Fiji Pro Cloudbreak 2017

[foamy]

If there was an external organisation willing to pay $50 million a year for the broadcast rights, I reckon the WSL would be pretty OK with them calling it as you see it.

[Trev]

Like employees at <insert your own employer>.

as a sidenote, mostly people who whinge about their employer directly to customers will then give you poor service.

Yep.
I worked with a couple of them over the years.
Their credibility with customers doesn't last long either.

But it's a fine line to walk so that if your employer is being an arsehole, you don't get tarred with the same brush.

[steve shearer]

sigh

[Cranked]

I'm with you steve, the opinionated calling of the action is the very lifeblood of sports. How incredibly boring would it be to have every commentator mouthing platitudes about how great it was (eg cricket, soccer, rugby, league, aussie rules, tennis, etc.)

If they want to sell out then the more controversy about the sport itself they can generate the better. The media thrives on it, because the fans love it.

[foamy]

The problem with surfing is, a fair proportion of the time the frank and fearless commentary would be,
'Well, there's fcuk all happening and there's fcuk all like to happen. Wake me when it's over will you, Gigsy'

[steve shearer]

False dichotomy

[Nick Carroll]

If there was an external organisation willing to pay $50 million a year for the broadcast rights, I reckon the WSL would be pretty OK with them calling it as you see it.

If the commentators were sharp and at least one of 'em were tasked with calling it out in a tough and entertaining way, maybe the organisation would be closer to getting a $50m commercial leg up.

Pro sport's about entertainment, and there's not much more entertaining in pro sport commentary than a sharp tongue.

We're not talking about some cube monkey slagging off at his or her corporate masters here ya know.

Thing is -- that hasn't been the WSL's culture, ever. The WSL has put buttoned collared shirts on all its commentary team. It's a white bread look that directly connects with the white bread vibe of the whole Second Event.

On the ground, live, warp and woof, while they are not as out and out dangerous as they once were, these events often resemble what they've always been, WSL, ASP, IPS or whatever. Egos, footloose surfers, moments of brilliance, periods of boredom, funny conversations, nasty moments of hostility, nice moments of friendship and silliness, crazy levels of surfing expertise and skill. But that doesn't quite make it into the broadcast, along with everything else that doesn't make it. When you're baking white bread, it's mostly about what you don't put in.

[Cranked]

Obviously Nick, they need a media savvy manager, someone who knows what's what, not a corporate timeserver or even a skilled entrepreneur.

I think its time you stepped up. Its for the good of the sport, so no shirking your responsibilities.

[Cranked]

Or they could just mike in the Realsurf commentary team, that'd get them some attention, and a few lawsuits but hey, it'd be good publicity.

Loofy would be star material!

[Drailed]

I would be sacked in half an hour "next up we have julian wilson vs 11 times world champ,environmental bullshit artist and hypocrit kelly slater"

[steve shearer]

bulshiit Loof, you'd turn turtle and be the biggest suckarse of all time.
you'd be so far up Slaters arse we'd need a backhoe to get you out.

[Drailed]

bulshiit Loof, you'd turn turtle and be the biggest suckarse of all time.
you'd be so far up Slaters arse we'd need a backhoe to get you out.

Depends how much they paying I guess. I mean, earning your respect am sure be lovely but everything has its price Steve.

[foamy]

I'm not saying that the WSL doesn't need a shorter format and a livelier coverage, I'm just saying that expecting WSL full-time employees to be freely critical of WSL judges, WSL athletes and the WSL product is too much to expect. That doesn't happen anywhere, except in Pro Wrestling who do bravely embrace controversy to liven up their coverage. They do that by carefully scripting those moments.

As I've said before, given that they won't be an external org prepared to pay millions for the right to freely broadcast, I think part of the answer is to try to get more guests popping onto the commentary team during heats. Eliminated competitors, coaches, Nick Carroll, Maurice Cole, Gabby's stepdad, some funny bloke, whomever. Liven it up. Ronnie and Pottz etc can calmly express the WSL view. If the guest commentator goes a bit overboard, it's all good because they are not on the steady payroll, they don't represent the WSL, it's only half an hour, it gets people talking and you can have the town mayor kill them later.

[Nick Carroll]

Yeah maybe. The commentary gig is far harder than it seems. Very few people are any good at it on a short term one off basis. Pitching people in willy nilly, no matter their knowledge etc, would just feel confusing to the viewer.

It'd be way better if a third voice was injected into these heat calls, you'll notice how this works in other pro sport calls: a play by play, a colour person, and a cruel expert. The expert is iconoclastic and a kind of a wildcard. He/she would pick up on stuff that's evading the others, either about the individual athletes or about the situations developing around them. His/her calls would sometimes really disrupt things but often present an insight no viewer could have conjured on their own.

[alakaboo]

Get Dave Wassell back in for comic relief, Dorian for the technical insight and Blakey can do play by play.

I know they have a Portuguese feed to cover the Brazilian market, but it amazes me how many people with strong accents they use if the growth markets are supposed to be Europe and Asia. They probably can't understand a fcuking word the saffas are saying, let alone the Aussies.

[Gumby]

Off for the day again. What's the forecast looking like? Is there something reliable on the way or are they simply crossing their fingers for decent swell?

[Nick Carroll]

ah there might be a swell in the past three days of the waiting period.

forecast charts right now are fcuken way off, this year is NOT behaving appropriately at all as far as the software goes

[steve shearer]

long wave trough has strong nodes in SW Indian and New Zealand longitudes = Indo and Tahiti bombing and a bad pattern for Tasman sea swell window.
They'll get some very incon surf from long period sources right back under Oz and zonal polar fetches but I can't see a proper Cloudbreak swell happening. Luckily it's such a swell magnet.