Please Note part of this article is directly taken from an exclusive interview from CoastalWatch.com
At the end of last year's Pipeline Master's, I safely believe, everyone wanted Italo to meet Gabriel in the finals for the World Title. It did not happen and, of course, there was other drama, too. We will talk about that another time.
This segment is dedicated to what changes the WSL looks to implement into the new WSL World tour competition. What I see is the greatest change, in many ways, to the modern system of competitive surfing.
First let's hear from Marcus Sanders as he interviews the WSl's new CEO Erik Logan:
Photo Credit: fuel tv.
MS: So…what’s happening over there now?
ELO: The first announcement is that we're going to stay on hold. No surprise. We’ll do another update on our call for the 2020 season on June 1. Our view is that we still have time to get enough events in for the 2020 season to run a tour if we can. One of the things that we haven’t been doing is cancelling events. We cancelled the Gold Coast and G-Land - but we've postponed Bells, Margaret River and Rio. What we're doing is trying to backload the rest of the year with options. We're going to try to keep optimistic and our options open.
These are my comments in brackets through out the rest of the article unless noted:
[Glad to hear they are trying not to cancel any more contests. I really enjoy watching the contests when I can. So this creates more opportunity to watch them without losing them in a shorter time. Sometimes the wait is a bit long.]
The other part of the announcement is that we’re making some structural changes to the tour. When I became CEO, one of the first things I did was grab Patchy [Pat O’Connell] and tried to figure out how to do a Surf Off. Because we were coming off that euphoric high of Gabriel and Italo’s title-deciding final at Pipe, and we don’t get that in our sport very often, we started working on it. Then COVID broke out around the world and turned everything on its head. It seemed like to me - and to all of us - that this pause that we have right now was a good opportunity to get the attention focused on really doing the right things for professional surfing.
[I can only agree with him fully]
In terms of the Surf Off, can you speak to any of the specifics now?
On the CT tour, when we get to the Surf Off, what we’ll do is we’ll have a limited number of men and women and they’ll be in a seeded bracket. That way we're ensuring that as you end the season, if you're number one, you have an advantage over somebody who would be number X. Once the seeding is determined we begin paring down the field through surf offs until you’re down to the last two. And it is a winner-take-all moment. And that’s how we're going to crown champions.
[This is the best part because surfers won't loose all the work they did all year and gives those a chance that maybe had a few bad results a real chance at the title. It will make it soo much more exciting. Every final at the end of the year at Pipe will be exciting regardless and all the top ranked surfers from the year will have a chance. You can cheer on several surfers with a chance. You might even see someone that you never tought could win the title win it that day at Pipe. Amazing!!!!!!!!.
What do you think???]
How would that look at a place like Pipeline?
Those are the details we’re getting into right now. That’s what we're working with the surfers on right now. We’re working with our partners on it. It’s going to be a really big part of the July announcement when we get there.
And you’re going to also implement some structural changes to the tour?
We want to create two distinct seasons with the Championship Tour and the Qualifying Series, specifically the Challenger Series. As you know, the Challenger Series sort of exists somewhat in the background of the CT. And what happens is that if you fall off the Championship Tour you have to spend a full year on the QS to requalify, missing a year of surfing on the CT. So, what we're working on in 2021 is to have a condensed the Challenger Series season.
The headline is that if you're a surfer and you fall off the CT, you can immediately shift focus to the Challenger Series and get back on tour the very next year. It’s a fairly significant change in terms of qualifications. That’s happening for sure in 2021.
[This is a very well thought out scenario for all pro surfers on tour. This way CT & QS surfers do not have to wait the whole year and then some to get back on. For example, say Kelly Slater drops off at the end of the CT tour in 2012, he could ultimately still get back on in 2013 by surfing the QS and re-qualify. This is how I envision it. I may be wrong & please correct me if I am.]
And….?
The last thing is, it’s a bit of wet clay, but we think it's important to sort of throw out there now, too. We’re going to get back to focusing on the regional events. One of the things that we’ve seen and heard from our partners - and also from the young surfers - is it's extraordinarily expensive and hard to get on the CT because of the logistics. They shouldn't have to go into tremendous amount of financial debt traveling around the world in order to do that.
[This is too because I know guys that could not pursue the tour because it was way too costly. Silvana Lima breeds dogs since she has no major sponsor, Alana Blanchard got dropped after getting pregnant, Kelly Slater has not had one since he left Quiksilver and I remember one surfer from Australia (his name is slipping me right now) who still did carpentry while on tour to help make ends meet. This will only help all, things are really expensive and some may drop off because of this pandemic.]
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