“Without a functioning business model to wean itself off State Tourism bodies the WSL is locked in a prison of its own making.”
It ain’t cheap to run a CT surfing contest. For the construction, the broadcast, for Smoking Joe Turpel to mouth inanities for a week straight, it’s gonna be three mill, and then some.
The testosterone-squirting big-wave icon Ian Cairns, who bulldozed the IPS tour in 1983 to create the ASP only for it to eventually fall into reclusive billionaire Dirk Ziff’s hands in 2012, says y’definitely ain’t getting change out of three bricks and probs gonna cost even more if you want to add in the cost of the Santa Monica HQ and so on.
The publishing heir Ziff, who’s worth around six billion, threw twenty-five mill straight into the pro surfing hole and by 2016, according a 2017 lawsuit filed by a minority owner of the WSL, had spent fifty mill, although this did include Slater’s Lemoore pool, the WSL’s one glittering investment.
Rumours of the WSL being shopped around for sale with at ticket price of 150 million remain strong, however, including interest from oil-rich Arab states where the first Slater pool outside of Lemoore is being built.
Still, a smart man ain’t gonna throw good money after bad and, now, one of the most popular events on the ten-event tour schedule, the Jeffreys Bay Open, is on the cutting block according to sources who say the blue-chip contest is “financially unviable.”
Or, in shorthand, no government body in South Africa is prepared to throw millions into a two-week contest that delivers a short-lived boost to the local economy.
The dearly departed Longtom often wrote of the WSL’s reliance on government largesse
“Without a functioning business model to wean itself off State Tourism bodies the WSL is locked in a prison of its own making.”
What’ll happen if the Western Australian and Victorian state govs pull their cash (Margaret River and Bells), El Salvador decides it doesn’t need no sportswashing of its various atrocities and Corona pivots away from surf?
Do we still have a tour?
A change is needed – naked wsl comps!
Cold water venues are to be included via transparent wetsuits.
Or not- pools can be heated, tropical locations preferred to freezing grim grey places.
Viewership guaranteed to grow.
Time for the whole shit show to crumble , a pathetic world chump x2 that can’t sack up to negotiate a ledge ,non stop seppo hype speak on broadcast, let’s make an Aussie tour and invite a smattering of other nations, lionheart the brave( Toledo obviously) and Bozo the clown ( italo ) ,Ibeli (hair-Burger) will not get invited
Nobody is interested. We’ll just all stick to the tour built by Americans, because We educate the World on EVERYTHING! (pat-pat on ya little heads!)
Pro surfing is no longer core its for kooks and so called pro surfers are the king kooks.
Equal pay does not mean equal revenue streams. Let the women’s tour survive on its own… the men’s tour attract the 👀 and sponsorship money….also…it will be much quicker to run the events. 🤓🙃🧘🏼
I’ve just spent 2 weeks surfing fiji and not once did I here anyone mention anything about pro surfing, the tour, the format, the surfers etc.
Us people here on BG must be the only people that care about the tour. And proof that people that the only people that care about surfing are old salty couch potatoes that would rather talk shit in the carpark than actually go surfing.
car parks spuds are the worst – hands on hips “ohh yeahhhh ….” hahaha
can she send her old roxy clothes to me?
and Gerry overslept…
Whittle the ct down to maybe 12 surfers. Somehow figure a way to have the crew on hold to go to a particular break/region for a flexible 4 to 7 day stretch when the surf is pumping.
Bottom line…when the swell is pumping pro surfing is as good as sport gets
Profitable professional surfing is like a land war in Afghanistan, unwinnable.
Recon I could squirt out a comparable surf contest with just my morning coffee. I’ll take the $3M though.
Yeah, all you need is a card table, tent, photocopied scoring sheets & an aerosol hooter!
Im sure it loses money every year. Now that they went woke probably losing more than ever. Its a billionaires tax shelter at best or failed attempt at money laundering at worst. With some bragging rights when he’s sitting around smoking cigars with his buddies. “I own the wsl”… probably even tells himself that when he’s jacking off!
WTF!
