Big if true.
The wildest, and most unexpected, of rumors floated across my astral plane today. So, there I was, early-ish morning, knowing that the World Surf League season kick-off, the Lexus Pipe Pro, was going to be called off because Kelly Slater told me it would but addiction gonna addict so there I was.
Watching Yeti commercials.
And that’s when it happened. My phone sparked to life with a message from an almost wholly reliable source declaring, “Heard some hints that Box to Box is back filming Make or Break but not for Apple TV.”
Wow and whoa.
But you certainly recall the behind-the-scenes streaming program, from the geniuses behind Drive to Survive, that showcased what happened when professional surfers stopped being polite and started being real. Surfing’s best, and only, historian Matt Warshaw declared it a “near-absolute triumph,” writing:
Zero chance the show will match Drive to Survive for viewer share. But with Make or Break we nonetheless have something that feels true to the sport (the tiny sliver of the sport that is competitive surfing, anyway), while also having the potential to be a modest hit in the general marketplace.
We have Tyler Wright and Gabe Medina, both of whom, to my admittedly biased eye, are more compelling personalities than any of the Drive to Survive gasoline alley hotshots.
We have women in general. Survive is a high-bred sausage party.
We have sharks, and while I appreciate the drama an apex predator brings to the table, I was both grateful and impressed that the producers chose not to overplay the shark fatality just prior to finals day at the 2020 Honolua Bay Maui Pro. The death was instead presented, correctly, as a trigger for the WSL’s quick and bold decision to move the event to Pipeline, where the women competed for the first time.
The show went dark before the Kelly Slater culling at Margaret River, but and again, rumors suggest it is back. The question is where? The World Surf League certainly has neither the money nor sense to air…
…oh, wait.
Days ago we learned that ESPN+, lovingly called “The Ocho,” was set to air a behind-the-scenes offering and might this be it?
If yes, a real fall from grace for Box to Box, which could not lose just a few short years ago, now doing something that ocho and a half people will see.
I want to direct a streaming series about that.
Erik Logan’s ghost reaching from beyond the grave and cursing with hepatitis fingers.
More as the story develops.