[ WHERE TO FROM HERE? ]

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

As world economies splutter and gasp, as Rabbit retires, Andy and Bruce walk away and retirement looms for Kelly, what does the future hold for the ASP’s Dream Tour? Tim Baker investigates ....

Man-on-man surfing was invented by eccentric surfing genius Peter Drouyn and unveiled at the 1977 Stubbies Classic at Burleigh Heads. All the giants of the sport duked it out in perfect point surf before thousands of rapt spectators, a large proportion of them in miniscule crocheted bikinis (the spectators that is, not the Giants of the sport). The event was hailed as a breakthrough for fairer, more exciting surf contests, and is widely regarded as the birth of pro surfing as we know it.

A lot has happened in the 30-odd years since - the thruster, the internet, climate change consciousness, comb-forward hair-dos. Recessions have come and gone several times over, surfwear empires have boomed and busted, future world champions have been born and old ones have died or gone mad. Women have taken to the waves in huge numbers ... Hell, Peter Drouyn is now one of them and wants to be known as Westerly, modelling himself, er, I mean herself on Marylin Monroe, in what she says is a completely organic, spontaneous trans-gender metamorphosis. But does pro surfing need to undergo a similarly extreme make-over?

The reliable old pro surfing contest still labours away under basically the same system Drouyn created - like the internal combustion engine or foam and fibreglass surfboards, resistant to change and technological advances - as if somewhere someone wants to use up the stock of empty heat draws before we go meddling with the system too much.

Sure, we’ve tinkered rounded the edges, moved to decent waves in season, gone from best four waves to three to two, from a top 16 to a top 45. But the basic game has stayed the same - two surfers paddle out in different coloured lycra vests, get scored out of 10 for waves ridden and seek to accumulate the highest heat total to determine a winner.

At its best, pro surfing can produce moments of drama, grace, nail biting tension and soaring beauty to rival anything in professional sport. Yet even the most ardent pro surfing fan would have to admit, much of the time, during interminable waits for inconsistent sets or dire lip tapping contests between robotic journeymen in sub-standard conditions, surf contests can also be deathly dull.

In an age of media-on-demand, when the sports-viewing public of the world are bombarded with more choices than ever before - free-to-air, pay-per-view, webcasts, sports highlights on their mobile phones - can we honestly expect an audience to sit through the relentless grind of heat after heat, day after day, for three or four days to get a result?

As outgoing ASP President and ‘78 world champion Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew threw double peace signs in farewell to an adoring crowd at the ASP Banquet, having ushered in many of the major changes to the tour in the last 10 years, some may have wondered where pro surfing’s next great visionaries might come from. As Andy and Bruce Irons have walked away from a tour that has variously bored them to tears or driven them crazy, as Kelly contemplates a long-anticipated retirement, as the world’s economy teeters on the edge of a precipice, it seems an opportune time to ask some tough questions about the future of pro surfing and the ASP’s widely hailed Dream Tour. What might it look like in five or 10 years time? Will it even exist or could it fall prey to global recession and shrinking marketing budgets? What new ideas, formats, innovations and media packaging might propel it forward into a bold new era of global awareness, million dollar tournaments and universal appeal? And does it ultimately matter to the average surfer on the beach?

One man hungry for change and likely to be at the coalface of bringing it about is 2007 world champ Mick Fanning.

“I think if we keep going on the way that we’re going now it’s definitely going to get stagnant,” says Mick. “I’ll probably get sacked for this, but I think that the ASP have got to take more risks. They just get dictated to by the big three (surf companies). They’ve got to go out and try these new things ... There’s got to be new formats, new events with less people. Still keep the world tour but there should be specialty events for the top 8 or the top 16 just to create more interest ... Andrew Johns (the retired rugby league legend and keen surfer) actually said to me, imagine paying 10 grand to eight surfers and they’re on a two week waiting period and when they see a swell just send them to that spot and put it on pay per view, and sell it like that. That could be one avenue. You have a look at tennis - imagine having grand slams. Bells Beach is a grand slam, Pipeline is a grand slam. Four different waves where if you win those grand slams they’re worth extra points ... There’s just more avenues where people have got to go out and take a risk and stop getting stuck in the same old man-on-man heats that we’ve had since the Stubbies.”

