Brutal.
The world’s best professional surfers are currently in Lemoore, California’s “crispy” water doing turns, getting barreled, delighting the judges though maybe not the spectators. Our Jen See is there and a report from hell will be filed shortly but while we are waiting, might we discuss the World Surf League’s Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer and her inspirational message delivered from Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch just yesterday.
Pairing a black sun dress with black glasses, Miley-Dyer shared how emotional she felt in making equal pay between male and female surfers on tour. How Caroline Marks makes ten-times more than she did when she, herself, was surfing professionally and how that’s the way it should be.
The video was introduced thusly:
It’s five years ago, here at Surf Ranch, that we announced equal prize money for men and women for all of our Tours. It is always special for me to reflect on what equal prize money means to me – for the @wsl to place an equal value on men’s and women’s performances, and for surfing to make a statement in doing so. It is what I am most proud of. Lemoore, you will always have a special place in my heart. Happy to be here and excited for this weekend ahead!
Beautiful and Miley-Dyer has always taken sole credit for the beauty, praising herself regularly while accepting awards for the achievement, celebrating herself in speeches, though that narrative has been brutalized by a just-published Forbes feature on the CEO of U.S. Ski and Snowboard, one Sophie Goldschmidt.
But do you remember her? The British tennis enthusiast acted as CEO of the World Surf League for three heady years. According to the important financial magazine:
Goldschmidt, who served as CEO of the World Surf League (WSL) from 2017 to 2020 and notably led the historic implementation of equal prize money for men and women, saw these opportunities for growth at U.S. Ski & Snowboard. As an avid lifelong skier herself, then, it was a no-brainer to step into the President and CEO role in October 2021.
Uh oh. Goldschmidt led the historic implementation of equal prize money for men and women?
Zero mention of Jessi Miley-Dyer?
Ouch.
The piece carries on, in any case, discussing how much money U.S. Ski and Snowboard is making, how both “visibility and revenue” are being amplified, a “total addressable audience” growing more than 200% to a whopping 245 million “across web, mobile apps and linear television,” a 13% increase in views of the Winter Olympics etc.
“Every four years we get turbocharged,” Goldschmidt said, speaking about those Olympics. “But we want a consistent drumbeat of coverage. We need to educate the U.S. market even more on this. We spend five months week in and week out competing on the World Cup stage; some would argue winning the [crystal] globe is more important than the Olympic medal.”
Major success.
Major massive success though, again, no whisper of Jessi Miley-Dyer.
Do you imagine Dirk Ziff looks over at professional skiing and snowboarding and thinks… dang it?
Well, let’s turn our attention back to the Surf Ranch Pro, I suppose, and its sparse crowd and its noticeable lack of Red Bull branding on the skis.
More on that story soon.
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jesse miley dyer can get fucked… oh wait
https://youtu.be/SAZ3SKeN_LA
Jessi v Chas surf off please. She was quite smooth in her day!
“Success has many fathers…”
(Or mothers in this case)
Equal pay to surf in shit waves
Look at jessi face in that pic – ignoring Soph and Steph – sophie always doomed
Knifed in the back?
https://beachgrit.com/wp-co…
london, tribute to some ol white guy. named beck, song by by stevie wonder…https://youtu.be/nvO2_noxaXQ
Have you ever seen the movie Major League?
beisa balls both been very very good to me
Here ya go Tim:
hit me again…
Okay you asked for it sushiman. here’s the original live version from 2010
https://youtu.be/bunNRu4mBbY
never so tossed bisquits in my life….https://uploads.disquscdn.com/image…
Wow I bet you can watch some innings of good Japanese basebaru from up there.
If not, call Kaipo for a Bailey extension ladder.
su
xrureial
and that’s how we like it!
i’m afraid to climb this stairway to nowhere in my own backyard…dizzying heights. my view stops and starts at Pipeline as I only look to the West…Surfline does the rest. Winter cannot come fast enough…all foggy for the next 3 months. did get a delivery from honolulu: a dozen ti leaf leis for a semi-traditional daughter graduation, son’s b-day, and ex-mama’s day. thought that would go well but another fam member kicked my ladder over…free falling…
https://scontent-sjc3-1.xx….
https://twitter.com/BarnHas…
The San Diego Padres scored a run on a comical “Little League home run” against the New York Yankees on Sunday.
