Greatest surfer ever Kelly Slater burnishes
bonafides in east Asia as Slater Designs surfboard appears in
Korean mega-group BTS’s music video!
By Chas Smith
A man for all seasons.
Kelly Slater, arguably the greatest surfer
ever, environmentalist and artificial wave pool impresario
won many fans in China, when he hit back at an historically
inaccurate troll last month with the defense, “Writing me out of
the blue talking shit is such a crock of shit. Accusing me of being
a racist? My girlfriend is Chinese. You’re on glue. You’re a
miserable coward. And now you’re
blocked.”
The well-meaning but slightly off commenter had suggested that
U.S. intervention was a great global negative, overall, after
Slater had suggested America should bomb many Chinese fishing
vessels illegally trolling, as irony would have it, near the
Galapagos Islands.
The two went back and forth before Slater’s coup de grace, which
thrilled residents from Shanghai to Lhasa and maybe even planted a
little hope in many Chinese female hearts. The King not being
married and all.
Very great and similar to Richard M. Nixon’s Ping Pong
Diplomacy.
Now, Korea is, of course, not China but it appears that Slater’s
charm, his warmth, his profound cultural understanding is welcome
there too as mega-group BTS just released a video featuring a
Slater Designs surfboard.
Is it a Cymatic?
Sci-Fi 2.0?
FRK?
Watch here at the 27 second mark and you tell me!
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WSL CEO/Vanguard Erik Logan (left) wearing his
storytelling cap and tie that signify his preeminent position on
the "Road to Stoke."
Just in: World Surf League partners with
analytics company Comscore to help with “explosive audience growth”
as it dedicates itself to “changing the world through the
inspirational power of surfing!”
By Chas Smith
The move to "cult" in full swing!
There has not been a World Surf League
Championship Tour event since Brazilian Italo Fereirra dispatched
countryman Gabriel Medina to take the crown near the beginning of
December, 2019. Not one heat, not one round, not one blow of the
hooter over Joe Turpel’s muffled, “Oooooh. Exciting, Pottz.”
Professional surfing is not alone in its inability to host live
action in the Covid-era but may be singular in its wild, unchecked
success. While other leagues, confederations, associations have
stumbled while trying to connect with audiences in a new way, our
WSL has experienced “explosive growth” in not only audience numbers
but also corporate partnerships and sponsorships.
A true unicorn but how?
Why?
Let us read about the new union with Comscore (Nasdaq: SCOR), a
trusted partner for planning, transacting and evaluating media
across platforms. And to the press
release we go.
Comscore will provide the WSL with access to Comscore’s
signature Media Ratings solutions, including Comscore Video Metrix®
in the United States, Australia and Brazil, and Media Metrix®
Multi-Platform in the U.S., to better understand audience behavior
and media consumption across desktop and mobile devices.
This deal, which comes as the WSL is seeing explosive
audience growth and in partnerships and sponsorships, signals the
power of the sport of surfing. The World Surf League is dedicated
to changing the world through the inspirational power of surfing by
creating authentic events, experiences, and storytelling to inspire
a growing, global community to live with purpose, originality, and
stoke.
Oh yeah. I sometimes underestimate the “power of the sport of
surfing” and short-change the League’s dedication to “changing the
world through the inspirational power of surfing by creating
authentic events, experiences, and storytelling to inspire a
growing, global community to live with purpose, originality, and
stoke.”
Changing the world through the inspirational power of
surfing.
Living with purpose, originality and stoke.
Have we arrived?
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The WSL, happy in diversity.
From the BeachGrit legal department: The
WSL, an alleged “story of naked greed and orchestrated
concealment.”
By Cedar Hobbs
And, the WSL valued, according to court docs in
2016, at $US600 million!
A little history.
The ASP was acquired in 2013 by Zosea Media, a startup owned by
Paul Speaker and Terrance Hardy.
Speaker and Hardy were the original architects of the WSL we so
love today, becoming controlling owners of the new joint venue
along “with the billionaire who invested all $25 million of its
capitalization.”
I assume you can guess who this mysterious “billionaire” might
be.
After the merger, the new venture was valued at $600 million,
allegedly resulting in Zosea’s 50% share tripling from $100 million
to $300 million.
It’s also alleged that after the acquisition of KSWC, “the
billionaire investor would have invested approximately $50 million
into the combined company, and it was natural that he expected
Zosea to relinquish its voting control over the combined
venture.”
In 2016, Paul Speaker was terminated as the CEO of the WSL, with
approval of Hardy and Zosea chairman Jonathan Miller. Speaker
allegedly negotiated an exit deal that included selling 60% of his
Zosea stake back to Zosea, which Zosea sold back to the
billionaire, effectively reducing its ownership share.
Zosea then paid out $12 million to Paul Speaker.
According to a complaint filed in 2017 by the Barnes Firm, a
personal injury law firm, a year before the 2016 acquisition of
KSWC, Michael Barnes, the owner of the Barnes Firm, and two other
persons had been admitted as small equity owners of Zosea in 2015
in return for providing legal services.
