Bong in big trouble

[Hollowed out]

take a walk Roy, you are so far off topic and as usual have got nothing

[daryl]

xcel, drool

gotta love Ace Buchan, sounds famili ar

[Hollowed out]

Ace has more brains than half the WCT tour combined and is the pro all others aspire to be and Bong had him from a very young age when they knew who was who but dropped him.
Why and who made the call?? Really very poor as was dropping the White Figian, yet throwing rolls at AI with all the baggage, which was patently obvious to all and sundry at the time.
Anyone got a guess as to what AI's demise has doe/cost Bong when they well knew his issues?
When Tiger went awol, the smart brands distanced themselves, and he was just rootin around, not openly doing major illegal drugs

[Roy_Stewart]

take a walk Roy, you are so far off topic and as usual have got nothing

Incorrect,.

Down with Billabong.

[moondoggie]

take a walk Roy, you are so far off topic and as usual have got nothing

Incorrect,.

Down with STRAY REWT.

All Hail King of the trolls.





MDx

[collnarra]

I wonder what surfing's demographics are? Australia, like many developed western nations, has an ageing population. In theory, the average age of surfers should also be rising (disclaimer: I am not a statistician).

If that's the case, the surf companies - which target and market youth - are going to be in trouble. Older people are less interested in "fashion" and have generally lost the need to be seen in the latest gear. (and there's also the dignity thing. Some clothes just look dumb once you've crossed the over 35ish threshold).

Surfers will always need boards, wetties, wax and leggies. But the rest of it is a tack-on.

[Nick Carroll]

^^^you're right coll. surfing's demographics, and thus trends, have always tracked in line with the general population.

This has been true throughout its modern history, ie from the late 1940s on through.

It also holds true in CA and the rest of the USA.

At the risk of boring the shit out of everyone, see below an article I wrote on the subject for Surfing magazine about two years ago:

PEAKED PERFORMANCE
We’re on the downhill run, and we don’t even know it. Why the reign of the US mainland and Australia over the surfing world is coming to an end … and why there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.


Kombi Vans are back in use these days. Call it misplaced nostalgia or whatever, but they’re back… So when one putters its way into the parking lot for a surf check, I’m not real surprised.

The bloke clambers down and I see he is tall, with graying hair, early 50s maybe but still in shape. Faded tee with retro boardmaker logo. One board in a bag on the racks, another (a fish or something?) in back.

“Not the best, hey?” he says. He’s right. It’s three feet and it doesn’t look like Pipe.

We nod and grin and stand there and watch. There’s three high school kids and three guys about the same age as the Kombi driver, on varying bits and pieces of equipment. Just another morning on just another beach in a traditional surfing heartland.

Nobody’s ripping, but still I’m a bit surprised at what happens on the next set wave. One of the high school kids takes off and does a little high line pump, and as he does, two of the veterans take off on him, one either side.

The kid, bamboozled, tries to bank away from the guy on the shoulder, but as he does, the one on his inside, not quite up and riding, clumsily swerves up and into him. And over what passes for the falls they go, while the second veteran waves his hand and trims off down the line.

I look at Kombi Guy, expecting to share a minor sneer – what an old kook! dropping in on a kid! – but that’s not what comes back. Instead, Kombi Guy winks and says: “Youth and enthusiasm! Always beaten by age and treachery.”

And as he pulls away I see, stuck in the corner of the Kombi’s rear window, in all its Rick Griffinized Murph-the-Surf-type glory, the decal: “Old Guys Rule”.

- - - - -

Many of you heroic readers will have heard of Peak Oil Theory – that at some point in the next few years, or at a point we may already have passed, the world’s ability to suck crude oil out of the ground will reach a peak and then begin to slowly drop back, as the remaining oil gets harder and harder to tap.

Lately I’ve been fascinated, not to say mildly horrified, by the very real possibility that in the big “surfing homeland” nations, the US and Australia, we’ve almost certainly reached Peak Surfing without knowing it – and that the 100-year-old surf cultures in these nations are about to begin a slow decline.

The decline will be a result of several things. Partly it’ll have to do with Surf Saturation: the fact that as many people who’re ever gonna surf in Oz and the US are already surfing, coastal population growth is slowing, and further recruitment is only ever gonna be minimal.

But mostly it’ll be a result of a steady drop in the number of kids as a percentage of populations in Western nations. This simple trend is gonna turn the surfing world upside down.

- - - - -

One of surfing’s great fantasies, one of the indulgences we’ve allowed ourselves over the years, is that we’re a tribe – a race apart, destined by our salty obsession to live somehow free of society’s ordinary constraints. You know the deal: Outlaws. Rebels. Individuals. Rule-breakers. Not to be counted on any goddam census form. Can’t be tied down. We just wanna ride, bro.