Completely off topic, but just witnessed two 60 year old American dudes, one with Reef sandals, which were used to open a cheap bottle of beer. I though this was a unicorn, bit it exists. I’m chocked
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Florida?
Lisbon, Portugal
There’s a far better standard of dogshit in Portugal. Much tastier with the local beer.
Have to agree on the Portuguese dogshit, but it was cheap beer.
sounds like a merge brewing. ISA (formerly WSL)
Big Brother or the Weakest Link set on Tavarua.
Sweaty ripped bodies in the tropics always make for great TV. Well we’d have to do something about Tyler because she won’t be taking midnight dips in the pool with Gabby (or would she?)
Send them out one wave at a time.
At the end of the day’s surfing, hand out the scores for the waves and the guy and girl who come last get their boards burned and sent home on the boat.
Repeat until you get a world champ.
That’s the way to make it work.
If they could get the wave to be 2 or even 3x bigger, that would be a contest model that could work. It might get just as boring as the current comp though.
It’s this a Zoolander reference? I’ve been eavesdropping on this forum for a while now. The quality comments are hilarious. It does really feel like I’ve stumbled on some private club.
As for the WSL, I’ve surfed for over 20 years in Hawaii and have no idea or fucks given about it. The only time I’ve seen contests was when i was locked up in OCCC and they were boring as hell.
This place is the best; the other sites take themselves way too seriously or are just massive brown noses to the WSL.
Just bear in mind that theres one or two guys here who completely lose it if trump or covid are mentioned. If you have to engage, dont give them both barrels, they are impervious (and may well be bots). Best to just give them some good natured shit in return.
Also, derek and chas have to write obligatory articles about celebrities and shark attacks for the clickbait, so just scroll to the comments 🙂
When it started, pro surfing was just a plaything of the big three so they could watch their surfers beat the others. Occasionally mainstream brands would dip their toe in the water for a bit of publicity but remember even if you take out inflation, the prizemoney was piss poor.
But low prizemoney was just the going rate. I mean there might be the Kelly Slater equivalent in Archery or horseshoe tossing but who knows and who cares? Only the huge sports that can move heaps of product and get big TV ratings get the massive sponsor dollars. This is not a new concept.
Pro surfing only ever made money when the industry was booming, and those years were a long time ago.
Dream tour won’t cut it; it costs too much, you can never time it in advance when the surf will be epic and even if it is, there’s too much dead time in a heat when nothing happens.
If pro surfing wants to stay alive until the next boom they will have to go back to the old model of questionable city beachbreaks and bikini contests. And shit prizemoney.
They need to give up on the “lame tennis world tour” and get back to young guys being punks and just doing the tour to get laid. At risk of turning this into the surfing equivalent of Beavis and Butthead, that’s what kids want to watch.
Did anyone ever do an exposé on why the big wave world tour was shuttered?
What about why rabbit didn’t let coke buy the tour about 20 years ago.
Or why rabbit “quit” being head of the asp?
Poor jounalism. Learn to explain acronyms like ASP and WSL . Do this at the beginning of the article. Note everyone is familiar with the terms.
Are you having a stroke?
Hello Maxine, looks like you are new here. Welcome! Just to let you know there’s not much journalism here, in fact most of us don’t even read the articles; we just go to the comments.
Also, most of us lock our accounts so that people can’t see our previous comments.
Mrs. Cox stick around love to hear your take on the sport most of us love! This place is quite like the National Enquirer or The Star. Most of us can’t make it out of the check out line waiting to read the next shark story or unconfirmed rumor that Derrick (Dez) and Chaz Smith vomit to even go surfing.
Please feel free to share favorite cookie recipe, romance fantasy with a surfer character, or motherly advice for sharing waves. I bet Dez would publish! Welcome to Beach Grit (BG)!
I think there’s a site called The Inertia that will explain all that for you .
