Bloodbath at World Surf League as surfing’s brightest creative talents shown door!

Including creative director who created iconic line, “It takes a tour to make a title!”

Five months ago, surf fans woke to the shock news the World Surf League had shuttered its famed Santa Monica headquarters and moved to a shared rental space in El Segundo alongside an animal urgent care facility and a pet cemetery. 

The old joint was originally listed for sale for $14.5 mill although that price has since been shaved by two mill. The selling realtor describes the owner as “motivated” and asks buyers to “submit all offers.” The office is also available for lease at “a special introductory rate.”

After an annus horribilis where the World Surf League mysteriously disappeared its CEO Erik Logan and a world champ was again crowned in weak two-foot waves, bad has apparently hit worse with the sacking of some of the League’s pivotal staff including the creative brain behind the iconic line,“It takes a tour to make a title.” 

(Yeah, I know, redundant after the switch to a Finals  Day. But, still…)

Twelve staffers were iced in the blood-letting, executive assistants, the aforementioned creative director and some creative team members, along with members of the ad op team, as well as the VP of Events. 

No one left empty handed, the WSL generously giving each employee two months severance pay.

Observers suggest the WSL is “likely trimming the fat, could be to make the profit and loss look a little better ahead of a potential buyer looking into the books.” 

As Chas Smith reported around the time of the World Surf League’s move to El Segundo, the likely buyer will be a Saudi awash with petro-dollars and a yearning to own the sport of kings and queens.

Rumors have been boiling for months, now, that the reclusive billionaire and owner of the World Surf League has been shopping his failed asset. Even though former CEO Erik Logan promised growth and “momentum being real” he got fired after telling a boy to “take his shirt off” and those pronouncements were flat out lies.

It is neither growing nor having momentum, exciting ladder sponsorships being the best it can do, and you must imagine that Ziff is chartering the family jet and punching in coordinates as “middle” and “east.”

Wave tanks in Jeddah.

Final’s Day in Haql.

I’ll put all my agurot that Ziff will, anyhow, sell to, if not Saudi then Bahrain sometime next year, using the Olympics as leverage.