This touchingly romantic fable, however, is just that: a fable. Like everything else done by more than about five people at once, surfing marches to the drum-roll of forces greater than itself – to wit, the ebb and flow of populations. Age and youth. Lives and locations. Demographic tides and swells bigger than anything you’ll see at Mavs.

Indeed, once you shake yourself free of the Tribe Apart fantasy, surfing history in both the US and Oz can be seen quite clearly as an outcome of demographic change. For around 50 years from its introduction to both places, kept in check by two world wars and a depression, it was very much a fringe activity. But then came the post-war Baby Boom teen wave of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, and we began to swing with the weight of that deep demographic swell. Back then the teen population of both countries made up a huge proportion of the population, over 35%. And the sport exploded.

The kids of that first set wave became all the great surfers of the ‘60s and ‘70s; the second wave made up the last real surfing youth boom of the 1990s. The third wave, “Generation Y” or whatever the hell the marketeers are calling you poor bastards now, has just swung past the impact zone.

But in the next 25 years, the population mean of both the US and Australia is forecast to age dramatically. By 2035, as the demographic swell pulse that created modern surfing fizzles in the shorebreak, the same proportion of the population which once made up ‘60s Teen Heaven – a bit over 35% – will be over 60 years of age.

The flow-on effects of this on the surf cultures of both places will be colossal. You think Social Security’s got problems? Imagine a surf culture made up of Surfers Journal subscribers, times ten. Old men like my Kombi-driving buddy, dominating not just a few spots, but every single lineup, on large oversized surfboards to carry their ever so slightly weakened frames, using their rusty but still functioning skills to steal every set wave.

We’re not talking about a few interesting older surfers, with incredible stories to tell about a long gone legendary past. We’re talking mass cultural change. The influence of a relentlessly aging surf population in the US and Australia, with their predictable surfers’ wave greed, the nostalgic visions of their own youths, the vague yet palpable disgust at the young, the concerns for their health, their considerable wealth (and thus their ability to command commercial attention in the culture), will breed something that’ll leave our current minor fascination with surf history and retro surfcraft looking almost cool. Hell, in an Old Guy surfing world, the whole idea of Cool might just fade away altogether.

Which might not be a bad thing, by the way …but what will replace it? I mean who actually BELIEVES that car decal slogan! “Old Guys Rule”?? No, Old Guys don’t. Old Guys are pathetic, and secretly, they all know it. But ironically, the decal’s gonna come true.

- - - - -

Look don’t get me wrong here: this isn’t a criticism of Retro Surf Culture, as cheeseball as it may seem at times, with its wannabe alaia riders and sunset-barrel art, and SUPpers crashlanding on each other out at Pleasure Point and Cottons. And it’s not meant as a bagging-out of Legend Surf Culture, either; I bow to no surfer in my admiration and respect for the greats of years gone by.

Yet when one takes a cold-eyed look at what drives surfing FORWARD, one cannot help but reflect on the fact that when the Greats actually became Great, they were groms. Every progressive step in the modern sport, since wooden boards were flipped to plastic, has been taken by groups of kids.

It’s easy to forget, given their super crusty Valhalla Old Guy status, that when Dora and the Malibu crowd were tearing it up in the late 1950s, they were all around 20 years old; when George Greenough took his Spoon and high-aspect fin out at Lennox Head he was 23, and his buddy Nat Young kick-started the shortboard revolution by winning a world championship at the age of 19. Those much-lauded sequences of Michael Peterson at Kirra in “Morning Of The Earth” were filmed when MP was 18, around the same age and time as Gerry Lopez was figuring out Pipe. When Shaun, MR, Rabbit and company were Free Riding and Bustin’ Down The Door, they were around 20; when Bertlemann and Dane and Buttons were ruining Rice Bowls and V-Land, they were even younger; when Occ and Curren were going hammer and tongs at Bells in 1985, they were 19 and 22 years of age respectively; when Lisa Andersen ran away from home, she was 16; when Kelly and the New School were making their hit records, they were all around 20 or less.

Now, the generations are a bit more invented, ie Modern Collective – but when they were shooting their parts for that movie, as end-of-an-era as it sometimes feels, Dane and Jordy et al were all around 20. Younger.

Does this not focus the mind somewhat? In a world where the majority of surfers are between 45 and 70 years of age, the chances of surfing remaining a progressive sport – or even clinging on to a remnant of its once-wild identity – are dramatically reduced.

