Just general surfing stuff

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Beerfan » Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:42 pm

I can't help but think of how far you could cheese up the experience. Night time surfing with holographic Pepsi ads in the background and Tay Tay film clips etc. The "dominoes pizza grand slam" etc

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Beerfan » Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:43 pm

The "Coopers pale ale cup"

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:50 pm

godsavethequeen wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 6:38 pm


I actually think that view is a bit outdated to be honest. Do you know how many people identified as a surfer in the UK last year? 1.3 million, up 300,000 in just one year, and up from 500,000 in the mid 2000s.
Mate, you know as well as I do, there is no "surfer" on the planet who slurps the old romantic kool-aid notions about surfing than the English adult learner.

I lived amongst them and observed them in their native habitat whilst in the UK. I am familiar with their thinking, with their world view and their way of being in the world.
They don't get Pro Surfing because they can draw no connection to their conception of surfing -getting out of the Cube for the weekend and enjoying this glorious adventure in (wholly tamed) nature- and what transpires in a half hour heat. They don't give a fcuk, and they will give less of a fuck if it is in a pool.

It's outdated amongst cynical "late" surfing cultures like Aus and the west coast USA...even though it thrives in all the subterranean parts of the mind that don't get expressed publicly (except on the Inertia) for fear of ridicule.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by godsavetheking » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:21 pm

steve shearer wrote:
Mate, you know as well as I do, there is no "surfer" on the planet who slurps the old romantic kool-aid notions about surfing than the English adult learner.

I lived amongst them and observed them in their native habitat whilst in the UK. I am familiar with their thinking, with their world view and their way of being in the world.
As a competent Australian, you must have walked among them like a god
steve shearer wrote:
They don't get Pro Surfing because they can draw no connection to their conception of surfing -getting out of the Cube for the weekend and enjoying this glorious adventure in (wholly tamed) nature- and what transpires in a half hour heat. They don't give a fcuk, and they will give less of a fuschia if it is in a pool.
Honestly, I think that feeling of a strong, direct connection to the contest culture probably ends with our generation. That unthinking placement of the world tour at the top of the hierarchy. Fcuk, people probably don't even have a hierarchy any more

My feeling is that the only way for it to succeed in the way they clearly want it to is to absolutely reinvent it and to sell it to an audience for whom a wave pool is freighted with no baggage. So that they can just enjoy it for what it is. Jesus, most occasional viewers wouldn't have the faculties to make qualitative judgments about waves at different spots anyway, so a modern pool wave wouldn't look like sloppy seconds to them
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:36 pm

godsavethequeen wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:21 pm

Honestly, I think that feeling of a strong, direct connection to the contest culture probably ends with our generation. That unthinking placement of the world tour at the top of the hierarchy.

I think it ended with Carrolls generation.
Far as I can tell amongst my peers, interest is lukewarm at best.

But see, that's where I reckon they have an opportunity.

Stop chasing the outside, non-surfer audience and lock in the surfers. Get the base strong and build a tour around that.

It's the only proven strategy they have.....it's worked in Australia for 20-30-40 years.
Which is why the Aussie leg is the only solid plank in the world tour and why they have just re-signed up all the existing tour stops in Aus. The franchise is solid. It works.

It's good enough to attract the attention and the patronage of Australian surfers and their friends/families....and that makes a solid business case for govt backing and private sponsorship.


The new direction of the WSL is a bob each way. They've got the Dream Tour Grand Final in the ments with the best of the best and then they've got the wavepool.
Maybe they are going to fly it up the flagpole and see who salutes.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by foamy » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:39 pm

Yeah, that will work Steve. First prize will be a $1000 and a new TV from Aldi.

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:40 pm

yes god save but WHY

sport is culture. People get behind sport because it is somehow part of their idea of the world. Whose idea of the world is represented by Kelly's wave pool? The only people interested in it are rusted on pro surfing tragics, people who have been wishing this thing on since 1972. Non surfers have a vast array of sports to follow, many of which press their cultural buttons, play to childhood allegiances, all that stuff. Accessible things. Even cycling, embarrassing as it is, connects to vastly more people than any kind of surfing.

Like I am a tragic for sure and as mentioned I do not trust my instincts on this, but people I talk with who are less attached to it have all just written this concept off.

Competitive surfing has many outlets aside from the WSL. The one thing you can't replace here is the world championship. That is a massive touchstone in surf culture.

