Hair greasy, million watt smile gone.
Wow!
Pro surfing just got completely turned on its ear with an announcement this morning via video (the closest the WSL gets to a proper presser) by CEO Erik Logan of a completely restructured Tour in 2021 and no start date for 2020, perhaps the closest thing yet to an admission that the Tour is cooked for this year.
A quick rewind is in order and some context, before we slice the main meat off the bone from ELO’s presser.
World Sport has obviously been gutted by the pandemic, but the noise has been getting louder from professional leagues around the world of at least tentative plans to get action happening again.
The English Premier League, one of the wealthiest sporting leagues on earth, has been making plans for a summer reload under it’s Project Restart banner.
Formula One, with it’s reliance on global travel, has rescheduled the year and making plans to race again.
Australian football codes have named starting target dates to get the game going again.
From the WSL, in the last six weeks there has been nothing.
Complete silence.
The pressure to say something, anything, must have been enormous.
So we get a very haggard, gaunt looking Erik “Elo” Logan coming to the podium early this morning Australian time.
Hair greasy, million watt smile gone.
The dream job of turning WSL into a media company has been torpedoed, and now the bare bones of what the WSL purports to be: a sporting machine designed to pump out a credible World Champion at year’s end are on display and looking very, very shaky.
Here’s the gist of ELO’s pronouncements.
The Championship Tour, as we know it, and as it has existed moreorless in stable form since the early 90’s is gone daddy gone.
What we will have now is a rejigged Challenger Series taking up the first quarter or third of the year, which will serve as an on-ramp to a truncated CT which comprises the rest of the year.
No details given on number of events or where events will be held but that obvs means huge changes and the Aussie leg, the only leg that has ever made financial sense due to govt support, is likely to be sacrificed to the new Challenger Series*.
The climax of the year, to produce a World Champion, will involve some kind of surf-off, in an as yet to be detailed format. Elo used last year’s Pipe Masters Finale between first and second as the desired template but as to how that situation is achieved we have been given no clues.
Only that finishing the “regular” year in first place would confer some kind of advantage.
OK, great.
Back to the abandoned Goldschmidt plan.
I wonder if Sophie watched the Elo video with a wry smile.
The entry to the CT, the QS is finished. At least as far as the missing letter W, as in World goes.
Now there will be a patchwork of regional QS events, with the aim of reducing world travel and hence costs for upcoming surfers with a dream of qualification.
How the fuck this will work in practice is anyones guess.
Once again, Elo threw this spitball out with no details.
Many, many more questions than answers on this issue.
It does throw the whole financial viabilty of the Tour in question, seeing as the QS with it’s legions of starry eyed kids all chipping in big-time to compete was one of the WSL’s more reliable cash cows.
With that gone, or severely attenuated, where does the funding stream come from?
Of course, the devil will be in the details and we only know the broadest outlines at the moment.
With no Tour to distract him and a captive audience the moment was there to be seized. Instead, what we’ve seen has been the utter bankruptcy of that idea. I tuned into the WSL the other day and watched a moustachioed cat spruiking pop-out mid-lengths at surf ranch. It was only compelling because it was so completely bizarre that this somehow passed muster as “content”.
Elo promised further announcements on June 1.
That’s if he lasts that long. This pandemic has been particularly cruel to sporting CEO’s, especially those whose threadbare business models have been left spinning in the breeze.
The reason for hiring Elo, the big pitch, was his promise to bring the magic of story-telling in to transform the WSL into a media powerhouse. From that perspective the pandemic should have been a golden opportunity for Elo’s vision to be realised.
With no Tour to distract him and a captive audience the moment was there to be seized. Instead, what we’ve seen has been the utter bankruptcy of that idea. I tuned into the WSL the other day and watched a moustachioed cat spruiking pop-out mid-lengths at surf ranch. It was only compelling because it was so completely bizarre that this somehow passed muster as “content”.
Elo won’t make thanksgiving.
WSL, if they survive, will pivot back to sport.
They’ll need a very hard arsed sporting administrator with a deep knowledge of surfing and strong existing relationships to the funding bodies who keep the sport afloat.
That guy is Andrew Stark, current WSL Australasia boss cocky.
I do feel sorry for Elo.
This is desperation stuff, and he’s clearly out of his depth on every level. The only question now is what sort of phoenix will rise from the ashes.
Pro surfing is a dream that is too beautiful to ever truly die.
*This does bear resemblance to a Jimmycane proposal from 2014 published in Surfing.
This is an article written in an effort to make sense out of a brain fart. Can somebody spare a square?
You must admit that it provides some entertainment though? Perhaps more so, the undoing!
Francisco Spínola is also that kind of man!…
Biggest issue is judges not being blinded to other judges’ scores and heat totals, whatever the comp format.
Like, it’s about fucking time to stop manufacturing results please.
Amen motherfucker, amen.
Well, they don’t need to. The whole point is that there’s so many possible outcomes that it’s almost impossible to calculate the winner until after the comp finishes and all the points are handed out. Thus achieving their goal of crowning the world champ based on the final heat of the year.
so you can’t script this?