You ever heard of google?
don’t let the mean comments scare you off Maxine … you have basically stumbled upon a secret society hiding in plain sight. But everyone here is pretty harmless, most of them can’t even get off the couch due to hip surgeries, bunion management, surfers’ arthritis, etc. Just a bunch of old bitter surfers, many of whom reside down under, and you can tell bc they’re the really angry ones. Also, as others have mentioned, no one is here to win any pulitzers, least of all the authors on this site, just to be super bitter and share inside jokes about the horrible state of the WSL (“world surf league,” the new name for the last 5-6 years of the pro surfing tour that pre-2017-ish was known as the ASP, and which purports to feature the best surfers in the world on the best waves, but in reality features some of the best surfers in the world on waves that as of late have not been anywhere near the best, ergo the angry bitter tone of the comments section). Welcome to BG!! (tee-shirts not included)
bunion management? 6.8 comment
Yeah, but where else has an author published over 5000 articles
The inconsistency of the show impacts on viewership and audience and, ultimately, the financial viability of the WSL. Pro sport has to be entertaining first. Most hockey fans don’t play hockey, and it’s the same with tennis and golf. I don’t play baseball, but I watch baseball. I don’t play basketball, but I like the NBA. How does WSL get people who don’t surf to watch surf comps? How does the WSL grow its audience beyond the parents of groms who dream of their kids making the CT? How about making it a ten-event tour dictated by wherever the best swell is, where comp breaks are determined two weeks out? In BIG waves. Three-day events with open round qualifying on Friday; three two-hour sessions of ten competitors, no priority—just like Snappers on a Sunday afternoon (surfing meets rollerball.) Penalty box of 15 minutes for first contact, 2nd contact 30 mins, three contacts, and you’re out. Top half moves on. Saturday, two 90 mins semis of seven WLS pros (plus one local wild card in each.) Sunday, the top six from Saturday go to two three-man 90-minute semis, no priority … Then a two-man, no priority 60-minute final. Throughout the event, all heats are scored for the most waves and highest score average—surfers with the most waves and highest score averages win. A million-dollar purse—100 K for the win, men and women. Something like this, at least, would make it an appealing broadcast and spectator event, pushing the limits of all the competitors, which isn’t what we often have now—two surfers sitting silently and waiting for a set wave that’ll win the heat. F1 puts on an exciting event 22 times a year in 20 different countries; the WSL could similarly do a smaller surfing version.
Man on man was a great idea 50 years ago.
They need a new format that encourages competition.
Make them paddle, no jet ski assist.
like real athletes
Just allow the cunts to drop in on each other
That might make it a bit more interesting.
Ahem, I believe you mean ‘person on person.’
Someone needs to realize it for the advertising giant. It can be just like football or any other major sport. It should be selling commercials.
And major advertising opportunities and looking for more Ways to make it more spectator friendly. Where you can sell tickets such as big t vs and so on. Which I know have been used before. Point is, they need fresh thinkers and to put their feelers out into this richest county in the richest country, Orange County. And find somebody’s big real estate guys. who’s see that’s Spending 50 ml can create billions …in income…. You gotta phone some other successful business models.
My purely subjective and uninformed view that may be completely baseless/wrong:::
I have zero hope for the tour’s survival long term in anything near its current format .. it’s just anachronistic. And it’s not surfing’s fault (by which I mean the actual act of surfing, not the yo yos running the WSL the last few years), just the nature of the beast. “Live” sporting events seem to be the coin of the broadcast/streaming realm. But if you tell anyone outside surfing that your contest may or may not run on any particular day, just depends on Mother Nature, they would think you’re crazy. Which directly impacts its attractiveness/value as a commodity in the realm where really money is made. But whatever … we’ll survive on the NF slab tour; Barley’s random OBX barrel sightings; whatever Noa Deane thinks is cool; Gravy’s ferry boat waves; JOB’s near death experiences; Caity at the box; Erin punting wherever she goes; everyone on earth’s Waco clips; etc, etc, etc.
Apart from the corporate speak mumbo jumbo, can this be related to the downfall of Jbay mythical wave status, propped up by the endless summer movie revamp?
It’s far, its cold, its expensive to get there, and surf safaris are not that fashionable anymore. Why spend thousands going if not on some sort of religious pilgrimage? Rite of passage thing? My old man made me do it?
The masses are off to the tropics now. Easy waves, easy life.