"The example I like to use..."
We grumpy locals, we salt-crusted derelicts have long gazed upon the World Surf League with a critical eye. It has, for years, seemed lost, pivoting from one raison d’être to another, never quite settling in. Tubs, for example, were the future then content then a reseeded competitive landscape. CEOs shuffled in and out, along with CMOs and various senior VPs. We watched, from our grouchy perches, and smelled a failure but our eyes, apparently, are stupid and our noses dumb for in a scintillating just-released interview with Boardsport Source, current CEO Erik Logan has delivered a wildly rosy update.
You must read in its entirety, here, but some highlights, to ponder, in the meantime. Revenue is up 20%, brand partners are up 35%, the digital audience up 62%, viewership numbers for the new Challenger Series up a whopping 92% and consumption of the aforementioned CS up a mind-boggling 300% or as Logan says, “Our strategy is to grow the audience in the biggest ways and when you look at our digital reach across Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and combine it with the linear partners that take it, Sport TV, Globo etc, we have a really large and wide distribution footprint and our model is to build and grow the largest audience, which we can then leverage for our surfers and partners to expose and grow to create a sustainable organisaiton perpetually. And to do this we need to meet the audience where they are.”
The studios, though “not shuttered, per se” have changed course to “fewer and better” including the vast un-mined field of Kelly Slater. Logan clarifying, “The example I like to use is Kelly Slater, probably being one of the single greatest athletes ever. And a lot of people may not even know; he’s 50 years old, still competing at the highest level and has won 11 world titles – he’s broken every record in competitive sport. We think there are some really great stories – like this one – to tell and connect to the broader eco system, or people who are interested in wider sports.”
Dirk Ziff, the World Surf League’s co-owner in chief, has no intention to pull the plug, either his goal simply being “to make investments to build this platform – this digital eco system – and to connect the world and surf fans to see surfing on the level it deserves to be.
Professional surfing for the win.