World’s richest but most ruthless fantasy
surf league opens for 2024 WSL season
By Derek Rielly
Seven thousand American dollars and a fleet of
Panda surfboards in winner-take-all bunfight!
You all know the stories of fans winning the Surfer or
WSL fantasy surf leagues,
beating thousands of other keen surfers, and then getting
stiffed of their rightful loot.
And, so, this is why the surfer Taylor Lobdell created Surfival
League a few years back. You probs know the game by now, but, if
you don’t, it’s real easy.
Surfer Magazine robots quake in sockets as
parent company lays off entire Sports Illustrated staff
By Chas Smith
It's a full zombie apocalypse.
The year 2024 has gotten off weird, let’s be
quite frank. YouTubers calling out filmers for “blowing out spots,”
icons retiring in prime, stickers being ripped off boards hither
and yon. The World Surf League refusing to search for a new CEO
instead depending on its PR chief and legal chief in order to
govern the “global home of surfing.”
Most off, though, is the war between Surfer Magazine’s
artificially intelligent robot staff and quaking in various wall
sockets as Quiksilver, Billabong, RVCA, Roxy, DC’s owner shakes an
angry pitchfork in the air, baying for digital blood.
But here we are and it’s true.
Days ago, Authentic Brands Group, which owns 90% of the
aforementioned surf industry, told The Arena Group, which owns “the
Bible of the Sport,” that it could not longer use the name or logo
of the storied title Sports Illustrated.
You’ll certainly recall the dust up, two months back, when it
was revealed that The Arena Group had used “fake AI
writers” for Sports Illustrated pieces about
playing frisbee, or some such. Surf fans were not surprised, in the
least, as months before that, one Emily Morgan was
introduced to us. A “woman” who lived in the shadows
of Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains and “enjoyed” long walks with her
“dog.”
The revelation tanked The Arena Group’s stock and led to
the firing of its kinky
CEO, who might and should be smashing LinkedIn
messages to the World Surf League even as I type.
That was only the start of the troubles.
On Friday, every Sports Illustrated staffer was fired
after The Arena Group missed a $2.8 million payment to Authentic
Brands Group for the usage of the name Sports
Illustrated.
“As a result of this license revocation, we will be laying off
staff that work on the SI brand,” Arena Sports told the magazine’s
employees in an
email.
Surfer Magazine’s algorithm-chasing digital tools very
clearly on notice that they, too, could easily become put in the
desktop trash bin.
And isn’t it odd.
Zombie Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, DC vs. zombie
Surfer.
Would you have predicted?
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Damien Hobgood and Chas Smith talk black
death, more death and the true meaning of Christmas.
Damien Hobgood on Black Death waves and the
wipeout that nearly killed him
By Derek Rielly
"Damien Hobgood acted like an animal. It was the
most insane performance of talent and courage I’ve ever seen."
There are very few souls in the pro surfing game like
Damien Hobgood.
Almost one decade ago, while filming for Strange Rumblings, Dion
Agius and other Globe surfers including Creed McTaggart, sought out
the circles of Greenbush in Sumatra, Indonesia. Greenbush is one of
those waves where tuberiding to the death is preferable to opening
the cat-flap or proning straight.
For surfers such as Craig Anderson and, in our case, Damien
Hobgood, it is where their courage and their skills are most
visible. I’d heard about Damien Hobgood’s solo session at 12-foot
at Greenbush from Dion Agius and Creed McTaggart.
As I swooped on their drinks cabinet they mimicked what they
believed had transpired. Giant drops beyond the vertical axis!
Circles that were so big that even if a camera had been there it
wouldn’t have been able to translate its enormity to pixels.
Damien, see, was in Bali and had heard the wave was going to be
good and, short of partners, flew, drove and hopped a boat until he
was sitting in the channel of an Indonesia version of Teahupoo,
ready to surf solo. And solo he did. The following day, when the
swell had dropped but was still a respectable, even horrifying,
eight foot, Dion and Creed and the rest of the Globe gang arrived.
And Damien, hardened from the previous day, owned it.
“Damo acted like an animal out there, like a man possessed. It
was the most insane performance of talent and courage I’ve ever
seen,” said Dion Agius. “He did not give one fuck and was getting
bounced off the reef and bleeding everywhere and just kept
charging.”
