It’s the final day of 2013 Pipeline Masters and it couldn’t be more ON. The waves are pumping, the sun is shining, the crowd are arching onto their toes and spilling into the sea. Ehukai Beach Park has never held so many humans. They number in their thousands and stay glued to the impact zone where lives are being risked in detonating ten foot tubes a stone’s throw away. Mick Fanning comes from way behind – twice- to win a miraculous world title. Golden boy, John-John Florence bags the Triple Crown. King Kelly wipes them all and breaks with tradition by declaring his intentions for next season.
Contest surfing rarely gets more thrilling and it couldn’t come at a better time. ZoSea, the ASP’s new owners, are about to take over after an expectant transition year. Their task is large: rescue pro surfing from a struggling surf industry and guide it towards a mainstream future. To do this they need to attract non-endemic sponsors who emphatically believe in the sport’s allure. A nail-biting finale in dramatic surf is good mojo. The ASP begins the new year with the wind at its back. Prize money is up, the big wave boys are on board, the women’s tour is getting an over-due boost and Samsung are on board. ZoSea’s aim of growing surfing into a top tier professional sport appear on track.
Fast forward six months and that tail wind appears to have puffed out. Sponsors are missing for two men’s, two women’s and three big wave world tour events. The surf industries fortunes haven’t regained and new companies aren’t rushing in to fill the gap. The cost of running the whole show – estimated to be around 100 million a year – reportedly hinges on the generosity of US billionaire, Dirk Ziff, whose connection to surfing and ultimate motivation remains unknown.
The ocean hasn’t been cooperating either. Lacklustre conditions have plagued the first half of the contest season. Margaret River, the tour’s newest stop, failed to live up to expectation despite utilising The Box. The waiting period for the Big Wave World Tour’s southern hemisphere events is over half way gone without a wave ridden. More pressingly for ZoSea serious questions are being asked about spectator interest in the World Championship Tour.
The amount of people who watch surf contests in real time on their computers have always been difficult to access. They were speculated to be in their millions until live streaming via YouTube made them plainly accessible this year. In a detailed analysis for Swellnet Stuart Nettle revealed that global online concurrent viewership averaged around 20,000 and spiked at just 47,000 during the Australian leg of the Men’s World Tour. These are astonishingly low numbers and will make it that much more difficult for ZoSea to get fresh sponsors.
While that seems to put ZoSea and the World Tour in a precarious situation it may not be seen as a bad thing by the average surfer. One question that rarely gets asked about taking pro surfing to the masses is: why would ya? There seems to be just an assumption that bigger is better. More viewers, more prize money, more fame, more recognition – these things are great for most sports. But surfing isn’t most sports.
Most people who follow pro surfing are much more into participating than spectating. So it has to be asked: if five million people started fizzing on the World Tour would their daily surfing experience be better or worse? I would love to hear from anyone who feels it would be enhanced. Even tour surfer Kai Otton admits pro surfing in its current size has encouraged over-crowding. “If it wasn’t a professional sport, it wouldn’t be as marketed, and not as many people would do it,” he told The Australian at the start of the year.
Fear and loathing about overcrowding is one of few characteristics that most modern surfers share. A sizey chunk of surferkind are pissed at anyone they feel is profiteering from surfing at the expense of their next wave: pro surfing, the surf industry, the surf media, surf schools, surf forecasting, you name it. The online backlash against the surf industry’s growth to corporate status is not to be under-estimated. Who would want to invest in a sport whose core participants welcome you with smears and hostility?
It’s not only overcrowding that is seen as a problem. Surf culture continues to rejoice in its outsider status and counterculture heritage. It’s changed a lot but it remains unique and pretty special. Subcultures tend to lose their identity and their appeal when they are absorbed by the mainstream. No one I know wants to see surfing as just another white-bread sport like tennis or golf.
When it’s good contest surfing can be amazing. The 2013 Pipe Masters was the most thrilling sporting event I’ve been lucky enough to attend. I believe it was the perfect sized event. The crowd was huge but you could still switch vantage points every few hours. It was slick and professionally run but there were still dudes lunging enormous spliffs on the periphery. Parking was a headache but entry was free and if you stood in the right spot you could poke Kelly Slater in the ribs and ascertain that he is in fact real.
The few non-surfers I interacted with at the Pipe Masters were enjoying the scene but didn’t have much of a clue what they were looking at. I’m willing to bet exactly none of them watched Bells online this year. Adding bigger prize money, professional commentary teams, beachside stadiums and jamming it all down people’s throat via multi-tiered media platforms is unlikely to help and I feel there’s something undignified about the approach. Surf promoters have been at it for decades and it seems apparent: the mainstream aren’t into us and we’re not into them. So let’s stop hiking up our skirt and laughing at their stupid jokes. Surfing doesn’t need a massive audience to prove a thing.
