{"id":9088,"date":"2009-07-15T08:49:35","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T15:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=9088"},"modified":"2009-07-15T08:52:03","modified_gmt":"2009-07-15T15:52:03","slug":"the-espnslater-surf-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/?p=9088","title":{"rendered":"The ESPN\/Slater Surf Tour?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/0182365-m500.jpg\" onclick=\"window.open('http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/0182365-m500.jpg','popup','width=500,height=333,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=yes,left=0,top=0');return false\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/0182365-m500-tm.jpg\" height=\"133\" width=\"200\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" alt=\"0182365 M500\" \/><\/a><strong>Kelly Slater<\/strong> and an <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a><\/strong> made-for-TV pro surf association? That&#8217;s the idea being discussed in a story posted on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wetsand.com\/blogs\/blog\/20090714\/slater_is_sending_a_message_to_the_industry-2772.html\" target=\"_blank\">Wetsand<\/a><\/strong> yesterday.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You&#8217;ve probably read the details by now, about ESPN giving the whole pro surfing thing another shot, but with real money and a completely new format that will culminate in an eight-event summer tour, ESPN coverage, live webcasts and a three-year commitment. But there is a significant rub. The tour will feature only 16 surfers, and allegedly, those surfers will be comprised of the top 8 rated surfers in the world, and 8 hand-picked wild cards. . . Slater has been understandably critical of the way the sport has been governed for some time. His dissatisfaction stems from the fact that the ASP is a toothless body, which it is. It has no real assets. It acts merely a sanctioning body that&#8217;s controlled by the owners of its events: <strong>Quiksilver<\/strong>, <strong>Billabong<\/strong>, <strong>Rip Curl<\/strong>, <strong>Hurley<\/strong>, <strong>Vans<\/strong> and <strong>O&#8217;Neill<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For as much criticism as the &#8220;toothless&#8221; <strong>ASP<\/strong> gets, it&#8217;s difficult to imagine a scenario where adding ESPN to the team would make it better for surfers, surfing, or the audience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[Link: <\/strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wetsand.com\/blogs\/blog\/20090714\/slater_is_sending_a_message_to_the_industry-2772.html\" target=\"_blank\">Wetsand<\/a><\/strong><strong>]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kelly Slater and an ESPN made-for-TV pro surf association? That&#8217;s the idea being discussed in a story posted on Wetsand yesterday. You&#8217;ve probably read the details by now, about ESPN giving the whole pro surfing thing another shot, but with real money and a completely new format that will culminate in an eight-event summer tour, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9088"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9088"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9094,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9088\/revisions\/9094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boardistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}