While the surfers’ own union, World Professional Surfers, quietly agitates behind the scenes for a better deal for surfers, Mick reckons the WPS presents no threat to ASP. “If they look for new endeavours I’m sure the surfers would help out. It’s not like us against them, we’re happy to help. It’s our livelihood too.”

As Rabbit departs pro surfing after 36 years in the engine room, as competitor, coach and administrator, he says there are a few issues he would like to see tackled, as his “message in a bottle” to the sport.

“New players need to come in to get the prize money up to the (US) $500,000 mark, which is where I think it should be,” says Bugs. “Left to their own devices, the industry will only go up in very small increments.” Prize money had stagnated for years when Rabbit came to the helm at ASP in 1999, and used his casting vote to double prize money in one go, to US$250,000. Even though the economic climate is tough, he argues the time is nearing to up the ante again. As Mark Occhilupo pointed out recently, when he won the 1985 Beaurepaires at Cronulla, 24 years ago, “I won $30,000 plus a car. These days you still only get $30,000 and no car. $30,000 was a lot of money back then.”

“Some non-endemic sponsors coming in and making big statements with big prize money, putting chips on the table, I think that’s where it should be, that’s where we should head towards,” says Rabbit. “It’s tough times to be talking about stuff like that. Right now hanging on to what there is is the priority, but once we turn the corner we should head there, raise the bar, and let the natural competitive juices flow.”

After fighting to establish meaningful career paths for surfers, the other issue Rabbit feels strongly about is creating real careers for surfing officials, to attract and hold on to the calibre of administrators necessary to take the tour to the next level. “Pro surfing has been a patch work quilt ... It’s always been looked at as people come through the sport as adminstrators and then you go out and do what you’re really going to do (for a career). I’d like to see it as a career and that hasn’t been there. I think it needs to happen. The pro tour is in its 30s, it’s time to mature. There are incremental increases here and there for judges, but there’s nothing built into it. There’s lots built in for execs in the industry - super, bonuses, the golden handshake. For someone like Perry Hatchett (ASP head judge) it represents his career. There’s nothing built in for someone like that. The credibility of the sport is in its engine room - if you don’t have credibility and experience, mistakes get made. It’s incredibly important. That needs to be addressed. The surfers have done well, their bank accounts are looking healthy, they’ve got investments. You couldn’t help but say they’ve been successful businessmen, but how much time have they spent in the real world? I think the surfers have to have some maturity. They tear the judging panel to pieces - it’s a tough world for a judge. The surfing’s so great, there’s a lot of tight heats, and so they’re under a lot of scrutiny ... A world title is worth probably $1 million to a company. That’s the sort of pressure they’re under.”

There are some format changes afoot this year - the option of reducing events from four to three days via Kelly Slater’s overlapping heats system, and/or dispensing with the double chance of the first round three-man heats. But some would like to see faster and more radical change.

Renowned shaper Maurice Cole has long been an agent provocateur in pro surfing circles, siding with the surfers against the industry and establishment to fight for what he believes is right. Maurice now has the biggest fight of his life on his hands, since being diagnosed with cancer, but remains a passionate advocate for a more dynamic pro surfing system.

“The tour is in a lot of trouble. We’ve thrashed that formula to death, there’s nothing new. It’s all about brands, everyone has forgotten about relationships,” Maurice says. “There’s only ever changes brought about by the surfers. Hopefully the surfers will get together and come up with some creative and innovative ideas ... The companies can’t and won’t do it.”

Maurice believes surfing could emulate formula one racing, with manufacturers’ teams all working to create superior equipment, and pit crews fine tuning every aspect of a surfer’s quiver. He’d like to see more emphasis on big waves and tow surfing to win over a mainstream audience hungry for spectacle and drama. “I don’t see the tow-in thing being used very well. To me the interest is in big waves. There’s a lot more interest in that, it’s more entertaining to non-surfers.”

There’s seems to be no lack of will on the part of the surfers for change. Kelly has long toyed with alternative heat formats and run his own specialty events. Two-time world champ Stephanie Gilmore spoke passionately at the ASP Banquet about working to raise awareness and create new opportunities for women’s surfing. “I’m almost more excited about that than winning world titles,” she said.

Mick Fanning reckons the men’s pro surfers could even learn a little from the pro-activity of their surfing sisters. “I think what they’re doing now for themselves is amazing,” says Mick. “Layne‘s put on an event, Sofia’s got her event in Peru .... I think they deserve a good round of applause for that.”

