RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Nice photo

Of course, to walk on to the very safe breakwater my daughter had to step over the chain with the do no walk on the breakwater sign, which I’m pretty sure was put up by the WSL. ha ha

I can predict 2 of the CTs. The Merewether Pro and the Dixon Park Pro. My daughter went to the the Duranbah comp. The surf was crap on that day. She was on the beach and the women competitors disappeared to the Lovers northern end. They were basically out of sight. ‘This is pretty much fcuked as ent...

Nick Carroll wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:38 pm

Lots of people will watch 'em online

And I will tune in intermittently.
Nick, what do you guesstimate is the number of people (as opposed to views) who actually regularly watch WSL heats?

People don’t tend to move to Lennox for noisy American corporate events. They do like country markets and “organic” local events. Tourists do keep things ticking along, but the place doesn’t live or die on maximising tourist numbers.

It would be great if the WSL did adopt the FIS model. In the FIS model, they only go where ski locations have applied to have a FIS event.

Yes, good line of sight is hard to get. The particular unit we had booked is not blocked by the trees or the WSL constructions

We felt we should give it another chance. We do enjoy the top heats online. Watching it from the balcony with a beer in hand, observing the whole mise en scène from a safe place, and then wandering the 80 metres to the point if there was a great heat happening seemed possibly congenial

Once at Snapper. I noted that maybe 5% were watching the surfing. It was only a heat and the tide was way out. It was a bit of a shitshow, a lot of people crowding around the beach front and looking at the various pop up shops. Quite noisy with the loudspeakers blaring. I lasted 20 minutes. My mate ...

Thud, have you attended a WSL event?

What are your thoughts re having the WSL bring a comp to your beach Lucky Al? Doesn't look much worse than Rio. It is worse than Rio. Much worse. And no one in the village has ever heard of Kelly or John John or Gabriel or anyone. No point in having a comp at our beach. That’s exactly the expansion...

channels I'm not steve on this one but if someone wanted to have a CT at a place like Lennox, a great surfing community but one with no history of admitting that level of competition in the door and indeed an explicit history of rejecting it, the way to go would be to spend years building bridges. ...

The WSL setting up shop at your beach

It’s one thing to run surf contests as a public service, but to consistently make some serious coin for the organisers and the elite competitors is a whole other conundrum

Yes, it has some merit. Though there is a huge advantage to the surfers with the larger travel budget and it also becomes a bit of a filmers comp.

Steve, you said on Swellnet “it's amazing, 30 years into the "dream Tour" 50 years plus of pro surfing and the only model they can make work is bums on seats/big top surfing. that has to be about the most monumental failure of imagination in any international sport, when you consider what pro surfin...

It would be good if the Bells comp went ahead over Easter, just without the WSL.

They will have to find the old Bells bus to act as judges tower and administration centre