“The WSL has been coming to Fiji for close to 25 years and asking millions from our debt-stricken government.”
On the eve of what might turn into one of the greatest days ever in pro surfing, two Fijian-based groups, Fiji Surf Co and Bath Protector, have turned on the mighty surf contest administrator, which was once headed by Oprah Winfrey’s righthand man, labelling it “exploitative.”
The problem, in a nutshell, is that ever since the surf industry imploded and a hedge fund bought all the companies up there’s no rivalry between any of ’em and, therefore, no need to swing their dickies in the wind with big-money contests and sponsorships. And, as anyone who has ever chased a dollars knows, the most profligate spenders in the world are governments. Always a win-win. You get some publicity shots and local biz gets a temporary boost although when numbers are crunched the payback is rarely worth the investment.
Still, by that time your time in office is done and you’ve got the tanning reflector set up on the Amalfi Coast.
Now, tour operator Fiji Surf Co and Bati Protector, a sunscreen brand, have come together to protest their government giving their precious tax dollars to the billionaire-owned WSL.
Let’s read.
View this post on Instagram
FIJI’S SURF INJUSTICE “PAY TO PLAY” is real and relevant and we need to correct the wrongs and make them right.
The WSL Puppet show is back in Fiji and they are at the mercy of the ultimate Puppeteer Master aka kurukuru / cloudbreak … mother nature says waves you say go
WSL and other companies that come to Fiji need to understand that we are not like other counties- 95% of our ocean and land is owned by resource custodians who are the guardians and protectors. I speak on behalf of the voiceless resource owners because I am one … my forefathers were Bati War Chiefs – namely Ravato, that fought off invaders in this kurukuru reef area helping small villages like Nabila protect their ocean. Today we carry his legacy forward to do the same as he did for our current generations of Fijians and the generations to come. We will not bow down to outside intervention like some of our Pacifc Islands have been forced to sadly.
WSL previously ASP has been coming to Fiji for close to 25yrs asking Millions from our debt stricken Govt that is fighting many losing battles like 1 in 4 Fijians are below the poverty line … the Govt needs to put Fiji First and not your business here sorry. We give you one of the best waves on the planet thats made u look good all these years so we simply ask “Pay to Play” esp that you are making commercial gains with multi million dollar sponsors and broadcasting rights … thats being fair, direct and saying it how it is no BS.
DO WHATS RIGHT AND RESPECT OUR PEOPLE AND RESOURCES because when you are gone you can leave a trail of destruction for our people to clean up with all your false promises and exploitation. We are always here through the good and bad … u blow in and blow out like the wind.
Truth said WSL needs Fiji more than Fiji needs WSL … when Fjji is ON … the whole world comes to PLAY and PAY at their own expense with free marketing for Fjji … we dont need to give you Millions of our poor hard working tax payers money to market your own event so you can get rich off Fiji while the resource owners don’t get any money!
To all the wannabe locals, blow ins and ego tripping surfers … know your place
Comments are generally positive as you’d imagine with only a light pushback.
Do you think good thing, governments sponsoring surf contests or one of the more preposterous things you could ever imagine although not quite as left-field as the US gov spending twenty mill to create a version of Sesame Street for Iraqis?
Understanding the Role of WSL in Fiji’s Surfing Industry
Table of Contents
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
TRUTH
Racist white is right types……
What a load of ratbags.
Brazil won 4/5 of the men’s world titles during the final five format.
Who would have predicted that surfing would literally become the domain of swillnuts. Literally Donald Trump does surfing.
Orange turd polishing. The infamous swillnut red mist fart evolves to orange level. The rise of the orange power rangers. From the moment a couple of hardcore trump card geeks, thermsy and nuttle, saw their chance to stick cameras everywhere and voice up and direct and ravage the endless market of world wide geeks, for a fast buck, surfing was doomed.
And now, in yet another glorious swillnut chronicle moment, as the onshores billow, and the slop slops, the blakeys screech about and hurl to the geek market one of the most exciting spectacles the world has ever seen. No, not another swillnut club, chronicled cripple creek, smashed crab yogi injury fest. Welcome to the ‘athletes’ zone. A person is being paid to simply lay there.
And even God is thrown into the swillnut club clubhouse, shrieking, screaming, screeching, frothing, babbling, slathering, jabbering, jibbering, protesting, as even God is hell bent on polishing the orange turd. On swillnuttling for a fast buck.
Although thank God that it’s virtually impossible to break the simple word ‘Cloudbreak’, down into a pronounced, slathering, jibbering, blathering syllable fest of Kipe’s educashinin swillnuttery cultural leanings.
