http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/9220245/sportswomen-8211-sophie-gol...

Hmm the resume is large. Goodluck!

Resume is huge. If she can get the womens league going then she really has a blank canvas to work with. As she said the media attraction is important. But she has Slater, JJF and the others plus the women who are really surfing well. With the big wave events, you would think this would be perfect for getting media attraction. Interesting appointment, now does she know her market.

Well, tennis is well liked by the wealthy and upwardly mobile who drive Mercedes and Porches and that have disposable income. Will advertisers really want to throw their money at a bunch of surfers saving all their pennies for their next surf trip--who are living in vans--and who are working at average jobs just so they can have more time to surf? Only time will tell--but it may not be a smart business move

Please don't go into China!

F*ck I hate the word leverage...as soon as I hear the word fall from someone's mouth I hate them and never believe another word they say..

......further globalization.........oh dear

Look.......if there's one thing we all agree on it's that we need more people surfing yeah??? So Sophie, can you and the WSL please be sure to grow the FUCK out of surfing for the 'good' of the 'sport' and enrich all of our lives at the same time!

it seems Stu and blind boy have nothing negative to say about the WSL. I think maybe they have been converted to the dark side.

And while we are on the subject-- what do you think this young lady is going to be making a year? 50, 70, 100 Grand? There is no way the old ASP could have thrown around money like this. Let's just be brutally realistic--without Dirk and Natasha's millions-- the new WSL would most likely be Dead in the Water righ now.....

Terrence, thank you for the update and a more realistic figureI. I actually thought around 200 or 250 thousand might have been closer to the mark as my first guess. 350,000? very possible. Since you seem pretty good with figures, maybe you could give us an estimate of what you think the WSL is making from advertising dollars right now and how they can afford to pay this girl a salary like that?

Well, she wrote a very nice, personalised form letter to all of us 37 or so tired old warriors of the surf media, sort of a de facto apology for the long cone of silence, so that's a good start. As far as the longwinded press release goes, the key phrases are "passionate about surfing" , "revenue generation" and "groundbreaking deal". There's no evidence of the former so let's hope she's a genius at the latter. Anyway, good on the WSL for having a shot at gender equality in a pretty blokey world.

I took the most onerous phrase to be -

" She intends to advance various athlete development programs to build authentic interest in the sport."

This sounds like injecting steroids into the Astro turfing *of the sports base in China and India etc.

WSL just wants to grow the Stoke of surfing ! Stoke of surfing in this instance being a euphemism for a consumer base of course.

*Sorry about the mixed metaphor .

Or, she might do a Marissa Mayer and take an already declining business, fail to arrest that negative growth, sell off it's most valuable assets, create an almost irreparable toxic work atmosphere and leave with a massive golden parachute that would make Kelly Slater look poor.

Or, none of the above.

Goodluck to Sophie , hope she can pull WSL out of its current situation and convince every
punter within 150 k's of any coastline to try this surfing "thingy".Mabey we can waveshare!

I know I got "well positioned" in a few kegs about an hour ago.

Well--you guys have probably gleaned by now--I'm not a fan of pro surfing . The Wsl has been trying for about 3 years now to get things off the ground. If you look at the WSL website--there appears to be only one advertiser--Jeep. Samsung who 'was' the title sponsor--was reported to be paying about 3 mil a year before they bailed. Target was on board for awhile and bailed also. I'm guessing Jeep is only paying what--a mil. a year?-- for their ads (I have no idea really). I believe it takes about 30 mil a year to run the WSL (a fact I I think I got here on Swellnet. Like I said--if it wasn't for Dirk and Natasha literally throwing millions at the WSL--it would probably would have hit the reef by now...

FR, yes what you are highlighting is the reason why a new CEO is needed. Yes, there is a market - by definition. If not and she as good as her resume makes out then she should be to create 'a market'. If you look at the basic elements she has to work with - 11 times world champ, several new up and coming players to take the mantle, sport now being active in most countries with a shoreline, financial backing, many aspects of the sport - big wave surfing, aerial surfing, tube riding, better camera coverage. So really she has a blank canvas with a basic structure which seems to work.
Just hope they chose her because of her abilities and not because she is female.
Cant believe Swellnet would be isolated because of some past article by SWN - crazy.

As she alludes to, the woman's market is the big, untapped surfing market. So many more revenue avenues. Especially around the pool. Obviously she is a gun for hire. Perform. Beads of sweat. Nothing personal. Tissues.

Now that she's on board-- I'm pretty sure Dirk alteady has a few new sponsors lined up to come on board also--otherwise it might be a little embarrassing for her. It seems $peaker tried to tap into the women's market also without a lot of success. I think what it might come down to is when a lot of everyday Surfers aren't that interested in so-called pro surfing, how do you get the everyday person interested? If you need to bring in 30 mil a year just to break even-- that might be a hard wave to catch.

geezz freerider, I don't really care about the WSL that much either, but freerider for a bloke who doesn't either, you're going on a bit about it like you have some emotional involvement or some z-grade mental axe to grind. Move on...

As I said earlier, if the WSL is no longer financially viable, it will not survive. No biggie, the world will go, the sun will rise the following day, and hopefully the waves will be pumping as well.

so freerider, who'do you reckons going to get the bickies at Chopes next month...

