Travis Rice, ready to bring his brand of gnar to the WSL. Photo: Altered
Looking to improve its Challenger and Qualifying Series selection process (and reduce the mental and physical toll of dealing with annoying surf parents), the World Surf League today announced it had hired Travis Rice to re-energize its format. The first new implementation would be a more organic “Duels” selection process, where surfers like John John Florence would meet in a “Duel” format against upstarts like Jackson Dorian at their chosen beach to see who would advance, or re-advance, to the actual 10-stop tour.
Much like the Duels format to qualify for the Natural Selection Tour, where snowboarders choose their favorite backcountry locale to meet face-to-face in a man-on-man/woman-on-woman contest, the surfers would get to pick their favorite waves to do battle on. Unfortunately, one traditional locale will be unavailable.
“We have eliminated the North Shore, because, well, that’s most every surfer’s favorite surf spot and we don’t want to overrun Kam Highway (again),” wrote the WSL in an exclusive press release to me. “This new format would also eliminate the bands of parents showing up at every possible QS event to complain about judging in waist-high, wind-whipped waves. We’ve also gotten complaints from Walmart that whatever town our tours visit, there’s a run on pop-up tents that depletes the store’s inventory for the season.”
As for Rice, sounds as though he’s excited to bring his brand of competition to the ocean. “I couldn’t be more proud, or excited, to integrate part of the Natural Selection Tour into the WSL selection process, which as of right now, I know absolutely nothing about.”
Questions linger on just how competitors will be selected to compete in the Duels to then meet up and challenge tour stalwarts, but word on the street is that it’ll come down to a points system no one quite understands, a video contest based entirely on novelty waves, or perhaps even a more pared down process: bribes.
Stay tuned, because it sounds like excitement is on the horizon. And as we know more, you’ll know more. The new partnership reportedly starts today, April 1st.
Editor’s Note: If you didn’t figure out this was satire within the first few sentences, shoot us a note and we’ll send someone to hit you over the head with a frying pan immediately.
