“Not everyone loves sports, but everyone loves a great story.” That might have been the most profound, simple insight anybody has ever given to me in relation to a career of telling stories. It came from Michael Eaves, who’s now an anchor on ESPN’s SportsCenter, who was just giving me the kind of pep talk experienced vets regularly give to young curious minds in any field. At the time I was just starting out as the host of a local sports television show. We covered a lot of football (the American kind. The kind that’s actually cool and fun) and basketball – sports that pretty much sell themselves in America. But the thought was still pretty powerful nonetheless. And it’s true. Characters, drama, struggle and plot twists are what we really crave. And the beauty of sport is that it’s completely unscripted. It should be a foolproof recipe for entertainment.
But surfing is different. It’s long been an accepted reality that professional surfing’s biggest obstacle in becoming a fan friendly sport is nature’s unpredictability. Fans of surfing sit through waiting periods, unlike any other professional sport in the world. Athletes compete in a dynamic playing field, with every venue completely different from the next one on the schedule. Anybody with two eyes can see that hoping for a chest high day at Trestles probably can’t compare to the nerves athletes fight when Teahupo’o starts firing and it’s time to throw on a jersey. So we all just shrug our shoulders and accept the fact that unless you really love surfing to begin with you’re not going to find much joy in sitting through lay days, checking swell charts, and watching man-on-man heats. But this year is playing out different, and the WSL is giving the impression they know that.
Kelly Slater is barely in the Top Ten with no chance to win a 12th World Title. John John Florence just got SURFER Poll’s top nod for the second year in a row, but injuries meant his run on the Tour haven’t matched his public approval rating in the slightest. Those are just a couple of reasons to think 2015 could have gone down as a dud, had we written this narrative back in March. But instead, the entire world saw Mick Fanning wrestle with a shark. We’ve watched the defending champ, Gabriel Medina, claw himself out of a hole so deep that for a minute we had to ask if 2014 was a fluke. We’ve seen Owen Wright rack up perfect wave after perfect wave, placing himself in the thick of a title race that now has six men with a chance to be the world’s #1. And in that mix, we’ve seen three different athletes wear the yellow jersey throughout the year. This year has actually been pretty damn exciting, and this is coming from a guy who really only considers a couple of tour stops to be must-watch TV. It’s been chaos. And that’s been a shot in the arm for the WSL.
“Instead of being our Achilles’ heel – surfing’s unscriptable nature challenges us to deliver new ways for fans and surfers to engage with the sport they love,” said Scott Hargrove, Chief Marketing Officer of the World Surf League in a press release accompanying their newest advertising campaign, Chaos Theory. The Tour has actually turned into a dramatic story in 2015. And while the days of the ASP just kind of looked at their tour as a take it or leave it product, the WSL’s rebranding is giving us reason to appreciate surfing (and competitive surfing) in a new way. Their new advertising campaign gives the impression that all the chaos has sparked a little creativity in how the WSL shares professional surfing’s story with the world. That’s a good thing. I’ve always been one of those people that checks in on a contest or two every year. I like certain guys on tour, but I don’t live and die by their heat results. Will a creative new spin/advertisement change all of that in 90 seconds? No. But am I compelled to see how the rest of this year unfolds now? Yes. Why? Because not everyone loves competitive surfing, but everyone loves a good story.
