“Nathan Florence WAS the contest. Double duty streaming with epic commentary, and winning the event. Unbelievable.”

The slip-on shoe giant Vans’ own YouTube channel has been carpet bombed by furious surf fans after it was left to team rider Nathan Florence to rescue the Vans Pipe Masters, which wasn’t officially broadcast, with a pirate livestream.

Florence, the reigning waterman and surfer of the year who is better known for stuffing his burn-out rod into mysto cold-water waves, set up his filmer Zoard Janko inside a little tent on the beach, which also served as a commentary booth.

A cavalcade of Pipeline’s best surfers including Jamie O’Brien, Koa Rothman and Nathan’s brother, John John Florence, all took turns calling the event. Even mammy John John, Alex Florence, had a spell calling waves.

The highlight of the pirate stream was Zoard running down the beach with his laptop to film winner Nathan being carted up the beach.

Surf fans weren’t shy to let their feelings known on Vans’ YouTube channel.

A real small sample.

I hope this is the last time VANS sponsors this event. no live stream and late updates, we didn’t even know the finals was on! congrats to nathan florence for winning both in the water and online.

Double up the prizemoney for Nathan for doing the livestream. without that, the pipe masters would have not even happened for everybody who wasn‘t there!!! And honestly, this livestream was waaay better than any official livestream i‘ve ever seen. it was like listening to a 8 hour podcast while watching pipe going crazy. best guests on the stream and didn‘t feel like the guests on the official broadcasts who have to to their sponsor duties.

If not for Nate we never would have seen most of the action. Great surfer doing great things!

This was the nail in the coffin for big brand surfing.

“The greatest show on earth” and yet you had no broadcast and barely functioning live updates. Shame on you.

Talk is cheap. Their actions spoke VOLUMES!!! From trying to keep JOB out of the contest, to reducing the greatest show on earth to an 11 minute jumbled highlight reel. So much better coverage by locals that CARE!!!

Nate and the Florence family won this event. From the live stream to the surfing they absolutely killed it. Vans, not so much.

Nathan Florence WAS the contest. Double duty streaming with epic commentary, and winning the event. Unbelievable. The beach commentary was so much more engaging and entertaining than a regular WSL event. Just bros hanging out and holding back the heckles. Dead space was fine. It was just like every group of guys hanging out. And the camera angle was surprisingly perfect. WSL should take notes. Congratulations to Nathan for not only providing an all around great contest experience for us, but also a great fucking year of content. Aloha.

What kind of kooks get shown up by a vlogger when it comes to coverage? Why even own the rights if you can’t even provide coverage? I’ll take the Florence coverage honestly. It was a real peak in to the North Shore community as well as the event.

Am unsubscribing … Nathan Florence & team is the only channel worth following anymore.

Where does the below-the-line jockey stand? I was a late convert and felt Nathan and Blak Bear’s pirate streams added to the thrill of the event and were, overall, superior to the slicker offering of the WSL.

Anything that mutes Joe Turpel can’t be bad, yeah?