Video of the Week:
The WSL is absolutely steering itself toward the consciousness of those outside the surf world. Whether or not professional surfing ever reaches NFL levels of popularity isn’t really the point, but watching them try is a breath of fresh air. This week the final of the Billabong Pro Tahiti was broadcast live in the states, although you probably didn’t even realize it.
“Conditions are too unpredictable.”
“People won’t get surfing.”
Yada, yada. There’s a lot of challenges to making surfing a viewer friendly sport and the vast majority of surfers would hate to see the sport gain any popularity whatsoever, but do you know what everybody loves? And I mean everybody. Earth porn. That’s exactly what a contest looks like when the whole broadcast of a world class wave from a tropical island is shot from a drone. Nobody else is doing it and quite frankly surfing is one of the few sports on the planet that could thrive if broadcasts were shown with 100% drone footage. Just an idea. You’re welcome, WSL.
For The Tour:
Speaking of The Tour, how is Adriano still atop the Jeep Leaderboard? The guy finished 3rd, 2nd and 1st the first three stops of the year. And since the top 34 left Oz he’s turned in three 13’s and one 5th. And somehow, some way, nobody caught up to him at Teahupo’o. Owen Wright might be playing with the hottest hand still and even he hasn’t been able to move above 3rd on the leaderboard. My point is, this is getting boring. It just feels like nobody’s even trying to win a title. Unless this is just setting us up for a hell of a race with five guys battling for the whole thing when we get to Pipe. THAT will be fun. But at the moment, not so much.