Yeah, I am a little upset to be honest, with the WSL, Quiksilver, Rip Curl and others all trying to sell and exploit surfing to the masses resulting in more crowded line-ups--and as far as Chopes, I really couldn't care much. "The best waves ever ridden on the planet--whether it's 2 feet or twenty--will always be the waves you catch and ride yourself"......

What is the purpose of the WSL anyway?

Seems to me that what we, as surfers, want from the WSL is simply the world's best surfers on the world's best waves and a decent webcast so we can watch it. That's it. But there's no way to fund that without growing the sport, because the only ones who want to sit through half an hour of two blokes waiting for waves are surfers.

But of course, growing the sport is exactly what surfers don't want.

Like all businesses, the WSL's purpose, indeed its duty, is to generate a profit. But is there a way to do this without growing the sport and would it even occur to them to try?

The classic modern dilemma of infinite growth with limited resources seems to be playing out here. But I can't imagine the WSL ever adopting a 'sustainable' business model that aimed merely cater to the existing community.

Ok - thought experiment here. Stretch your brains. Imagine a WSL or equivalent which was a not-for-profit, which actually had a constitution structured around representing the interests of surfers and not the exploitation of the sport for money. Sure it had to be viable, but unlike almost every other sporting body on the planet, it operated out of an obligation to the integrity of the sport and its participants rather than a thirst for luchre.

I know, I know. But it's a nice thought.

is surfing even a real sport? I think most surfers, think of it more as a lifestyleway--a way to get in touch with nature, an escape, a way to get away from the man and the mainstream and the hassles of day-to-day life. Now the Wsl wants to bring back winners and losers --ego trips-- money--advertising. Thanks but no thanks, I just don't think we really need all that junk..

The WSL is always destined to fail doesn't matter how they market it or who too or who the CEO is.

Even as surfers, most surfers don't bother watching and if we do we generally only watch a few heats of surfers we dig or if heats just happen to line up with our free time or our time zone.

And i know even when we are watching it many of us are only half tuned in, have it going and doing something else because it's pretty boring even as a surfer waiting for guys to catch waves, then we get a few seconds of action.

Not to mention sometimes a comp starts and then the next day its called off and no one knows when its going to run again or it starts and then the wind shifts etc even as a surfers sometimes I'm not onto it when it starts again or just over it, if the waves a crap like brazil i just don't even bother at all.

IMO there is only one way to make the WSL vaguely successful and that is to go smaller not bigger, back to basics including less price money, less comps and fark paying some CEO a few hundred a year to do something someone can do just as good for far less.

For it to be vaguely successful it needs to be marketed to surfers not every day people, and what us surfers want to see is it run in good waves like we saw at J-bay

And the irony is when its run in good waves, you are more likely to get non surfers vaguely interested.

'And the irony is when its run in good waves, you are more likely to get non surfers vaguely interested.'

Still doubt that Indo, even Uplift said it the other day he was getting a few non-surfees to watch the final of J'Bay and their attention span was about 5 mins (dunno if this is true or not but is in my experience too) and the waves were cracking.

They need to market to surfers, pure and simple- non surfers just don't get it.

Even myself, if the waves are half good here and it's firing on the webcast somewhere around the world, I'll go surfing anyday. The WSL needs to somehow condense the action for viewing if they have any hope of capturing an audience.

PS The J'Bay contest coincided with a really crap run of surf and downtime at work, that's why I watched so much of that contest. Lucked in.

What I've noticed is that yes, there was more interest from non surfers. The main news picked the highlights - tube rides, shark, size, quality. The non surfers starting to understand it. This will take time to 'educate' the public. But many similar sports have been able to, so why not WSL.

What other sports have so much downtime between action?

Golf comes to mind, but no idea how anyone can watch that.

Surfing is high repetitive. If you surf you an understand the subtleties and can appreciate a John John or a Mick Mick carve or mentally ride a perfect wave. Tennis too is highly repetitive and the same applies. But in tennis it is easier for a non tennis player to get into the drama and the scoring and competitive battle. Surfing attempts to and sometimes achieves this but the subjective scoring leaves the non surfer a bit mystified and the surfer the same at times.

It will never be mainstream unless there are wave pools everywhere and the masses can do it with a decent pleasure to pain ratio.

Surfing's growth is self limiting in the ocean by wave scarcity and crowds. Competing for waves, driving miles, getting skunked, cold, shark possibilities, heavy wipeouts, drop ins, finding great waves but getting the scraps cause of a few hotties or long boarders is all okay if plenty of good days outweigh the bad or if you have done the hard yards and know how to get good sessions in somehow. But for the average punter say starting off in Sydney or California the pain is not worth the gain very often. They dabble then quit.

So if the WSL and the industry want to create "growth" - i.e,. a goal which is ironically not shared by 98% of their audience, they will hit the ever growing barrier of psychological saturation.

So a new CEO will come and go defeated is my prediction.

Interestingly, another water sport I do could never be crowded which creates an attitude shift - you chat to others, look forward to company - almost like the old days of surfing. It is not as exciting as great surf but more fun than average surf. Importantly, when I head off for a session it is with a sense of peace - I know I can't get skunked by crowds or weather. It is a big ocean once you are no longer limited to specific little spot on a certain tide and swell.

This activity just highlights the negative drag crowds have on the whole surfing experience. We live it and accept it but it so much changes the whole flavour of surfing once you expiernce no crowds.

So "surfing industry" build pools and artificial reefs in large numbers or be doomed to stagnation. Do something for your market, don't just take and profit.