pro surfers are more terrible now than they were 12 years ago, and the The Last Decade, reminiscing the era when surf videos were fun showcases rather than “art” projects…
I think the surf-film-as- art-project started in 1999 with Campbell’s The Seedling, no?
I have no idea. I just know Last Decade was 1998 Taylor Steele with a great Slater section and without any of the dumb, debilitatingly unfunny skits he normally had in his videos.
Litmus was kinda artsy
It’s not a surf flick if the first 10 minutes arent slo mo of trees and driving in exotic locales. Surfing is secondary.
& the last 5 minutes are real time of a guy on a scooter.
The best part of the Al Ain wave pool in Abu Dhabi was being told what not to do by lifeguards from the well known surfing beach nation of Nepal. It started a while ago, this spineless sellout of whatever culture surfing had.