In this wide-ranging interview, Damien Hobgood talks hunting
Black Death waves, the Teahupoo wave that nearly killed him and the
true meaning of Christmas.
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Stephanie Gilmore gone? Dry dem eyes.
Rumor: Surf legend Stephanie Gilmore to
follow greatest ever Carissa Moore into beautiful retirement
By Chas Smith
Alleged end of an era.
When history peers back at 2000s – 2024s will
it see 12 x 2 years of the most important, best, professional
surfing ever? Andy Irons three championships leading off. Stephanie
Gilmore adding seven more. Kelly Slater posting six of his eleven
in the aughts. Carissa Moore hoisting five though, really, six.
Legends, each and every one.
Time, as it does, marches on, though. Andy Irons’ legacy is
cemented as he left this mortal coil in 2010. Kelly Slater, his
onetime nemesis, is carrying on with pocket fake wildcards from
here to eternity. Carissa Moore, days ago, retired classier than any surfer
has, which leaves us Stephanie Gilmore.
The very classy Australian has surfed, professionally, since
receiving a Roxy Pro Gold Coast wildcard in 2005 and went on to win
and charm, win and charm, for nearly two decades.
Very fine rumor has it, though, that she, like Moore, is going
to do the right thing and hang it up within weeks, if not days.
Does this make you feel things?
It should.
Discuss.
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Lisa Andersen, dumped by Roxy. Pottz no
haps.
Women’s surf brand Roxy slammed by
reclusive world champ Martin Potter for dumping company’s north
star Lisa Andersen
By Derek Rielly
“Pro surfing is dead. So sad,” says Pottz
Two significant movements in the surf world this morn with
Lisa Andersen being exited from Roxy after thirty years and
reclusive former WSL commentator and ’89 world champ Martin Potter
breaking his five-year silence to rip into the company.
Lisa Andersen, the almost fifty-five year old who became the
face of Roxy in 1993 one year before her four-pack of world titles,
posted a video where we see her peeling a Roxy sticker off her
board. The caption reads, “All is good.”
In a long piece to camera Kelia gave hell to Roxy.
“After years of fighting for fair pay and equality there was no
was I was signing that deal, especially knowing I wasn’t the only
athlete that this was happening to. I’m not about to be
strong-armed by some corporation that knows nothing about the sport
and doesn’t give a shit about it. If you’re wondering why I’m
leaving, it’s not because I don’t love what I do… I’m leaving
because if I sign this deal I’d be setting the industry standards
for the girls who look like me and surf like me and I simply want
nothing to do with that. The surf industry has been consolidated by
two large corporations who don’t care that there has been a
dismantling of the monetary value of a whole generation and I
refuse to be part of it because it looks pretty on a
spreadsheet.”
Chas Smith subsequently said Quiksilver, Billabong, RVCA and
Hurley should be studiously avoided, if not burned to the ground,
as surfers pivot to surfer-owned brands like Florence Marine X,
TCSS etc.
And, anyone wearing Quiksilver, Billabong etc, says Chas, should
be “publicly shamed.”
Anyway, much the same sentiment from Martin Potter, the world
champ turned grouchy WSL commentator, whom you’ll recall simply
disappeared from our screens a few years ago without acknowledgment
from his masters.
Among a roll call of surfing greats on Lisa Andersen’s post,
Pottz stood out with the forthrightness that made him a beloved
member of the WSL broadcast roster.
“I saw this coming years ago, why do you think I disappeared
from something we helped build. Surfing or should I say pro surfing
is dead. So sad.”
Is the exiting of Lisa Andersen from Roxy indeed proof the surf
industry, as we all know it, is dead or a rational and logical
shift away from paying absurdist salaries to surfers?
Should Lisa, you think, and like Mark Occhilupo, been given a
lifelong stipend given it was Lisa Andersen who popularised the
Boardshorts that Roxy built its brand upon?
And, long term, with their back stories erased, will Quiksilver,
Billabong, RVCA, Hurley turn wild profits for a few years before
disappearing into the sunset like Op, Golden Breed and Hang
Ten?
