“The addition of Grind Networks to our portfolio demonstrates our corporate strategic commitment to finding and investing in the right partners who have the vision to deliver targeted content, across multiple platforms, to our enthusiast consumers,” said Michael L. Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Source Interlink Companies, Inc. . . With this move, former Grind Networks CEO Erik Hawkins will oversee all digital sales and marketing efforts for the new group; President/COO Greg Morrow will direct all technical and digital product development aspects of the business. The two founded Grind Networks in 2005 after serving as executives at Yahoo!, CitySearch and Launch Media. Both will report directly to Norb Garrett, Senior Vice President and Group Publisher of SIM’s ASG.
It will be interesting to see what magic ASG’s Norb Garrett can work with these sites as none (aside from Newschoolers in ski and Ridemonkey in MTB) have yet to have gained any authentic traction with either advertisers or readers. And while the domains snowboarder.com, motocross.com, and skateboard.com obviously have potential, this whole deal seems like a rather complicated, expensive way to upgrade a couple URLs.
Event organizers will meet tomorrow at 8am to assess conditions for a possible 8:30am start. . . Magicseaweed, the official forecasters for the Rip Curl Pro Portugal, are calling for massive swell for the opening days of the waiting period.
If the contest begins tomorrow at 8:30 AM (11:30 PM PST) it will be live online right here. The biggest question we have is will Mick Fanning go for the European double double? It seems highly possible. Follow the jump for round one heat match-ups and the official word from the ASP. [click to continue…]
As part of International Walk To School Day San Clemente’s big wave charging brothers Greg and Rusty Long acted as escorts for kids walking to Concordia Elementary School, according to a story in the OC Register.
They told how – growing up in staff housing at San Clemente State Beach, where their father was chief lifeguard – they would walk to school daily. They had a favorite shortcut, even in pouring rain. . . “We had dirt, mud, a little grass patch and then a (wood) bridge that would sometimes wash out in the wintertime,” Greg said. “It was always fun.”
While the idea of attending a surf museum event conjures nightmares of pear-shaped old men in double XL Reyn Spooners blasting stories of yesteryear across the room on invisible waves of Black Label breath, there is something special about surfing’s past and occasionally it’s worth diving in.
Few museums bring surfing’s past to life better than Oceanside’s California Surf Museum. Today they are kicking off their Califorinia Surf Festival (October 6-10, 2010) with the film Accidental Icon: The Real Gidget Story and an appearance by the original Gidget herself, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman. Show starts at the Brooks Theater at 7 PM (217 N. Coast Highway, Oceanside, CA), but there is a special VIP reception at 6 PM.
But that’s not all. On Thursday October 7, 2010 Donavon Frankereiter will play a show, too. Click the link for more info.
It seems like years since Jamie O’Brien burned the ASP Rule Book and hijacked Twitter with a little help from Charlie Smith. Now, after way too many delays, it has finally come time some answers.
Who is J.O.B. tells the story of Jamie O’Brien – a towheaded, semi-deaf haole born on the North Shore of Oahu to a wild Australian father – and how he became one of the most controversial surfers, renowned for his presence in the barrel. The film provides a peek into how J.O.B. was weaned to throw himself over Pipeline ledges, translating into a life-long adventure of draining bombs, tweaking airs, breaking legs and more. Who is J.O.B. was filmed using a combination of 16mm, RED camera, and Canon 7D footage and was shot on location in Hawaii, Indonesia, Micronesia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Mexico and Japan.
The Who Is J.O.B.? World Premiere will roll at Newport Beach, California’s Lido Theatre Thursday night, October 7, 2010 at 7 PM. Click the image for all the details.
When Rip Curl wanted to get that stop motion every angle photo look (made popular 10 years ago by The Matrix) for their Mirage boardies, their ad agency just picked up 52 Canon EOS cameras, put them on a big rack and fired away, according to a story on Cnet.
Mick Fanning dominated the heaving Culs Nus barrels like a man to claim his second Quiksilver Pro France win today (October 2, 2010) while finalist Kelly Slater took some savage beatings (click the image above to watch the final). We slept through the entire day’s event and will be forced to catch all the heats on demand via the Quiksilver Live iPhone app.
