Here’s hoping the World Surf League offers up contests like this one. Photo: ASP
The Association of Surfing Professionals is no longer. Well, the name is no longer, at least. Beginning in 2015, the new moniker of the association of surfing professionals is the World Surf League, or WSL. In a letter to the surfing community, ASP/WSL CEO Paul Speaker broke the news.
“We understand that for many of you reading this, the letters “ASP” have significant meaning and that this news might be unsettling,” he wrote. “We hope you will give us the benefit of the doubt and that, over time, you will come to see this change as positive for the sport we all love. At the end of the day, professional surfing’s DNA remains intact: we’re about the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves. That will never change.”
In the last two years, the ASP has seen a lot of changes. They’ve revamped their entire broadcast, added new venues, and generally tried to make surfing (the sport, at least) more accessible to the masses. And make no mistake about it – that’s their goal. They took notes from other professional sports leagues, using graphics and commentator desks in strange places. And you know what? It’s working. The Billabong Tahiti Pro was watched by upwards of 12 million households, a number that far surpasses anything prior. “All of it is driven by the twin goals of preserving the heritage and culture of surfing while at the same time creating an even better foundation to grow our sport in the future,” Speaker wrote. According to the letter, the name-change is being made to make things a little less cryptic to the non-surfer. Association of Surfing Professionals is, after all, a little hard to understand if you’re in the dark about it. National Football League? Yup, that’s football. National Hockey League? Yup, that’s hockey. Association of Surfing Professionals? Not so much. It might be a bunch of wall-street guys that also like to surf. But the World Surfing League lets that mom in Idaho know exactly what her kid is watching in his bedroom.
The ASP released a short video (which has since been deleted) of many of surfing’s prominent figures hoisting the WSL flag. “The ASP was a way to bring surfers, competition directors and sponsors together to create a new entity that was representative of the sport,” said Shaun Tomson in the video. “By having this independent organization chart the future of surfing… I think it’s sort of the next step.”
With all the changes the ASP has made in the last two years, it seems they’ve really put a focus on making it known that they are surfing’s foremost professional surfing organization – a fact that most involved in surfing already knew. But in their efforts to expand into a space visible to a larger audience, they needed to make it more obvious exactly what they are. “The ASP isn’t exactly self-explantory,” Kelly Slater told the ASP in the now-deleted video. “I kind of have to explain what the acryonym is for people who don’t know.”
The name change seems to be the final stamp the ASP is making on their overhaul. And really, it won’t make much difference, at least to the ones that already know them. Time will tell, however, if the World Surfing League will help the organization climb the ladder to the same place other sports have in the public eye. In the end, though, it’s still the ASP. So what’s in a name? That which we call a rose – by any other name would smell as sweet, right?
Below is the full letter from Paul Speaker:
To the ASP community,
At the start of the 2015 season, we will change our name to the World Surf League (WSL). We’re making this change because we believe the new name is easier to understand, and gets us on a better track to serve our fans, athletes and partners, and to grow the great sport of professional surfing worldwide.
There’s been a lot of change in the last two years. Part of it you can see, such as new venues and enhanced live broadcasts. Some of it is behind the scenes. All of it is driven by the twin goals of preserving the heritage and culture of surfing while, at the same time, creating an even better foundation to grow our sport in the future.
We want you to know that changing our name was a carefully considered decision for us. We felt it was important to share this idea with as many people in the ASP community as we could, from athletes to past world champions to event partners. In the end, we were greatly comforted by the fact that not a single person we spoke with opposed changing names to the World Surf League. Not one.
This is a decision we’ve made with our community and you can see their reactions for yourself.
We understand that for many of you reading this, the letters “ASP” have significant meaning and that this news might be unsettling. We hope you will give us the benefit of the doubt and that, over time, you will come to see this change as positive for the sport we all love. At the end of the day, professional surfing’s DNA remains intact: we’re about the world’s best surfers in the world’s best waves. That will never change.
From day one, our commitment to you has been that we will do everything in our power to improve the overall experience for fans, athletes and partners. Of course, we still have a lot of work to do, but we are confident that we are heading in the right direction.
We want to salute everyone upon whose shoulders we stand, from the creators of the ASP to their forefathers at what was originally known as the International Professional Surfers (IPS). It was the hard work of all of these people that provided the platform that we all share today and it is with them, and with you, that we look forward to ushering in the new era of the World Surf League.
Sincerely,
Paul Speaker
Chief Executive Officer
