Disaster for Quiksilver as arch-rival Rip Curl wins sponsor rights for iconic Eddie Aikau big-wave event

Following disastrous trans pivot, Rip Curl's masterful PR campaign continues with pie in the face of old enemy Quiksilver!

It’s been a helluva ordinary six months for the once-iconic wetsuit company Rip Curl.

Its hard-core surf bona fides were rapidly whittled away following its sale to a discount camping company, the disappearing of its high profile Chief Brand and Marketing Officer and former Tracks editor Neil Ridgway and a decision to pivot to the trans and queer market backfired spectacularly.

Of course you remember when Rip Curl made a post celebrating the trans-surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson (neé Western Australian longboard champ Ryan Egan) not long after splitting with Bethany Hamilton over her anti-trans women in sports views. 

The post was subsequently deleted making enemies of both sides of the cultural divide.

Surf Equity described the “so-called” apology as “divisive, anti-trans, and discriminatory. The LGBTQIA+ community is appalled. Aligning with bigots harms your brand identity and fails to support your LGBTQIA+ employees.”

That pivot, which almost cost new Rip Curl CEO Brooke Farris her job, was soon forgotten with a series of masterful plays that quickly cemented Farris as a master of the game.

The first, getting the world’s most popular surfer, eight-time champ Stephanie Gilmore to sign for eight years at a relatively paltry, given her wild profile, three-hundred gees a year.

The second, announced today, is their headline sponsorship of The Eddie Aikau Invitational, which used to be called The Quiksilver: in memory of Eddie Aikau and which ran, sponsorless last year, as The Eddie Aikau Big-Wave Invitational.

(Last year’s event was epic, blue collar local Luke Shepardson won in twenty-five-foot surf, the North Shore came to a standstill and its live broadcast went through the roof.)

A little background on The Eddie.

The first event was held in six-to-eight-foot waves at Sunset Beach back in 1984, and only went big wave when Quiksilver execs along with Fast Eddie Rothman turned it into the speciality event we all know, love etc, at Waimea Bay. 

When the fifty-k prize money was announced, it also became the richest surf contest in the world. 

In 2016, it felt like the event couldn’t get any better when John John Florence, the just-crowned world surfing champion, cemented his claim to best in biz when he won the still-sponsored-by-Quiksilver, although barely, Eddie in wild 25-foot conditions. 

So how did such a fruitful relationship, which included the lucrative sale of Eddie Aikau-Quiksilver merchandise, wind up in the gravel?

Here’s how that went down: the previous ten-year contract was expiring in the spring of 2016 and Quiksilver and the Aikau family began negotiating a new deal. 

The Aikau family were advised that a potentially better deal might be out there if they shopped it around a little. Red Bull was in the mix, initially, but apparently, Red Bull and the WSL couldn’t couldn’t find a way to play nice so they pulled out at the last minute, leaving the Aikaus with no deal.

A source told BeachGrit multiple offers were submitted to the Aikaus by Quiksilver, all with increased revenue sharing opportunities but all were rejected. 

But here was the rub, as they say.

Quiksilver owned the permits for the 2015-16 contest and even canvassed the idea of calling it a different name to circumvent the need to involve the famous Hawaiian family. 

Quiksilver played around with The Quiksilver: In Memory of Jose Angel, The Quiksilver: In Memory of Todd Chesser, The Quiksilver: In Memory of Brock Little.

Anyway, it worked out for 2016 but was terminated shortly after.

Did Quiksilver decide that the chances of The Eddie ever being as good as 2016 were so slim any subsequent money poured into it would be wasted?

The question I asked at the time was, would you, if gifted the keys to the clothing giant that was once famously six hundred million dollars in debt, continue to run with The Eddie?

Or would you pour the surplus money into your number one team rider Matt Banting?

Quiksilver chose Banting.

Congrats Rip Curl.