Just general surfing stuff

[OddaP]

Buy it.

Looks fun.

Had a 4 or 5 really fun boards from Muzz, couple similar type of thing sans the flyers. User friendly but not dull boats. Certainly knows his way around a quad.

[Cranked]

I don't think 3.5 million can mean 3.5 million separate people. At best, it is 3.5 million unique devices.
If you check the WSL site on your phone, then pop into the site on your work computer, then later on your Ipad, you would be counted as 3 unique viewers.

To add to the multiplication, are these counts still being done by cookies because, if so, if you delete your cookies you will count as a new person the next time you go to the site.

Good points foamy. It would have been nice to know the number of signed up users, that would be a better gauge of their viewers.

Look what this would be is a bit more thoroughly examined than separate clicks, it's looking at people who consistently come back to watch CTs through a year, based on three years' data.

Interestingly it is not too far off what a sensible estimate of the world's committed surfing population would be.

I don't know that there is any means of determining unique visitors to a site with any reasonable accuracy, if the WSL has discovered it then they could make their millions just from that. Unique devices is available but this is wildly inaccurate as the guess is 2.9 devices/person on average (but god knows what usage patterns). My gut feeling is to use registered users and apply some likely multiplier.

So unless they explicitly reveal how it was calculated it remains just a vaguely meaningful marketing tool. The fact that it matches the estimated surfing population is probably not accidental.

[Beanpole]

I didn't know Ripcurl had been busted last year for sourcing ski jackets from Nth Korea.

[crabmeat thompson]

the wsl like to throw numbers against a wall and see what sticks. 3.5 million could be such a bloated estimate, that it'd be totes conceivable they don't even have 25% of that figure. they're a highly un-transparent company who don't have a great record at truth telling or data mapping.

a global sports corporation having negligible growth – when global sports have never been more popular in viewership and participation and had more money injected into them than at any point in history. yet the wsl have no headline sponsor, very few sponsors in general. Lose roughly 2 million per event ... how can anyone say they're anything in the region of successful. or experiencing growth?

lets pause and say they did have 3.5mil viewers per year ... for a global touring sport – compared to football, tennis, golf ... hell, even athletics – that is a paltry number of spectators. And how much of a percentage of them will translate into actual paying customers?

WSL have around 2.4 million followers on their social channels. while the NBA has 25 million. Neymar the football player from brazil, has 81 million.

building a database? unless you can directly monetise that database, it means little. And more digi sites and web retailers are going under due to that fact they're unable to monetise their database. so the databases and strategies around building them, are a white whale.

which gets us back quantifiable measurements, like sponsors and ad revenue. which currently are almost non-existant. if the wsl had anything close to 3.5mil annual viewers, they would have sponsors and ad revenue of some meaningful sort as opposed to almost an entire season without any.

... and they've been shopping their product like madmen in that time. and still no takers. which makes their figure 3.5 million viewers fairly hard to accept. imo

[Davros]

One of the Sydney papers has the viewer breakdown of NRL each team. Compare it to the NRL broadcast rights deal.

[Beanpole]

I thought they just existed as ads for the various surf companies anyway.

[crabmeat thompson]

One of the Sydney papers has the viewer breakdown of NRL each team. Compare it to the NRL broadcast rights deal.

what's say you compare it and tell us about it.

[Davros]

I have. The broadcasters pay the NRL lots of coin for less viewers. And you'd say the stats are real.


Surfing is an unrelatable highly niche sport. An insular sport that is hierarchical in the extreme. The best you could say is that it's a fiefdom with flawed kings surrounded jesters and mindless villagers. It is destined for commercial failure. Pissing into the wind comes to mind.

[Nick Carroll]

Well in some ways I don't think any of this matters, pro surfing has been around in some form or other for quite a long time now and while perhaps one day it will go away, it probably won't be for some time, given it's being backed by almost insane wealth and with a bunch of govt tourism money in a range of nations worlwide.

The 3.5 million number I mentioned is not a public claim by the WSL, it's a figure quoted in confidence to its board and bigger partners, which means it has been through the mill and out the other side. They're not trying to convince anyone of that figure, however it is something on which their actions are partly based.

It's been really interesting actually, figuring out how to get a grasp on this very private and opaque organisation whose employees are all bound to relative silence, it takes time and waiting for opportunities. It might be a bit like being shearer on the stones on a bad week. There are signs that the opacity is kind of clearing a bit, I think the former CEO really had a lot of the staff pretty frightened of him. They really tooled that Samsung deal though, I have some juicy shit on that which I'm saving for publication elsewhere.

[Nick Carroll]

I thought they just existed as ads for the various surf companies anyway.

Well beany they did for a while, maybe 1994-2012, but that's too simplistic a take on the whole thing. Pro surfing started in the late 60s and early 70s, when pro sport generally was the big new thing in entertainment and popular culture, specially in the USA. Its first big three backers were an alcohol corporation (Heublein/Smirnoff), a tobacco company (BT in the shape of Gunston), and Coca-Cola Australasia. All three thought for various slightly different reasons that they were in on the cool new sporting thing, with an effervescent dash of youth. Coke probably did the best out of the three as far as direct results of its involvement with surfing, but all three came and went with the tide. The surf companies were probably the biggest ever beneficiaries of pro surfing, their explosive growth in the period mentioned above is sorta coincidental evidence of that, but it may be partly coincidence; the people who ran the surf corp marketing programs through the period reckon pro surfing wasn't anywhere near as responsible for their boom times as it appears, at least not in general terms. It did however provide a platform for the elevation of surf stardom, including our very own Superman athlete KS. (The development of the Superman Athlete in pro sport is a fascinating story btw, it's got a lot to do with the rise of the sports agent, things like Mark McCormack and CAA's sports dept, which in concert with US network and cable TV drove the likes of everyone from Joe Namath to Michael Jordan -- the Hero's Journey narrative etc.)

Anyway yeah thinking too much about this subject atm.

[Beanpole]

I watched The Occy Interview with Gordon Merchant. That's a really informative bit of history. The effect Occy winning in the USA had as they were breaking into the market was interesting.

[Davros]

Carroll you should write a book on this stuff. The commercial ossillcation of surfing with the personalities involved would be a good read.

[Yuke Hunt]

We need a name for this tome.

[Nick Carroll]

I'm already working on it. Team: Carroll/Doherty. It's too much for one person in a reasonable time frame and I thought it would be fun to co-write.

[steve shearer]

Saw Doherty at the Point this morning.

Fcuking hell you must be the only person in surfing who hasn't moved up here Carroll.

[crabmeat thompson]

Saw Doherty at the Point this morning.

Fcuking hell you must be the only person in surfing who hasn't moved up here Carroll.

how was the point? outta control and sweepy, or you get a few?

[Drailed]

Jesus that Doherty is a fcckn sycophant to some.

[steve shearer]

Point was fun yesterday , this morning looked sleepy and dull. I had my sons bday party so shined the early, then my brother was texting me saying it was pumping. Came back at midday and it was out of control 8-10ft.