And as surfers wonder where to escape to, the swillnut club’s basic iron butterfly willed, portly, chubby, cripple creek, dung beetle mantra endlessly throbs away. Basically screeching, slathering, babbling, jibbering, jabbering and shrieking, clammering to highlight and direct hordes of swillnuts to any piece of real estate they can get their mitts on! (NB lousy stinkin’ immigrants and FNP not included or welcome).
Swillnut trump cards, the orange mist, the orange floater, the orange fart.
Swillnuts, ya gotta love em! The alternative is endless restraining orders. Or 25 to life, solitary confinement.
Anyone that’s familiar with the owner of FSC, knows what he’s like. He runs a fleet of boats and charges extortion prices. He’s probably just pissed that he didn’t get a slice of the pie.
Is he the cousin of FCS?
Sesame Street is worth the $20m. That shit is informative.
I’ve never littered and I’ve always had a soft spot for “cooperation”, both likely down to many years watching S.S.
How bout Fiji saying NO?
It’s quite amazing when we talk about any indigenous issues……and how certain sections of white society love profiting and /or making violent gestures towards indigenous people.
Just watched in Melbourne , an anti-immigration protest where 15 000 people turned up then the more radicals went and bashed/kicked etc Indigenous women who were peacefully on a hill and were targeted by factions of the anti-immigration march……so when you see it from an indigenous view…….anti-immigration from newly arrived immigrants……bit like DT coming from germany, and melania from Yugoslavia……at least that great american epstein introduced them…..but now stopping immigrants…..what’s next????
Selected kinds of WIPEEPO are never ‘immigrants’ anywhere. They are always in the right place, and own everything.
ha,” never immigrants”…..there’s a thought……I think they are called indigenous……I actually saw that neo-nazi leader Thomas Sewell try to punch and kick people including the Koori girls…..now I see everywhere in the media over here how Australia let 150K neo-nazis protest in Sydney and Melbourne..ouch!
Dam you’d think the wsl would have to pay the government to invade their land/waves…not the other way ’round.
I advocate a slimmed down pro tour. Just like it used to be.
We don’t need a two tier system and we don’t need the prize money. In fact it might make surfing interesting again.
I don’t give a shit about this cockhead crying about the Fijian government paying to host it. It’s called a marketing budget, and it’s used to promote that industry called tourism. What a fucking gimp
yes but how does everyone get paid…..??
At the moment without Governments marketing budgets , there would be no tour and little sponsorship….it’s where we are heading so lets be thankful and show gratitude as we watch potenially the end of the surfing tour???
Brutus, why not refute his first sentence?
The tour used to have 32 events, 3 on the US East Coast including a pool in Pennsylvania
I presume a sentence as incorrect as that one doesn’t need refuting.
I like the two-tier system, with the second tier having tiers (and regions) of its own. 30-35 surfers in the top tier and 65-165 battlers trying to reach the promised land. Everybody else has to get a job or a YouTube channel (which only kids watch).
I can only assume from this point of view that you’re quite a bit younger than me. Which is fine.
The old tour was great. If anything for the fact that an unranked guy could go on a tear and win the whole thing. As happened in 1990.
There were heaps of comps, anyone could enter the trials and match it with the top guys. Yes this meant 4 man heats but so what? Lots more waves ridden and it actually made things interesting. Your local board riders up and comer could win it all like Ryan Alagich did in Sydney.
The top 16 got seeded into the top of the draw which was fair enough, and they had the option to not surf the small events if the points weren’t worth it.
In a world with limited prize money not to mention sponsorship, it made sense then and it makes sense now.
Most of the guys who make it to the CT drop right off again. It’s fairer for them to keep battling away against the best and maybe claim some scalps than having to waste yet another year on the QS.
I actually agree with both of you. But not sure how.
Ok yes in the 80/90/s……there was a top 48 and the trialists made up another 100 or so competitors…so the tour was huge….
I’m thankful. I support Vic government throwing money at surfing and the tennis and maybe even F1.
No one made any money in the 70s & 80s yet still crowned a legitimate world champ. No one’s forcing them to be a pro surfer for the money.
They’ll still get all the chicks (and drugs?) they could ever want.
I’ve lived in Melbourne and now Auckland and I work in Tourism. There is good reason that Melbourne has F1, tennis, recent Lions rugby tour etc. They have a healthy budget for events and there is a year round calendar of arts, cultural and sporting events bringing people to the city.
