Let's start with a question.

Should professional surfers have a moral responsibility to their fan base?

This of course is impossible to answer without getting the tin opener out and setting free those worms.

Pro's whether they like it or not, are role models. Impressionable young'uns copy their style, boards, attire and even tatoos. They follow their blogs, their websites, their tweets and even them, to competitions, demos, signings etc. So it's obvious that these pro's should take some responsibility eh?

So, how do we know that the public persona is the same away from the camera. More and more, with the explosion of social media and handheld cameras everywhere, it's getting harder to avoid the public scrutinising an individual. And anyway, why would they have a different persona for the public?

The last question intimates they already feel some responsibility, or is it their sponsor that takes care of their responsibility. Okay sponsors.. they have an economic interest in all their charges. They need them to look good. They need them to appear good. They manage them. They also pretty much bankroll the magazines and the commercial websites.

So if a pro steps out of line or behaves in direct opposition to their perceived persona do their sponsors pull them up on it? Undoubtedly. Do we hear about it? Rarely. OP ditching TC over the no logo board springs to mind but lets face it who the hell are OP? This brings us nicely back round to why we don't hear it. A surfer drops himself in it, or throws his toys out the pram and the boss quickly releases a press statement smearing and smudging and generally spinning the shit out of the truth. The magazines are obliged to print it.

It has to change. Doesn't it? Do we really want anonymous, vitriolic, internet fringe dwellers telling the customer the truth about the product? If the sport (never has a word been used so out of context so often with surfing) wants to attract more punters, appeal to the more mainstream and become legitimate, the curtain needs to come down. It's got away with running like a men's secret business club since the advent of the pro, but in today's transparent world it can't be this dinosaur anymore. 

So what to do...


By way of a caveat, try to view this as a think tank rather than a solution. Take these suggestions and better them or trash them or even tell me whats up with them but don't get angry with me please.




Stop spinning to start with. If a surfer is a dick, expose them. If they're not particularly bright or if they're miserable bastards,  if they're snaking drop in gits, racists, money grabbers, gay, bipolar, addicts, whatever let  us the punters decide whether we want to like them or not. If any of them are not happy with this then they need to reevaluate their privilege.

An alternative to the tour. I don't mean necessarily scrap the existing tour but lets not make it the be all and end all of competitive surfing. How about for instance all the big sponsors put a prize pool in a hat at the beginning of the year (the accountants will like this it'll be a set amount). Money is awarded commensurately to the surfers with the most image exposure monthly, in print, on line or any type of media. Adverts count, this is important because it means sponsors can boost their riders exposure. This has the added benefit that he mags are back in the driving seat, perhaps they could allocate just enough space to print, publish and pay themselves and let the sponsors race for the space. If a sponsor wants their surfer exposed they need to kowtow. It also means that good surfers who don't necessarily partake in competitions can gain some ground. Not sure how this would work internationally as mags tend to be necessarily jingoistic but I'm sure someone could come up with a sliding scale or algorithm to balance this out (maybe not Brodie Carr).  As I said it's just an idea. But you gotta admit something has to change.

So there it is, my first blog post. Thank you for reading it. I'm sure there will be more and hopefully not all debates like this. I'd like to tell you about my trip to Australia and some stories from along the way. I'd like to tell you about living on the Sunshine Coast and I'd like to blog about my surfing too. It's not great but it's getting better.