How Pro Surfing was Sold
The unlikely story behind ZoSea’s ASP World Tours
t’s day one of what’s promising to be a strange old year. The pro surfing tour has just changed hands for the first time in three decades, been signed away for a song, and while the outgoing owners haven’t yet cleaned out their desks, the new owners haven’t moved in either. The whole show’s in limbo, and at this historic juncture everything and nothing is happening simultaneously. It’s been termed a “bridging year,” but a bridge to where exactly, no one is sure.
The press conference for the first event of the season—the Quiksilver Pro—is being held on the beachfront at Snapper Rocks. The humidity is so sharp it’s like breathing fish hooks. A stifling room full of leaky newspaper hacks and TV network girls melting like wax dummies stare at an empty chair with the nameplate “Kelly Slater” in front of it. His no-show is for “personal reasons,” … More