Surf Tour Sponsors Ask for Compromise on Dates

When pro surfers gained control of the Assn. of Surfing Professionals executive board in July and shuffled the 2001 World Championship Tour schedule, it appeared there was little hope the annual Huntington Beach contest would be held next summer.

The ASP recently sent out a “confirmed” 2001 schedule to its directors and associates that had a slot for an event at the Huntington Beach pier, but it was Sept. 18-23, which turned off sponsors who are used to huge summer-vacation crowds during the usual dates in late July and early August.

The schedule, which would give the surfers a four-month off-season and featured a season-ending event at Trestles in late September, also caused an uproar with traditionalists who felt the tour should end at Banzai Pipeline as it has for most of the last 30 years.

So a group of event sponsors--which included representatives of firms that sponsored 11 of the 13 contests on this year’s WCT schedule--met in France this month and proposed a series of compromises. Negotiations are in the infancy stages, but apparently the ASP has given in on one point and the Huntington Beach contest might be back in business in its usual time slot.

Deciding to take a united stand on a number of issues were representatives of Billabong, Quiksilver and Rip Curl, along with Bluetorch vice president of events Ian Cairns, who stages both the Huntington Beach event and a WCT stop in Tahiti for Gotcha, and Randy Rarick, director of the Vans Triple Crown that includes the Pipeline Masters.

They agreed to increase prize money from $135,000 per event this year to $250,000 in 2001 because pro surfers haven’t received a significant raise in nearly a decade. But they asked the ASP to return to the old schedule with a finale at Pipeline, drop the “standard” wave fee from the Huntington Beach event--where prize money is supposed to be $350,000--and open negotiations on Internet and television rights.

ASP CEO/president Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew reviewed the sponsors’ proposal with the surfers during the recently concluded Rio Marathon Surf International in Brazil.

While Bartholomew insists that the resolutions passed in July “cannot be changed or overruled outside this forum,” he also said that “the adjustment [in the date of the Huntington Beach event] that was agreed to in July, the shift to wave-rich September, has been rescinded.”

“I have seen world-class waves at Huntington in September,” he said, “but I am not opposed to an August date.”

This came as news, though good news, to Cairns.

“It’s the first I’ve heard of it, so it’s a little hard to comment,” he said, “but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. There are still a number of other issues to be resolved, though.”

Bartholomew took issue with the fact that many see the $100,000 fee increase for the Huntington Beach event as a bad-wave penalty.

“The ensuing publicity emanating from that submission is very damaging to ASP, especially in Huntington Beach,” he said. “Nobody likes to hear that their beloved beach is considered substandard by the governing body of surfing.”

The ASP is focusing on staging its events in the best possible conditions, he says, and gives each contest a rating of prime, good or standard. Huntington Beach is the only event on the 12-contest 2001 schedule with a standard rating.

“Take Rio for example,” Bartholomew said. “They were able to upgrade from standard to good by shifting to late June when the surf is at its optimum, becoming a mobile event to take advantage of the best possible waves on any given day in the Rio area and incorporating a nine- or 10-day waiting period to further maximize surf potential.

“The organizers of Huntington Beach may be jumping up and down about the standard rating, but they’ve had every opportunity to make adjustments. It isn’t mobile, it doesn’t have a waiting period and it doesn’t want to shift to a better wave window. Therefore it retains its original form since 1982.

“But it’s still there while other events that don’t adjust to the new ASP have gone the way of the dinosaur.”

The Huntington Beach event will never be mobile for the same reason it would not have happened in late September--sponsors erect a tent city to hawk their wares and the expo is more popular than the surfing--and it’s actually only one third of a two-week beach happening.

Promoters might be satisfied to simply host the U.S. Open of Surfing and the highly successful Beach Games, featuring BMX competition, in-line skating and skateboarding, if it costs them $100,000 more than anyone else to have a WCT event.