For his part, Mick reckons he’d like to see surfing simply presented as entertainment, without a competitive element. “There’s places where you could go and do exhibition events,” he says. “You wouldn’t have the whole top 45, it wouldn’t have to be the top 16, it could be a couple of guys from each country, at Huntington Beach or some other really famous beach and just do an exhibition ... That’s how the Duke used to do it.”

At the other end of the scale are the inevitable, futuristic daydreams about wave pools. “If you had an event at a wave pool you could make that live to air,” Mick points out. “People just love watching surfing no matter what. My thing is, have events, have your world tour, but have other events too, to keep people interested.”

Everyone seems to agree that the current WCT schedule is a good one, visiting prime events in surf season, and that is no small accomplishmenet. And the WQS is at least heading in the right direction, with its Super 6 star events at prime locations offering extra points - 3500 for a win, which is 1000 more than you get for winning a regular six star. But what Rabbit and Mick seem to be calling for is what Bugs terms “a menu” of events. Just as cricket has its test matches, one-dayers and 20/20, pro surfing needs to cater for different fans with different tastes.

In a sense, pro surfers are gradually being allowed to follow their instincts as surfers, by going to the great waves at the right time of year, coming closer to free surfing in heats, with the two wave tally encouraging risk-taking. It’s interesting to ponder where this trend could head if allowed to run its course. Who surfs for 30 minutes at a time anyway? And who goes on a surf trip with 45 other surfers? Mick’s vision of smaller clusters of elite surfers presenting free form exhibitions, or specialist events, might be a natural path. The Billabong Challenge events of the ‘90s, eight surfers at classic waves in remote locations, shot from numerous angles by a crack film crew, might be a glimpse into the future.

Right now, the ASP claims its tours are holding up well to the economic turmoil, with plenty of demand for events and as many as 13 WCT’s in 2010. Quiksilver’s Rod Brooks loudly committed to another nine years for their Gold Coast event licence at Snapper, to allay fears of events being cut. Though as recession bites, it is likely that more events will follow the abandoned Globe Fiji Pro, the tour’s first victim of the financial meltdown. The other great challenge awaiting pro surfing is the Kelly factor. He has been the sport’s greatest drawcard and most recognizable face for almost two decades, and his eventual absence will leave a vast void. When Michael Jordan retired from the NBA, it was estimated that he generated 10 to 20% of the sports revenue, and his absence cost the NBA around $200 million in lost income the year he departed. When Tigers Woods stood down from the golf circuit through injury, revenues dropped by some 20% across the board. Anyone who has witnessed fans line the shore for a Kelly heat, and vacate the beach immediately after, will need no convincing that he leaves enormous shoes for someone to fill. “You only get a Kelly once every 100 years,” says Rabbit.

In uncertain times, when survival instincts might scream to hold the course steady and not rock the boat, pro surfing’s real challenge might be to overcome fear of change and embrace innovation.Webcasts have adapted brilliantly to the opportunities of new technology and pro surfing finally has its own TV channel (albeit web-based) and so the parameters of how surfing can present itself to the world could be blown wide open. There is no controlling media interest dictating that a pro surfing event need look a certain way to be accepted. Perhaps it’s time to let our imaginations run and see where they lead.

Me? I’d like to see an event without legropes - beach starts to see who finds their way out at a pumping point break most expertly, four or six surfers in the water at a time for an hour, with real consequences if they fall off and all the drama of bodysurfing to retrieve boards and nerves of steel required to take off behind the rock at somewhere like Snapper. Like Mick, I’d like to see surfing presented as freeform performance art, like the old expression sessions, but with live music on the beach - the surfers and musicians jamming to create a “live surf movie” experience before your eyes. Eight or 10 or more surfers in the water at a time, all riding different equipment, could literally put on a show, surfing every available wave in dramatically different fashion, like a dance troupe or band of musicians, all adding their own unique style to the mix. But I’m a hopelessly idealistic old hippy throwback who has never tried to convince a hard-nosed business executive to hand over vast sums of money to a bunch of surfers, so what do I know? Maybe, on some deep instinctual level, Westerly Windana, nee Drouyn has it right - in times of change, evolution dictates we innovate and adapt or perish.