Pawle Stays On The Slater Tour Story

The Australian’s writier Fred Pawle just won’t let go of this “rebel slater tour” story. Today’s big story is that the main player won’t return his email.

Pawle says boxing promoter Mat Tinley won’t return answers to emailed questions, Kelly Slater didn’t reply to emailed questions, and Slater manager Terry Hardy “declined to be interviewed over the phone.”

Vans Marketing VP and SIMA President Doug Palladini, on the other hand, had no problem discussing the situation.

He said the rebel threat had helped the stakeholders of the existing tour, administered by the Association of Surfing Professionals, to work together. . . “Using the new competition to make the ASP tour stronger is the best possible outcome of the current challenge,” he said. “The brands that represent the tour are meeting now to discuss a priority of must-haves for 2010. I am not at liberty to discuss specifics at this time but fans can rest assured that the 2010 tour will see strong improvements.”

Some of those improvement include fewer surfers on the tour, according to ASP CEO Brodie Carr. But not until 2011. The person who put the entire Slater tour concept into the best persepctive was Hawai’ian Triple Crown’s Randy Rarick .

“I started adding up the numbers and thought, it doesn’t work,” he said. “I don’t see someone can sell enough advertising to merit this kind of outlay. Conceptually it sounds good but when you put it on paper the costs are astronomical. These guys are talking major, major bucks. I don’t care if they’re talking to Nike or whoever, they’re not going to put that kind of money up because they are not going to see a return on their investment. . . “I think the reality of financing this thing is just not coming together as they had hoped. I don’t think the money is there.”

And if anyone would know about surf event sponsors’ ROI, it would be Mr. Rarick.

[Link: The Australian]