I think we are already seeing the fringes of this great demographic shift beginning to affect the Homeland surf culture. Tell me of one place you can think of on the US mainland which boasts an overwhelmingly youth-dominated, creative, aggressive, potentially world-beating crew of kids owning the lineup, day in, day out. It just doesn’t exist, now does it? Instead we’re shown role-models who’re all sort of arty and soft-edged, all Alex Knosty and Warren Smithy and so forth ... either that, or almost staggeringly fortunate children of the surf industry, like Kolohe Andino. They pose no threat to anyone, in the lineup or out.

And most of all, they’re sort of alone. They’re outnumbered already. They sit there in the magazine pages like some sort of endangered species on the Discovery Channel. Dane Reynolds … holy shit. He’s gotta go to other countries to find a fucken peer group.

- - - - -

Surfing NEEDS groms. But where are they gonna come from? Well, here’s a tip. The same Old Guy demography does not affect Brazil, nor does it affect any eastern Asian countries, nor does it affect India, or Africa. And while it does affect Europe, surfing hasn’t been going long enough there for many of the old guys to be any good, really.

These still-emerging surf nations have learned a lot from us through the years … and as a trip to any of their shores will immediately convince you, the main thing they’ve learned so far is that Kids are the Future. And they’re gonna be rich with kids just as the US and Australia are plunging into Gray Nomadhood.

So do you reckon they’re going to be sitting around waiting to be told what to do, the way they mostly have for the past 40 years? I strongly doubt that. They’re gonna seize the reins of progression in the sport and take it off in some directions that the Old Surfing World can’t or won’t want to follow.

Even funnier – if there is to be any kind of surprise youth wave in either the USA or Australia in coming years, it will have to come from one source only: immigration. And let’s face it, Homeland Nation surf culture is pretty goddam white bread. We HATE Brazilians, and we’ve treated the locals in places like Mexico, the South Pacific and Indonesia as little more than surf-trip servants – people to ignore, tip, or condescend to via charity donation. The unconscious arrogance of past years will make the coming ones just that little more bitter of a pill for a lot of crusty old surfers, I suspect.

None of this rules out the possibility – indeed the pretty-much-certainty – that 2035’s Old Surfing World will continue to throw up the occasional freakish talent, the kid who proves the rule by his or her exception. And I hate to say it, but I doubt the crowds are going anywhere – they may not continue to grow at the same rate as they did in the first decade of this century, but they’ll still be there. We have only surfing to blame for that. Whether you’re young, old or indifferent, surfing’s still fun as shit.

It’s just that Australia and the US will have to begin to get used to the idea that they don’t own surfing any more, that really they never did, and absolutely without question, they never will again.

- - - - -

The only anomaly in the picture is Hawaii.

Once, just the way we’ve vaguely thought we had, Hawaiians had full possession of surfing all to themselves – for hundreds and hundreds of years. The scions of Empire stripped that away along with much else about how people lived in the islands, but it took Hawaiians regaining their cultural grounds to introduce surfing to the rest of us.

Since then, the sheer weight of numbers in Australia and the US (those baby boomers!) has created boards, markets, techniques, and ideas about surfing that the Hawaiian people never could have done themselves. Yet somehow, through the past century’s twists and turns, surfing in Hawaii has risen above all that might have run it into the ground.

Surfing’s original home has managed to stay on message all the way through the changes of the past 100 years, yet it’s still the place where surfing makes more sense than anywhere else on earth, it’s a place which has been formed and re-formed through migration patterns, and it seems to come up with kids on the sharp edge out of all proportion to its actual population.

It’s absorbed countless foreign influences, yet its spirit still evades emulation by the Homeland Nations – no matter how many alaias are made in Oz or the mainland, no matter how many people take up SUPing or wear Hawaiian print shirts or drive around with “Eddie Would Go” stickers on their cars.

Maybe there’s something more we have to learn from the original surf culture – how to thrive into old age.



(sidebar)
STANDING UP TO BE COUNTED
You know how we mentioned surfing’s outlaw fantasy – how we weren’t gonna be tied down by no damn census? Well, surprise surprise, surfing now has its very own census … and its results so far show us to be right on target for a fat late middle age.

Surf-First, a national online survey of surfing populations commissioned by the Surfrider Foundation and this magazine, has returned a data set that radically undermines earlier statistical evidence that most surfers are underemployed young scumbags.

According to Surf-First, the average American surfer is 34 years of age, with a four-board quiver, a college education, and an earning capacity of $75,000, well in advance of the nation at large. This compares with a US National Recreation Survey taken in 2000, which estimated surfers’ average ages as being somewhere between 16 and 24.

This data suggests that the nation’s surf communities are right on track to emulate the projected aging of the broader population over the next 25 years (the wider US median age is 37.)