Auckland mayor on the other hand doesn’t see the value and because of that Auckland rarely has much going on each weekend bringing people to town.
yeah Melbourne has marketed itself as the Sporting Capital of the world…..has budgets etc and does a great job…but the Vic Govt is also really deep in debt….so who knows……??
it feels like a false economy when Governments are the only ones really supporting surfing…..and in the 80’s surfers made more than now….and the Surf Co’s were more than capable of paying for surf comps without Governments……so surfing is now at the mercy of the Governments…..which is National/state politics……so lets savour the moment as …???
There we go the WSL plague explained fairly and squarely by the Fijian,s , not one single surf joint on the WSL schedule needs the government sponsored WSL advertising its all a scam and im will8ng to bet thst every location the old boardrider club members or industry hanger-ons are getting a cut in some shape or form.
So, Fijian government is paying for a surf contest on a privately owned island that charges minimum $5k per week pp. Now, imagine WSL bring it’s staff, surfers, film crew…up to 36 people and the fee charged for exclusive usage. I’m not great at maths but figure that would calculate to over $200k per week….in the pockets of the *haole private owners of Tavarua, not to mention the additional crew and staff on Namotu and at the privately owned resorts on Viti Levu.
Now, calculate how much the average Fijian benefits.
How many non-surfing travelers does the WSL broadcast and surfing event send to Fiji every year that don’t say na private Haole owned island?
*haole~foreigner
Eric Arakawa was quoted $8k for the week at Tavarua……just for a bed….
fark! EA’s way more of a legend than any of the other Andy C’s on that island.
nah he’s just an old shaper , and if you are not one of the new vanilla branded surfboards…no chance of any deal!
How many asym’s you see on tour?
none…..there is no R&D on Pro’s boards…they are all really similar…mostly Vanilla,LOL!
It’s just short of ten gees plus airfare boys
Boo fucken hoo
so as we know Governments are the only remaining entity’s that see value in Surfing Contests….the original surf Co sponsors all went broke…..so the real question is …..Are surfing contests viable financially and one would have to say no.
So if our current Surfing contests are not viable…can the current industry support sponsorship of surfers ….which surfer actually sells product in the Global market?
here in France , Rip Curl see no value in Gabby as he doesn’t translate into the USA/European market…so his value??
All CT events need government assistance….or no comps at all….Bells is a classic , all State Govt $’s and they give the admission/gate entry fees of a couple 100K to the WSL…so I feel for Fiji/El Salvador/Brazil/Potugal…..who’s respective Governments support surf comps at the expense of their not so well off people…
So perhaps our current CT/WSL is not sustainable as are CT comps!
Correct
Finals Day? Didn’t that get Elo’d?
They’ve got a point – WSL with billionaire owner & wife! taking millions from a developing country is harsh. Abu Dhabi is fine for that, Fiji does leave a sour taste when it comes to private / public deals like this.
Massive rant from one bitter Melanesian fellow –
The Fiji government offered to pay the WSL to hold The Finals in Fiji, for the worldwide favourable publicity, same formula as Western Australia and El Salvador pay the WSL for events to be staged in their neck of the woods.
Visiting surfers bring in millions in revenue to Fiji every year – accommodations, boats, food and beverages, transportation, ect. Certainly to the Fiji Surf Company!
No doubt this fellow or many of his relatives and friends directly or indirectly make a living off this influx of visiting surfers.
Look at nearby Nouvelle Calédonie, with waves every bit as good as Fiji, the same SW swell the same SE wind, and they receive just a tiny fraction of the visiting surfers that travel to Fiji and spend their money there – why?
Because the Fiji government PROMOTES surfing in Fiji and the French government does not promote surfing in Nouvelle Calédonie.
Typical myopic islander, the only things that matter are the things that affect my little portion of my little island – a “frog in the well” perspective.
Can you please share travel Deets and photos of Nouvelle Caledonie? Thanks JSC, maybe some GPS cues too and where to stay in luxury?
Fiji’s largest bilateral development aid donor is the Australian Government funding and development programs.
From 2025 to 2029, Australia is increasing its development assistance to Fiji by AUD 40 million, taking the total to nearly AUD 500 million over this period.
In early 2025, Australia provided a FJD 72 million (approx. AUD 50 million) budget support grant.
Guess Robbo and Molly have paid their way…
Contest locations are always dictated by how much cash they can leech from local government first. Waves are secondary.
It’s funny when WSL release their SUPER EXCITING NEW SCHEDULES AND TOUR CHANGES and what’s actually dictated them is a bunch of anonymous, snivelling little money men (who perhaps don’t even surf) pitching local mayors to see what sticks.
In this case it is more than a bit of a sham. What do the Fijians get? More publicity for waves everyone knows are great and will be surfed to capacity by paying guests any time they’re good anyway?
Make it make sense.