The reason for this ever-changing splatter of personalities is the current ASP event media agreement which stipulates the event licensee owns not only naming rights but also the right to deliver television broadcasts and live webcasts (and beach commentary) how they see fit.

Considering these colossal surfing festivals cost somewhere between two and three million dollars to stage, it shouldn’t be a struggle to comprehend their feelings of righteousness – their event, their marketing message, their call.

Basically the decision as to who mans the headsets at each event (at present) falls solely on the shoulders of these event licensees. They hold cart blanche over the decision of each and every appointment. Or they allocate that power to one of their trusted head commentators. There are no official ASP commentators.

Well, that’s all to be flipped on its head.

In 2014 the ASP’s new deal with ZoSea takes affect. This partnership is to take the sport (yes, it’s a sport folks), to the next level i.e. the masses. For better or worse, our baby is all grown up (nearly), and heading out into the big bad world.

Apart from bigger novelty cheques (with more zeros) this new deal will also usher in the new era of blanket coverage of all events. That means the same commentators at every event bar the odd special guests – event commentator wildcard if you like.

So, this begs the question; who should these newly employed full time commentators be?

When it comes to surfing commentary we all have our favourites and not so favourite (to put it mildly). If you’ve ever followed social media chatter on the subject you’d find some pretty passionate, and often humorous, views on the credibility of some getting air right now. As a commentator it’s impossible to please everybody.

So, who gets the gig? Who’s the lead anchor? What type of coverage do you want? Do you want beige blazers and puffy hair and stiff necks? Or half a dozen casual experts who ooze confidence and display hyperactive tendencies?

The unified ASP media coverage agreement looks set to take affect in 2014 – so the time to speak up and make some noise is now...

Who do you love?

Who do you loathe?

The list

[Leave comment and add anyone you think we’ve missed that’s worthy]

Martin Potter

Joe Turple

Brad Gerlach

Peter Mel

Ronnie Blakey

Sean Doherty

Reggae Ellis

Nathan Webster

Tom Whitaker

Jake Paterson

Barton Lynch

Luke Egan

Pancho Sullivan

Sal Masekela

Dave Stansfield

Marty Thomas

Dylan Slater

Luke Egan

Col Bernasconi

Chris Cote

Dave Mailman

Rosie Hodge

John Shimooka

Nick Carroll

Jodie Cooper

Todd Kline

Mark Occhilupo

Dino Andino

Mike Parsons

Captain Kia Linder

Wok

Beach Interview Specialists

Toby Martin

GT

Vaughn Blakey

Adam Repogle

Peter King

JJ Jenkins

Wildcards

Dave Wassell

Spencer Hardgraves

Alex Gray

Kamalei Alexander

Rob Machado

French Speaking

Franck Lacaze

Archi Lacaze