And your 2016 Master’s Pro Tahiti Winner is… Photo: ASP
The World Surfing League’s system of ranking its surfers and events doesn’t need to change. It works fairly well right now. But that doesn’t mean it can’t improve. And that improvement will only come about through the distribution and discussion of ideas. Some might be minor tweaks, some might be complete overhauls. With this philosophy in mind, I thought it might be worthwhile to offer an alternative structure to the current WSL system. It’s a radically different format for the pro tour.
That radically different change revolves around introducing “majors”, similar to golf’s PGA, into the highest level of competitive professional surfing. Let’s raise the stakes and profile of unique and prominent surf contests.
Here is the alternate structure:
-Four “majors” each year, each with point values that mimic the current point allocations for the QS10000 events (1st=10000, 2nd=8000, and so on)
-Different tiers of competitions below the majors, with the top tier mimicking the QS6000 point allocation
-One singular world ranking, updated monthly, based on the top 8 results of each surfer over the past 24 months and updates at the conclusion of each event.
The format for Majors:
-Month-long contest periods consisting of:
-QS6000 during the first week of the month
-Various semi-organized freesurfs and events, live broadcasts, airshows, etc.
-3-week waiting period to run the contest, which would need only about 7.5 hours of competition to complete.
-16 surfers in single-elimination tournament-style heats consisting of:
-top 10 ranked surfers in the world
-2 sponsor wildcards
-top 4 finishers from first-week QS6000
What does this accomplish?
Each major is virtually guaranteed to run in epic surf. Moreover, the event could utilize a yellow- and green-light alert system for the call, generating greater viewership because we’d knowing when a contest will run. The quality waves and higher profile of majors makes contests more meaningful. Now, winning a major event enhances a surfer’s legacy, much like when a tennis player wins a grand slam.
As for the month-long contest period, we would see opportunities to integrate with competitive surfing on a much higher level. Think about what went down at North Point during the Drug Aware Pro during the lay days and afternoons. Or what the ‘CTers did in Portugal when Supertubos wasn’t happening. Sponsor teams could make high-profile strike missions to nearby locations (imagine the Rip Curl team, for instance, hopping over to Maui for a bombing swell with too much north in it for Pipeline). When you have the world’s best surfers in one place for a month with all that sponsor/WSL money, the possibilities are endless.
And finally, it makes the sport more palatable to a non-surfing audience. A world ranking makes more sense to causal sports fans than the current complex ratings system. A top 10 is certainly easier to digest than a top 32. Standalone tournaments with standalone champions are much more easily understood by a sporting world familiar with Wimbledon and the Masters (of golf).
The Drawbacks
There’s one big one: no world champion. Having a winner at the end of each season undeniably creates a special moment and legacy. Too often, however, a world champion is crowned not in a dramatic moment, but with a R5 victory in the second-to-last event of the year—or worse, during a loss by the leaders’ closest rival. Most sports with a “season,” as the WSL currently has, are team sports where each event results in a win, loss, or tie that gets compiled into a record used to qualify for some sort of playoffs. Surfing could never work like that. Does it really make sense to have a “season?” Does it make sense to reset after the end of each year?
To that point, the drama of qualification, so thrilling during the Triple Crown in Hawaii, would be altered. Instead, qualification would be on the line during the QS competition that begins each “major.” Additionally, since the rankings would be constantly in flux, surfers ranked around 10th in the world would consistently have a lot on the line.
And finally, the creation of “majors” minimizes the urgency of other events. But that might lessen the sting we feel when we realize that the Quik Pro at Snapper was worth as many points as the Pipeline Masters will be. Also, fewer top-tier events means that the next tier would elevate in status. Considering that the best 8 results from the past 24 months are counted, even surfers among the top 10 would have to make frequent appearances in QS events to maintain their ranking. And some of the world’s best waves would be newly available to host competitions.
So where do we hold these majors events?
Obviously, this would be up for debate. It would seem wrong not to have the Pipeline Masters take up one of the spots every year. Beyond that, the majors could change locations each year, much like the British Open and the U.S. Open do in golf. For example, the Australian Easter Championship (which doesn’t exist yet) could be held at Kirra one year and the Box the year after. The Surfing Championship of the Americas (also fake) could be held at Trestles one year and in Brazil the next. And so on.
What’s the point?
It’s all just an imperfect solution to problems with the current structure we have. In fact, it’s safe to say that there is no perfect solution—to many surfers, the phrase “competitive surfing” is a paradox in itself. So why not provide an idea in a community with far more negative criticism than constructive criticism? This isn’t a letter to Kieren Perrow, Dirk Ziff, or Paul Speaker. It’s just one more idea subjected to scrutiny before the masses.
What do you think?