Jose Azocar was batting in the top of the second inning with Ha-Seong
Kim on second and two outs in a 1-1 game. Azocar hit a 0-1 pitch from
Gerrit Cole into center field to score Kim from second. But that’s where
things got embarrassing for the Yankees.
Harrison Bader’s throw from center sailed over catcher Kyle
Higashioka’s head. Azocar, who had advanced to second on the throw home,
tried going for third after Bader’s overthrow. Higashioka tried to
throw out Azocar at third, but his throw went into left field.
The WSL claiming any credit for contest pay equity in women’s surfing is laughable. They were forced, kicking and screaming the whole way into accepting equal prize pay.
When Sophie entered as chief, the WSL was already fucking up in Hawaii concerning permitting issues for contests. Early in her tenure mid 2017 the WSL failed to submit mandated amended applications for contest dates. The C&C of Honolulu gave all applicants fair notice and WSL failed to comply and timely resubmit. Even Renato stressed back then that WSL needed to get its act together and meet the deadline.
Cocky and supremely arrogant, Sophie and WSL then attempted to petition, after-the-fact, for a variance for the Volcom Pipe. When asked by Hawaiian officials why WSL missed the deadline she couldn’t provide an answer. The WSL then went on an intimidation campaign enlisting Hawaiian pros to speak out but to no avail and the contest variance was denied.
Anyway, to the point, further exacerbating Sophie’s eventual demise was her testimony in Hawaii when the women’s equal pay requirement for Hawaiian permits was being discussed and was eventually implemented. Sophie testified along the hard line that WSL had long been pursuing and she rightfully implored the business and fiscal realities along with other measured justification for the reasonable disparity in men’s/women’s surf contest earnings. A few months later in Sophie’s tenure she also went head-to-head with the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing when she/WSL threatened to cancel the Mavericks event rather than have to pay women equally.
Forced to finally capitulate, WSL now shamelessly tries to re-write history espousing their progressive “historic implementation of equal prize money.”
As for Sophie, I think she was placed in an untenable position from the beginning and ultimately became the scapegoat.
Makes you think Ziff begins every CEO job interview with the same question.
“Are you CUT out for the position?”
They’ve all said “yes”.
I just wish Dirk would finally explain what he means by CUT.
Critical Ultracrepidarian Theory
Here we are six years deep into ZoSea Media Holdings running the WSL, and while we joke about Ziff using the WSL’s poor corporate performance to offset other ZoSea Media Holdings’ tax liabilities, it’s hard to draw any other conclusion than the realization that Dirk cleverly saw an opportunity to strategically deploy what we have all been guilty of, Ultracrepidarianism. A word that comes from a story in antiquity, in which the famed Greek painter Apelles one day heard a cobbler criticizing the way he had rendered a foot in a painting. Apelles then said to the shoemaker something very cutting and witty about how he shouldn’t presume to judge beyond his station. Likely a remark like the Latin phrase ultra crepidam meaning “beyond the sole”. We can imagine that Appeles used this, or something similar, in his rebuke. Hence, an ultracrepidarian is one who, as a shoemaker might, goes “beyond the sole,” and offers advice on matters they perhaps should leave alone.
Credited solely. Beyond the sole.
Haha, ultracrepidarianism. Quite apropos.
I found this great article by Sean Doherty written exactly 10 years ago.
https://www.surfer.com/feat…
why I liken to Dane…
But the buzz in the room is all around the future of the World Tour, and
the first question is fired at the gloriously insouciant Dane Reynolds,
the World Tour’s most disinterested surfer, and as a consequence, the
surfer the world is most interested in. He’s asked whether he’s been
approached to be part of the new 2014 World Tour, now owned by ZoSea
Media Holdings, Inc. Dane edges awkwardly toward the microphone. The
pregnant silence is broken when he stammers: “Err… ZoSea? What’s that?”