ASP Schedule Doesn’t Hold Water

The Assn. of Surfing Professionals distributed a soon-to-be-announced 2001 World Championship Tour schedule to its directors and event sponsors Tuesday. The “confirmed” calendar includes a Huntington Beach contest that event promoters say will not happen in the specified time frame--or with the specified prize money--and a lone Hawaiian event that surf-industry insiders consider improbable at best.

When the pro surfers, who own 50% of the WCT, united in a management group and took control of the ASP executive board last summer at the annual meetings in Huntington Beach, they voted to nearly double their prize money for 2001 and shuffled the schedule to create a four-month off-season from October to January.

The schedule reflects those changes but appears to be far less firm than the ASP contends.

Consider the Bluetorch Pro at Huntington Beach Pier. It’s slated for Sept. 18-23. The purse is listed at $350,000. (All the other events are to offer $250,000, up from $135,000, but the surfers added a $100,000 surcharge to compete at Huntington because the waves are “substandard.”)

“Firstly, the event has to be during school [vacation],” said Ian Cairns, Bluetorch vice president of events. “And it’s no secret we’re unhappy about the $100,000 penalty. We think Huntington is a cool place to have a surf contest.”

Then there’s the Hawaii factor. The first event on the ASP’s 2001 calendar is scheduled at Pipeline, with the notation, “new application--subject to permit.”

The surfers, bent on maintaining their off-season, rejected the pleas of Randy Rarick, director of the Pipeline Masters, a December event that traditionally has been the season finale for the pro surfing tour. Rarick says he will continue to host the contest as a specialty event and will not be affiliated with a February competition--even if a permit could be secured--because of strong local sentiment to reduce the number of North Shore contests.

“They’ll never get a permit,” Rarick said, “and I’ve already publicly said that I won’t have anything to do with a contest in February, which the residents are solidly against. It just astounds me that they’re willing to go ahead and have a tour without a stop in Hawaii.”

Cairns: “Just think about this historically. Those events in Hawaii are the foundation of professional surfing. And now Hawaii’s off the tour? This is in the best interest of surfing?”

The ASP memo repeatedly mentions the word “confirmed” but Rarick calls the new schedule a “wish list.”

The ASP sent out applications for sanctioning permits--a document that was “pretty loose-ended,” according to one longtime surf-industry executive--to all of this year’s event sponsors. All, except Rarick, responded because there was nothing to lose by securing the dates.

Surfwear giant Billabong, with its North American operations headquartered in Irvine, is listed as sponsor of four of the 10 events, the same number it backed this year.

“The event dates per se have been confirmed,” Billabong CEO Graham Stapelberg said, “but there still needs to be a finalization of tour proposals for next year.”

Does that mean Billabong is balking at an increase of about $1 million in prize money, sanctioning fees and production costs in 2001?

Stapelberg, who once spearheaded a drive to get surf-industry powers to show a united front but apparently fell victim to fear Billabong might lose premier events to competitors, declined to elaborate because negotiations are on-going.

According to existing ASP rules, sponsors must submit their sanctioning fees--raised this year from $25,000 to $50,000--either six months prior to their event or by Feb. 15, whichever comes first. That means the deadline for Billabong’s March 13 event on the Gold Coast of Australia has already passed.

“This is not the end of all this by any means,” Stapelberg said. “The fun and games are just beginning.”

So don’t count out that Huntington Beach event just yet. Cairns says he would be satisfied to promote the U.S. Open of Surfing concurrently with the highly successful Beach Games, featuring BMX bikes, in-line skating and skateboarding, again next summer at Huntington pier. But if a new WCT date opened up . . .

“Notice that little window after the Billabong event that starts in late August?” Cairns said. “That looks tailor-made for a Huntington event before school’s back in. We’d be open to talk about that, so the bottom line is we’re taking a wait-and-see approach.”

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Surf Schedule

The Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ 2001 World Championship Tour schedule:

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Feb. 20- Proposed Pipeline Event Mar. 4 at North Shore of Oahu Mar. 13-25 Billabong Pro at Gold Coast, Australia April. 10-22 Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, Australia May 8-19 Gotcha Tahiti Pro at Teahupoo, Tahiti May 24- Quiksilver Pro June 4 at Grajagan, Java or Namotu, Fiji June 27- Rio Surf International July 5 Rio de Janiero, Brazil July 18-29 Billabong Pro at Jeffreys Bay, South Africa Aug. 16-27 Rip Curl Pro at Hossegor, France Aug. 28- Billabong Pro Sept. 8 at Anglet, France/Mundaka, Spain Sept. 18-23 Bluetorch Pro at Huntington Beach Sept. 24-29 Billabong Pro at Trestles

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