The hiring of UFC exec Joe Carr has made it clear Dirk Ziff has a WSL exit strategy

The WSL’s happy talk about wave pools, ever expanding audience, and Olympics are curated to create the illusion of success in order to dump the league at a much higher price than it is worth.

Irrespective of WSL owner Dirk Ziff’s “Waterman of the Year Award” when it comes to surfing, he is a complete and utter kook.

When it comes to money, however, Dirk stands on much firmer ground.

Irrespective of the WSL’s greenwashing and virtue signaling about gender, at the end of the day they are a company owned by a New York City billionaire who had no roots or relationship to surfing until he acquired it in 2015. It looks likely that Ziff is preparing to sell his failed professional surfing experiment with the same ruthlessness he fired WSL president Eric Logan.

Dirk Ziff’s decision to hire Ultimate Fight Championship executive Joe Carr is a double-down on the WSL’s failed attempt to globalize and digitize surfing.

(Update: this is a fast-moving story. Read Bombshell Twist in appointment of ex-UFC exec as CEO of World Surf League.)

This winter in Hawaii, the WSL’s credibility hit an all time low.

Not only did their (Trestles) world champ fail to take off on a wave of significance during the Pipeline contest, they refused to hold the Pipe contest because the waves were “too big” for the beach break specialists they anoint as “champions” in order to “globalize” surfing. Most telling was the WSL treatment of surfing’s true female champion, Carrissa Moore. The WSL’s actions spoke volumes about their disrespect and disinterest in professional surfing.

The appointment of Joe Carr and the WSL’s failed “globalization of surfing” strategy has made it increasingly clear that Dirk Ziff has a WSL exit strategy.

While Dirk Ziff may be a kook when it comes to surfing, he is not when it comes to money.

The WSL’s dubious happy talk about wave pools, an ever expanding audience, and Olympics are carefully curated to create the illusion of success in order to dump the league at a much higher price than it is worth.

Given the WSL’s failure to meet any of their benchmarks in terms or viewers or sponsors, who would be so stupid as to fall for this?

Was the opening of a WSL owned wave pool in Abu Dhabi, with the opening ribbon cut by Kelly Slater himself, a mere coincidence?

Is the massive $750,000,000 wave park opening in October in Saudi Arabia, the new global home of surfing?

In 2023, Reuters reported,

“Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund Splashes Cash in 2023.”

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund spent $31.5 billion in 2023 and moved aggressively into the sports of soccer and golf so why not surfing?

Although slavery was legal in Saudi Arabia until 1962 although, unofficially it still exists, and women were only allowed to drive in 2017, this will pose no ethical problems to the former member of the Weinstein Company.

This is capitalism, after all.