“That was difficult,” Fanning said. “Kelly (Slater) and I were talking out there about how we were trying to get in the spot. There was just a lot of water moving and it was super challenging. I got absolutely hammered by that set – copped the whole thing on the head and it killed me. You were either in the spot or you weren’t, and I was fortunate enough to be there for a couple.” . . . “This one feels pretty good,” Fanning said. “Last year, the waves weren’t really pumping. This year, it almost didn’t feel like a surf contest, but rather a bunch of guys getting barrelled off their heads for a few days.”
This win moves Fanning into third place in the ASP rankings and helped Slater increase his lead over Jordy Smith by 7,250 points. Follow the jump for all the details. [click to continue…]
A teenage surfer at South Africa’s Melkbaai beach was bitten on the foot Friday (October 1, 2010), according to a story on iAfrica.com.
However, the surfer, who appeared to be a teenager, had relatively minor injuries to his foot. . . He had three deep lacerations, penetrating to the bone, and had lost blood. . . He was treated on the spot and en route to hospital, Visser said.
Sharks appear to come closer to shore around the Cape this time of year, according to the story. This time a little too close.
This whole staying up all night to watch the Quiksilver Pro France isn’t going so well. We end up catching a little late and a little more early and have no real idea what’s going on in between. It’s like France has it’s own time zone or something.
Today, the event got all the way through round five before they had to shut it down for the day at 6:30 PM local time (9:30 AM PST).
Our favorite heat came in round 4 when Kelly Slater snuck a win over Michel Bourez and Owen Wright with a barrel and and air in the last minutes of the heat.
“I needed to throw something at the end of the heat,” Slater said. “I couldn’t really hear all the scores out there and I knew I needed something. That second barrel probably wasn’t too deep so I tried to finish with an air and it worked out. You play a different game in a man-on-man heat with priority. You would never surf a completely different bank in man-on-man. It cleaned up over there. That little bit of wind. It’s dead glassy now. It’s perfect.”
It was classic Slater, but then we’re suckers for that stuff. Anyway, tomorrow quarter finals look a little like this.
QF 1: Brett Simpson (USA) vs. Daniel Ross (AUS)
QF 2: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Michel Bourez (PYF)
QF 3: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Kieren Perrow (AUS)
QF 4: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Jordy Smith (ZAF)
Follow the jump for the results and official word from the ASP. [click to continue…]
Sometimes, while watching the ASP Top 32, it is possible to think that what they do is pretty easy. At Trestles, where the waves were perfect, we found ourselves being less impressed with the epic surfing because we saw it going down all day long.
Today, as the Quiksilver Pro France at Culs Nus Beach finally wrapped up round two, we had the opposite feeling. The sea was chunky and blown and so inconsistent that when someone got a good wave (like Luke Munro’s 9.77 barrel against Andy Irons) it was like seeing the impossible happen live. The only problem was, there was a lot of waiting between good waves.
En route to his emphatic Round 2 win, Munro consistently notched up dramatic barrels, collecting the day’s highest heat total of 16.87 out of a possible 20 including a near perfect 9.87 out of a possible 10 for an incredibly deep forehand barrel. . . “I felt pretty comfortable out there from get go,” Munro said. “It’s sort of like home at Straddy (Stradbroke Island) so my plan was to go out and get a lot of waves. I think (on my 9.77) I got a little greedy. I probably could have hung in there a second longer, but I wanted to make sure I could get out too.” . . . Munro will take on reigning ASP World Champion and defending Quiksilver Pro France champion Mick Fanning (AUS), 29, in Round 3 of competition.
Damien Hobgood, Daniel Ross,Tom Whitaker, Jadson Andre, Michel Bourez, Chris Davidson, Kieren Perrow, and Taylor Knox all stayed in the game for another round.
Click the link for the complete results, round three match-ups and call time for tomorrow. [click to continue…]
Source Interlink Media, the parent company of ASG (publishers of Surfing, Surfer, Snowboarder, and Skateboarder magazines) announced today that they have purchased Grind Networks including GrindTV.com, Newschoolers.com, Ridemonkey.com, 411vm.com, Wetsand.com, affiliate sales aggregation sites Snowboarder.com, Motocross.com, Skateboard.com, and entertainment site Stupidvideos.com.