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by godsavetheking » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:43 pm

steve shearer wrote:
Stop chasing the outside, non-surfer audience and lock in the surfers. Get the base strong and build a tour around that.
As a self-sustaining entity run by and for the benefit of surf apparel companies, I would agree 100%. For an organisation that increasingly seems to have little connection at all with surfing, less so
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To tell the truth eggs are one thing I avoid buying when I’m grocery shopping. So you may say I’m an intermittent egg buyer who usually lets someone else buy them.

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:47 pm

Nick Carroll wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:40 pm


Competitive surfing has many outlets aside from the WSL. The one thing you can't replace here is the world championship. That is a massive touchstone in surf culture.
True. That is the one golden goose they are in danger of fcuking with the new direction.

But I actually think the Ments finale will solidify the World Champion's credibility.

No one is going to win that with safety surfing.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:47 pm

Nick Carroll wrote:
Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:40 pm
Even cycling, embarrassing as it is, connects to vastly more people than any kind of surfing.
:lol:
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Lucky Al » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:49 pm

as a competent australian, how did it feel to walk among english adult learners like a god, steve?

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:51 pm

pretty fcuking good actually.

but seeing as I had an 9 month old daughter and my wife wanted to go out on the piss every night with her mates I didn't really get much out of it.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by godsavetheking » Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:53 pm

Nick Carroll wrote: yes god save but WHY

sport is culture. People get behind sport because it is somehow part of their idea of the world. Whose idea of the world is represented by Kelly's wave pool? The only people interested in it are rusted on pro surfing tragics, people who have been wishing this thing on since 1972. Non surfers have a vast array of sports to follow, many of which press their cultural buttons, play to childhood allegiances, all that stuff. Accessible things. Even cycling, embarrassing as it is, connects to vastly more people than any kind of surfing.
Really, I don't know. I don't understand the process of what makes a sport lodge in the national consciousness and stay there. Like, I'm sure it's the case in Australia as it is here, where everyone gets obsessed by curling or modern pentathlon when the Olympics are on then just drops it as soon as it finishes. But yet occasionally, something like track cycling will emerge. The most moronic and dull of sports, but now huge. Snooker. Why the hell is that still on telly? I know why it was, but not why it has persisted
Nick Carroll wrote: Like I am a tragic for sure and as mentioned I do not trust my instincts on this, but people I talk with who are less attached to it have all just written this concept off.
But are they still surfers? If so, then a wave pool means something to them, the tour means something. To a fresh audience, however, a wavepool tour will live or die purely on its entertainment value, and I can see a quickfire comp format could potentially be very entertaining
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Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:48 pm
To tell the truth eggs are one thing I avoid buying when I’m grocery shopping. So you may say I’m an intermittent egg buyer who usually lets someone else buy them.

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by steve shearer » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:02 pm

Where's the entertainment value for non-surfers though?

No understanding of surfing = incomprehensible scoring= boredom. It's gymastics in a pool minus the pre-pubescent bodies. Unless there is tits, violence, people getting booted off or ritually humiliated, right?

Track cycling and snooker haven't been on TV here for 30 years Godsave and I'm betting it's the same in the states.
Don't confuse the grimy and increasingly insular world of the UK with anything global or significant.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by godsavetheking » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:09 pm

Snooker is massive, steve. 300 million in 80 countries watched the 2015 world final, according to my brief googling. As I said before, track cycling never used to be on here. But someone clearly identified that it's a perfect telly sport which, despite its arcane rules (the kierin?, the points race?), would be embraced by many beyond its core audience
Beanpole wrote:
Mon Sep 04, 2023 10:48 pm
To tell the truth eggs are one thing I avoid buying when I’m grocery shopping. So you may say I’m an intermittent egg buyer who usually lets someone else buy them.

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Drailed » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:24 pm

Its kinda funny because a couple of younger brothers of a a mate of mine back in the UK surf and they would piss all over Steve, all over him.
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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Nick Carroll » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:26 pm

I wouldn't trust googling sport numbers. Once they'd have told you 1.6 billion people watched pro surfing.

I just don't know also, what is the point? To pay back the Ziffs? Dude, they have been taken for the most spectacular ride in surfing's long scammy history.

whatever, there is a lot of lazy money in the world, if surfers get some of it hurray!

but there is something creepy in all this and to be brutally honest I think it is the King himself, I think the whole creature is down to him, a massive acting out of all his dreams fired by the billionaire's money, with everyone on board because the King.

Kering, word has it, is looking to sell Volcom. Hurley it is said is down 18% year on year and Nike is fuming. what's real and what isn't?

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Re: Just general surfing stuff

Post by Trev » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:27 pm

Geez godsave. Tell me you don't get darts on TV too. :(
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