Derek. Did he mention anything about delicious dick ?
and I think Elo may have just a kazoo….
If he saves the WSL it will have been worth it for us, maybe not for longtom.
I honestly don’t mind the idea if done right, it works for sports in general not just team sports. Say top 8 in a death ladder: 8 through 5 as ‘wildcards’ in a single heat, winner vs. 4, winner vs. 3, winner vs. 2, winner vs. 1 for the title. There is still a very strong incentive to finish as high as possible since #1 seed only has to win 1 heat to win the title, and the championship day would be pretty entertaining.
So the guy who’s arguably the best surfer in the world at the time surfs just one heat? And not only that he surfs against someone who’s warmed up and on a roll. Hmm not sure about that.
That’s a good point. Devil in the deets etc
That’s a good point that I had not thought of. But yeah the point of the ladder is to give the higher seeds a reward for finishing higher in the season rankings, so not sure what the best overall solution would be.
I thought the idea was that yellow jersey has a few low-seed heats – could spell drama
Having a bracket with say top 8 seeds could give more drama (like the NCAA tournament). But with the variability of the ocean I think it risks undervaluing the regular season leader board. In general I like the idea of a surf-off for the title, if they can come up with a good format that addresses all the various (and admittedly significant) concerns. Theoretically it could be a win-win, but in reality we’ll see what happens.
The QS isn’t getting attenuated. It’s getting expanded. They’re squeezing the juice. they’re making it more accessible to local competitors—because now it has more value. Now they’ll be making a bigger impact in the community. That will engage more fans to actually watch the CT. It’s actually quite brills.
how do you figure that?
The end of the WSL as we know it? I sure hope so…
The play-off idea sounds a bit like deciding the Formula 1 world champ with an end of season, one-off drag race.
In quality conditions, surfing is the most photogenic sport by miles.
All the organization has to do right is get out of the way.
Allow the best surfing decisions to create the narrative.
Plan the tour like you would a surf trip.
Simple as fuck
And there it its! The predictable negative piece on any announcement the WSL make. Yawn. Seems like Longtom wrote this for the sake of it without much substance in the retort. To put some positive meat back on the bone; Most sports have a minor premiership at the end of the regular season which doesn’t count for much. The excitement is in the playoffs/finals etc. A final day with all the pressure on the contenders is good for the sport. It doesn’t stop us from watching basketball/nrl etc. all year. The kids will still support the QS… probably even to a greater degree with more smaller (and affordable for sponsors) events equalling more opportunities all round. Video pressers are better than written pressers. No beef there. I actually think the content platform has been pretty good – especially the short form stuff. Elo will see out the transition. Stark is a heavy hitter, but arrogant as they come, always with a personal agenda… but I do agree the top job has been on his radar since the Surfing Aus days…
I guess we’ll see who is right and who is a smoke and mirrors salesman with no idea about how to completely transform a global sport that for years has been a less than break even proposition.
I do like the idea of the show-down but it depends on how they manufacture it.
devil in the details and there are precious few of them.
I’d love to see Elo show up to pressers and get a decent grilling the way “normal” sports CEO’s do.
Hilarious for him to release a Vid under the guise of transparency when all that was offered was the most vague suggestions with zero detail.
Yeah fair call, and I agree the detail is critical… also difficult to make judgement calls on the length of the runway they have towards some sort of profitability (if that in fact is the main game) without knowing… the detail. But I guess it’s fun to speculate.
I do miss your post-event breakdowns though.. those are top-shelf!
Elo is a flim flam man who made a great living selling American positivity to housewives trapped in suburbia with the American dream hanging over them like the sword of Damocles.
He has no deep knowledge of surfing and nothing in his resume that even remotely suggests he’s up for the job of transforming this sport into anything profitable, let alone that would increase a fan base beyond the almost terminally frustrated rusted ons.
Still, it’s the most exciting news out of the WSL for years. Change, of some sort is coming.
If he pulls this off I will be the loudest blower on his trumpet, so to speak.
The proof will be in the pudding… watching closely!
Thank-you longtom… just… thank-you…
Wait, you’re going to blow his Trumpet?
I’ve met Oprah several times and asked about her base support. She is the siren to housewives trapped and is the secret friend that replaces their child hood teddy bear. To many, she is THEIR black friend. To others, she is THEIR successful friend. I’ve been in situations where women ask me about her because of a rumor though I know nothing except my job within her home.
She is the wall of hope and ELO may have been her wall of positive noise?
I’ve been dropped in on by Tommy Carroll.
Didn’t see who wrote this until after reading and was about to suggest they write here! Unsurprisingly, brilliant words as always, LT.
I reckon an editor would have asked you to rewrite longtom. Don’t hate the player hate the game. Are you OK?
on what grounds?
Buck stops with the CEO, no?
yeah, totally fine.
Just some of the adjectives used about elo are a bit out of line IMHO.
Take them out and the same points get across.
