It’s a constant droning on that we see on so many platforms that the big ship WSL might flounder in the foreseen future, yet she continues to hold steady in among the ire, the angst and the gnashing of teeth. So many keyboard activists have done the supposed math, and our professional governing body is either ‘bleeding money arterially’, ‘about to topple’, ‘on the verge of a financial collapse,’ or ‘heading the way of the Titanic.”
Yet the crucial fact that no one takes into the sums is that of the character of Mr Ziff. Being the owner of a lump sum of $4,8Billion interest-earning dollars, one needs to understand that if he wanted to continue with the WSL as it is, he could do so for a further 10 years without batting an eyelid, and without really making any sort of dent on his mother load.
The WSL might not be roaring into profit, but it has to be agreed on that they are making money as an organisation. As a commercial entity, the WSL knows how to make cash large. They have numerous sponsorship deals and commercial sales happening, they have a nonstop spew of ads, their webcasts are all underwritten by advertising and the money flows in. Recent sponsorship acquisitions include Hydro Flask, VISA, Michelob, OuterKnown and Corona.
The thing is, they also know how to spend cash large. So the only number to worry about is the loss digit, because it is not yet a profit. The difference between the amount of money they earn and the amount of money they spend.
Then you have to take this one step further. This number is the only number that Ziff and anyone else needs to worry about. So if someone holds $4,800,000,000 in the bank (apparently a lot more, actually) this number in the bankruptcy equation has to be quite a high – profile number to have any meaning to someone who checks the price of a Super Yacht like we check the price of a sandwich.
What about the human aspect? What about the fact that Ziff and his lovely wife the former magazine journalist Natasha Bacigaluopo just love surfing, and are prepared to pay for that love? Ziff has been known to donate large to the arts, especially film societies, and the last house that he sold he got $195M for. He could sell a house and keep the WSL going indefinitely.
WSL also have the great emboldening addition of Corona, and it must be added here that alcohol brands like Corona are struggling to churn through their adspend with the tightening of booze advertising rules. Find a way to spend that money, some way that is not going to flout any local laws and is going to legitimately ad value to a brand as well as an event, and the floodgates literally open. There is serious marketing coin around for the JBay Open apparently, and the rumour mill is turning wildly with all sorts of stories of marketing extravaganzas that the people at Anheuser-Bush the Belgian company that owns Corona are going to put out there. Remember that Corona is the company that when the billionaire founder of the beer brand died he made every single person in his village a millionaire. Yep, he left the 80 residents of his humble home village $2,5M each in his will! There is a lot of money around this brand.
Slater’s deal with OuterKnown and the Fiji Pro is a three-year deal, and it’s clear as day that they’re all in it for the long run. The fact that there are discount vouchers being posted around on WSL newsletters for fans to buy great looking but expensive stuff with good discounted prices means that they’re all in the business to make money together, and it’s good for all. Having Kelly involved fundamentally in an event like this is incredible and even if he does step back a bit next year, it will be a great, and extremely popular surfers-first event that has the man as a contest director.
Key takeaways:
• Ziff and his wife love surfing, much like we do. They get it. Apparently they often both surf/paddle around like an extra in Blue Crush II
• He sold one of his houses for $195 million.
• His wife was a magazine journalist and is now one of the richest ladies in the world. Yep, she worked for a mag a little bit like Tracks once upon a time, until young Dirk smelled her perfume.
• The WSL is an enjoyable and relatively inexpensive hobby and pastime for the businessman and philanthropist.
• They’re good for another three years at least, so shut your chip-holes until 2020, and by then we’ve got a whole bunch of new shit to worry about anyway.
• Slater’s OuterKnown deal with Fiji Pro is huge news on so many levels.
• Any day now Trump might push a button and shout ‘You’re Fired!’ at an American-owned nuclear warhead, and this will all be pretty inconsequential.