Barnes alleged that the small equity owners posed a significant
problem to Zosea, as they could have upset the new merger deal or
the $12 million buyout.
Barnes also claimed that he had contractual rights to be bought
out “upon a change of control of Zosea . . . and also the right to
tag-along in exit sales.”
Hardy, Miller, and Speaker allegedly circumvented the minority
owners’ right to exit “at that $600 million combined value” and
thus circumvented paying “at least $5 million to the ZoSea minority
holders.”
According to Barnes, Zosea concealed the change of ownership and
Speaker’s exit deal from the minority owners.
In 2017, Barnes initiated arbitration against Zosea, which
allegedly prompted them to claim “that Barnes was not entitled to
any documents because of some nebulous ‘malpractice’ and ‘conflict’
by Barnes.”
The alleged malpractice was attributed to Barnes having become a
member of Zosea.
In response, Barnes brought suit in California state court.
Zosea, Hardy, Speaker, and Miller filed a cross complaint
against Barnes in January 2018, alleging breaches of ethical duty,
fiduciary duty, and legal malpractice. They alleged that after
closing the deal, Barnes “conditioned the release of the deal
documents and his future legal work on obtaining a larger
percentage interest in Zosea, effectively holding the deal
hostage.”
They also claimed that after the deal was closed, they had to
obtain additional counsel to rectify Barnes’ errors.
Zosea sought to rescind the issuance of Barnes’ ownership and
take the case to arbitration.
The parties agreed to confidential arbitration in April 2018, so
much of the litigation is not public.
On August 19, 2020 the parties settled for an unknown
amount.
Best surf journalist in biz invited to new
Surf Lakes for press day, dispenses with typical praise and breaks
scathing story of multiple failures, dangerous conditions: “We are
asked to leave the water immediately!”
By Chas Smith
"Something's not quite right."
I will now tell you a secret, surf journalism
is not an honest profession and surf journalists are not honest
professionals. Invite one anywhere, third class, feed hot dogs and
tap water for meals, provide shared accommodation with underpaid
day laborers and you will receive, in return, the most glowing
review of whichever hotel, boat, camp is being junketed.
So starving for recognition, so famished for trinkets, handouts
from those who tug the levers of surf power is he (or Jen See) that
flowery praise is the only thing that flows.
It was with much shock, then, turning to pride, that I read Tim
Baker’s bold, scathing description of new wave technology Surf
Lakes as it opened for the press.
Baker, you certainly know, is considered by most to be the best
surf journalist in the biz, an environmentalist of some note, and
began the piece in typically ebullient fashion:
It all began with the proverbial pebble dropped in a
pond.
Eight years ago, Aaron Trevis was skipping rocks with his
kids when he threw a larger rock and watched the ripples radiate
out from it and tiny waves peel along the bank of the pond, like
countless others have before him.
Before deftly breaking out the knives:
They are producing sets of waves every six minutes, but
there are frequent delays while they tinker with the machinery or
attend to glitches in the system. When a crack in the lake’s cement
floor begins turning the water from an aqua blue to a muddy brown
we are encouraged to help lug rocks from an on-site quarry into a
trailer to help plug the cracks.
And delivering a coup de grace:
By the end of the second day, it appears we may have pushed
the Surf Lakes prototype to its limits. There’s a lengthy delay in
the afternoon to attend to some mechanical issue, and when we
eventually resume, after only a couple of sets, Occy sounds the
alarm that something’s not quite right. The large concrete tower
that the air compressor sits on top of looks dangerously off
kilter. The force of the swells has knocked it off its footings and
we are asked to clear the water immediately.
It is doubtful that Baker will be invited anywhere for a long
time but fans of truth and honesty rejoice this morning for a brave
surf journalist has finally been found.
Baker (middle) pictured practicing the art of
surf journalism.
Listen: Big-wave storyteller Mark Mathews
on the intellectual dark web, kicking opiates and the extravagance
of evil, “There’s darkness in you and if you don’t manage your life
and frame it with meaning, you can become bitter… very fast.”
By Derek Rielly
Crippled innumerable times, told he'd never walk
again, now a keynote speaker of considerable note…
Today’s guest on Dirty Water, Mark Mathews, presents,
irresistibly, as a keynote speaker of considerable fame and even a
little fortune who came from the bruising circuit of Maroubra,
Sydney, via the cutthroat athleticism of professional
big-wave surfing.
He is a ruminative man, as you’ll soon hear.
Give him one little opening for the point he wants to make and
down he comes upon you, in under your guard, flashing and
relentless as a rapier.
Mathews has been crippled and winged innumerable times,
Told he’ll never surf again,
Never walk again.
A cracked plate that can never be warmed on the stove nor
brought out for company. Good only to hold crackers late at night
or to go into the fridge under the leftovers.
But where a lesser man might sink into the velvet lazy chair of
opiates and pity, descending, eventually, into a hell of
despondency, he is optimism radiant and roaring.