A few of my mates are not taking social distancing very well and getting frustrated on social media. Anyway, play on.
his physical appearance?
You don’t think that’s relevant?
I do, it’s crucial to his whole schtick, and to see it breaking down under what must be enormous pressure is totally relevant.
If’ he’d shown up, 6 weeks after his last public appearance, looking like a million bucks, instead of looking like he’d just crawled out from the gutter after a 6 week bender the tone of the piece would have been very different. He did not inspire confidence.
You don’t see it that way?
You can’t compare surfing to sports like that. The reason those sports having a finals series is so that whoever wins at the end has to have beaten the best of the best directly. The minor premiere’s might’ve gotten through a full season without ever beating the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ranked teams. To be crowned the true Premiers, they first have to go through the final series going head-to-head with those teams.
In surfing, they’re going head to head at every event anyway, so they’ve already had to claw their wins away from the other major contenders.
Plus there’s the whole nature of the ocean compared to a static stadium. Performances can be averaged out over a number of events, at a number of venues, to crown a deserving champ. Having a final play-off at the end of that, where the conditions on the day could wholly skew and determine the outcome, as akin to having a normal NRL season but then playing the finals in the snow on a field with a 20° slope.
The premier league (and other soccer leagues?) just have a premier as whoever finishes on top. One of the biggest sports in the world.
I tried to tell my mates when I lived in the UK that a finals series was way more exciting but they wouldn’t have a bar of it.
Judging by the horrific “injuries” that seem to occur every time the wind blows on a soccer field, I just assumed that the reason they don’t have finals is that all the teams are struggling to even field a full team by the end of the season.
Surely they’re not faking, are they?
are you suggesting that the wright family are soccer players?
“Now there will be a patchwork of regional QS events, with the aim of reducing world travel and hence costs for upcoming surfers with a dream of qualification.” Got to be advantage Australia.
“Pro surfing is a dream that is too beautiful to ever truly die.” Would you be willing to support a regional QS at Lennox, Bluff etc?
hell no.
There doesn’t really need to be any real changes to the current events – just that the points go towards a local ranking rather than a global one. Then the top xx surfers from each region go through to the Challenger Series.
Even if some regions are stacked with events compared to others, it won’t matter as all they are doing is working out who they’ll send to the big show. So, for example, Brazil being stacked with QS6000’s does not give Brazilians any advantage over any other region.
good point.
but more comps =more chances, no?
More chances, yes, but everyone else in your region has the same chances too. Every time you get another chance, so does your opponent, so does it really matter? Do we really need to add another half a dozen shitty QS1000 events just to give people more chances?
no, but if Brazil has 8 comps, thats 8 chances.
If Indo has 2 comps thats 2 chances.
Indo – or “Asia” as they fall under the WSL banner, actually has the BEST regional series in the world based on current events. Nias, Krui, Cloud 9 and Sri Lanka. Throw in a couple of Japanese beachies, two other Indo spots I’ve never heard of and Hainan, and you’re got a really balanced mix that includes left and right reefs, a left point, a right point, and some beachbreaks.
Unless some regions strip the events back substantially, there’s not going to be any regions without enough chances.
Thanks for the grounding – last night in my mind was the vision of a regional tour not unlike “Surfing Wild Australia”.
“We heard on the grapevine of a swell hitting the coast thirteen hundred kilometres away. The people at the Camp of the Moon in tune with the natural cycles of the area predicted that the swell would hit the point in about thirty six hours. Being cynical urban lads we didn’t know whether to treat this revelation with hope or as a bit of a laugh…. When Kong and Fitzy hit the line up before sunrise their dwarfed figures gave an indication of true wave height…. Bruce Fitzgerald in those first exciting hours, racing an unbelievably long wall and caught up in a real life and death situation” 9.09 to Fitzy and the viewers are assured the right crew makes it to a challenger series.
Elo seems like a pretty decent fellow. Hopefully the WSL makes it through this tough time.
This is so fucking stupid. Obviously Elo has never paid attention to F1 – one of the most profitable and highly watched global sports in existence today. You do not need to crown the champ in the last race to make it fantastic for the fans. SMH
Agreed. They are trying to manufacture a great moment over and over again, in which case the shine will wear off. They also keep comparing it to NFL, NBA, AFL etc all of which are team sports. There aren’t many individual sports which have the number 1 spot come down to one match at the end of the year.
He does look fucking haggard – the stress of not being able to float as many shakas and high fives has prematurely aged him for sure
Longtom – oh yes, that’s a great song. Way way back in the mists of time it was on my walkman at Nusa Dua, and the girls looking after our stuff at the only Warung on the beach [pre hotels] loved the vibraphone bits, like an angklung.
https://youtu.be/ekL7o8BQkZM
They could really punk it out live
Roger that, I saw them at Selina’s and they made a lot of noise with some pretty basic equipment.
Probly same tour.
Glider room dee why
Mid 80s, full house
We climbed the walls and told bouncers to get fuked.
Was a top ten gig.
Must have been the Summer of ’84/’85. Space Shuttle crashed soon after.