The Surf-First survey covered all the USA’s major surfing areas, including Hawaii, where it found the average surfer was slightly older, didn’t make quite as much money, but surfed most frequently. Trippily, more responses were recorded from surfers between 50 and 60 years of age than from kids between 13 and 20; however, Surf-First researchers warn that this may be thanks to the voluntary nature of the survey.

Surfrider’s interest in demographics has been triggered by one of surf environmentalism’s major modern goals: proving the economic and social worth of surfing to doubtful officialdom. Maybe that’ll be one good thing about Old Guy Surf Culture; increased political muscle should equal increased protection of our threatened coastlines.

[kreepykrawly]

Without having to read Nick Carrols 'War n Peace' novel I will sum it up for you....

The pressure and decisions that that surf companies face are gonna be economically driven not fashion driven.

[Trev]

^^
A good read Nick. And thought provoking.
As one of the older crew in the water around my local area, I do my best to promote harmony amongst the other surfers. Unfortunately not everyone is the same.
Being first in the water 3 days out of every 4 gets you noticed and, at least at my local, seems to earn you some respect. I hope I don't abuse that.
One thing I notice though is the relatively high percentage of second or even third gen surfers from the same family.
I think if anything will help to keep us prominent (if not dominant) in the world surfing scene, it's this.

[Grooter]

That was really good Nick, thanks for sharing.

I guess if anything its a motivation to stay healthy and in shape, if I'm gonna be battling hordes of old men down at my local in the year 2040 fitness and strong bones is what's going to beat these bastards as much as it is a decent sized board!

[Trev]

That was really good Nick, thanks for sharing.

I guess if anything its a motivation to stay healthy and in shape, if I'm gonna be battling hordes of old men down at my local in the year 2040 fitness and strong bones is what's going to beat these bastards as much as it is a decent sized board!

In 2040 you'll be the age I am now.
You WILL BE ONE OF THE OLD MEN.

[daryl]

supposing we're still here, kewl the snippers can't afford unless they're pro, Huie super boards instead of throwaways. Not that I don't still love 'em, especially if they're magic, it is!

[collnarra]

HO - interesting point about being able to leverage two brands off a single investment. I hadn't thought of that. Reminds me of badge-engineering in the automotive world.

This discussion reminds me of an article I read in the Oz a few weeks back by Fred Pawle. It was talking about the decline of the major surf brands, the rise of the indies, and how shops like Sugarmill in Narrabeen are doing quite well, despite (or perhaps because of) the decision to not stock the traditional big surf brands. The owner, quoted in the story, said he's regularly approached by big brand reps, however he rebuffs their advances.

Nick - that was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

JG

[Hollowed out]

Nick, yeh great read and some your take is coming to fruition.
Collnarra, the double hit from one investment was only one part, the biggest leverage Nike got from aquiring Hurley was the 'insider industry connection' that they did not previously have that could do the secret handshake and doorknock to obtain access to people and places previously only reserved for (dare i say it) 'the tribe".
No trouble for Nike now to get access to any pro or their manager to put a proposal and the ASP etc are just praying they will call, unlike 5 years or so ago when anyone even rumoured to have had a conversation with Nike would be tarred and feathered.
The big boys of business, bankers etc have learnt that just throwing money at surfing did not get far. So they got clever and leveraged their way in with all sorts of machevellian (sp?) tactics to get a foothold where they could launch their attacks from to get a slice of the insular lucrative surfing industry.
It was how Gordon lost control of Bong with powerful perpetrators (Perrin, Bankers et al) getting their paws on Rema Merchants 49% of Bong for a steal of a price ($24Mill) and then forcing Bong to go to an IPO and Mac Bank and a bunch of 'advisors' a short time later bailed out with hundreds of millions.
Surfing companies are now just targets for VC's to get a hold of them slah and burn the whole model, divide up the sub brands and sell them off and then bail out leaving an empty shell on top of a pile of dead bodies and debt.

[offshore1]

^^You ought to write a book, Hollowed out. You seem to know far more than the average punter.

[daryl]

^^You ought to write a book, Hollowed out. You seem to know far more than the average punter.

The empty shell reference tip means we may have a vixtim of the machiavellian perfidy.

I don't know what any of those abbreviations stand for, they're not what they use 'em for at the uni, like vice chancellor.

The only rich dudes at that level I've been very close to, were ruthless.
Apparently it's because it's not the money, or even the power, just a big game. could that be :?

[offshore1]

I'm tipping VC = Venture Capitalist...
not Viet Cong or vice chancellor

[alakaboo]

I just assumed that Bong was being stalked by a heap of retired army heroes.