After J-bay and leading up to the US Open of Surfing, the whole surfing world was just buzzing about this New World Tour aka Rebel Tour, ESPN Tour, Kelly's Tour. Many of the top surfers refused to comment on the subject. Although they kept their silence, they certainly are intrigued. From following Mick Fanning on Twitter, he read up on many articles about this new tour and solicited comments and opinions from fans and other surfers. He truly wanted to know what everyone else's opinion was.
Will this World Tour happen?? Probably not. At Rabbit Camp 2009, ASP, stakeholders, and major sponsors met in the Gold Coast this past month and details of "Landmark Improvements" to the WCT are being made public. What is the first blow?? Current event licensees have agreed to continue with their permit for another 9 years. Although there still is no $1 million first place prize, the prize purse has been increased, plus the World Title Winner gets a collective purse too.
The Rebel Tour isn't perfect, but neither is the current WCT. Many fans are angry at Kelly Slater for trying to make surfing mainstream by having surf contest be aired on ESPN. As a person with a marketing/advertising background who also loves surfing, I appreciated many of the key points of the Rebel Tour.
Sure I would of loved to see surf contests on ESPN, but is that what surfing fans out there really want?? Do we really want to wait a week after the competition ended to watch an hour footage of highlights of the contest? I rather watch the live web cast. There is no more suspense or anticipation. By the time the footage aired, we already know who won the contest. Surfing is all about living in that moment, not a week later. Now if ESPN were to broadcast live heats, I would be super stoked. Logistically and economically, that would never work unless they have an ESPN 3 channel dedicated to Surfing, Snowboarding, BMX, and skateboarding. With the way surf contest work with waiting periods and lay days, contest directors cannot guarantee ESPN days competition will run for ESPN to schedule air time and sell commercial slots.
Having ESPN on board this tour will definitely attract more sponsors and advertisers (more money $$$). More money to make surf contest better for surfers and fans. More money to better live web cast.
Quiksilver was the only major surf company to comment on the Rebel Tour, essentially backing up Kelly Slater. In one article, Quiksilver welcomed the idea of companies outside of surfing become head event sponsors and taking over for Quiksilver. Because of Quiksilver financial troubles, the company is looking for ways to minimize expenses such as sponsoring surf events. Quiksilver sponsors 2 WCT and 1 Womens WCT; each sponsorship cost Quik several million dollars. It would definitely financial help Quiksilver out to have a non-competitor company come in and sponsor the event. Unless the sponsor's business is somehow logically connected to surfing, most surfing fans will be confused on why Company X is sponsoring this event, but may not care as long as they set to see their favorite surfers compete. The major consequence of this is the feeling of wasted money by the sponsors who probably won't receive a decent roi and discourage them from renewing their sponsorship.
With 2010 just around the corner and no new updates about this tour, it doesn't look like it's happening.
No comments:
Post a Comment