World Surf League quietly transitions from Rip Curl to Lexus amid longboarding’s transgender furor

“It’s fantastic to see professional surfing attract strong, global brands to this amazing sport.”

Regional professional longboarding is, once again, ground zero of the culture wars though who would have seen this coming a decade, or such, ago? That cross-stepping would be so… fraught? Likely not the World Surf League. Dirk Ziff, who purchased for free all of professional surfing nine-ish years ago, including high performance shortboarding, high performance longboarding, traditional longboarding and Guinness Book of World Records big wave attempts, merely thought that he was taking hold of a nascent sport with some upside.

Little did he know.

Well, amidst the current furor, the “global home of surfing” has quietly undergone a major transition itself. Rip Curl, a surf brand that has, itself, stumbled through the minefields of identity, used to be the title sponsor for the much-ballyhooed WSL Finals Day as well as the riot-prone US Open of Surfing. Shop-Eat-Surf is reporting, “The World Surf League said this week Lexus signed on to be title sponsor of what will now be the Lexus U.S. Open of Surfing and the Lexus WSL Finals in a move that will ensure the automaker’s presence in competitive surfing into the 2025 season.”

The industry website focuses, however, not on Lexus’s bold entry into the waters but, rather, Rip Curl’s fleeing. Company CEO Brooke Farris, trying to put a nice face on it all, said “We are very proud to have partnered with the WSL on the first three years of the WSL Finals. Together, we achieved record-breaking viewership, reach, and history-making moments for our sport.” Later adding, “It’s fantastic to see professional surfing attract strong, global brands to this amazing sport.”

Hmmmmm.

I suppose the World Surf League with is “record-breaking viewership, reach and history-making” is irresistible but questions remain. Will the transition cause rage?

Well?

Will it?