WSL in bullish mood as it claims record crowds for Rip Curl Portugal Pro but fans ask, record crowds or record chutzpah?
You and I know, well, we know that crowd estimates are at best a chimera and at worst a bold as brass lie.
If you’ve ever been at a stadium that holds fifty-thousand people you know the immenseness of that number, columns and columns of human beings sitting shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye can see.
But, still, wild crowd numbers are regularly thrown out by event organisers.
In Sydney, organisers of the the annual Mardi Gras parade would claim the fruity float show was viewed by a quarter-of-a-million spectators jamming the streets or five percent of the entire city’s population, a declaration never tested, for obvious reasons.
The NPS got out of the crowd counting game soon after.
During the 2011 Egyptian revolution Al Jazeera claimed two million protesters packed Tahrir Square calling for the removal of prez Hosni Mubarak. An expert later estimated it was close to 35k.
You get the picture.
So when the WSL’s CEO Erik Logan quoted 51,000 spectators at Supertubos for the Rip Curl contest, and that number was repeated by commentators Kaipo Guerrero and Petey Mel (1:47:58) , well, a little counting using a drone shot and the sample method where you take a portion of the crowd, count how many are in it and multiply it across the beach, was in order.
See this drone shot?
Finals Day.
Two thousand people? Max?
How many souls you count?
Maybe the weekend was busier but two thousand percent busier?
The obvious question is
Record crowds or record chutzpah?
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