Like the title of Kelly’s memoir, meeting the president is a pipe dream.
On Sunday night, the Cavaliers clinched the 2016 NBA Championship. And if that’s a spoiler for you, well, maybe it’s time to sell that rock you’re living under. In addition to being the Cavs’ first NBA Championship in franchise history, it was also the first professional championship won by a Cleveland sports team since 1964.
The city of Cleveland will be doing it big this week with a parade. And you can bet that there will also be an invitation to visit the White House in the next few weeks.
We know this because it’s become customary at this point for championship teams in college and professional basketball, football, baseball, hockey, and even soccer (after the women’s national team won the world cup) to meet the sitting president to celebrate their victory. It’s an incredible opportunity–to be recognized for your achievement by one of the most powerful people in the free world. But, unfortunately it will never happen for surfing. No WSL champ will ever meet the president, and here’s why:
1. Surfing is not a team sport.
From basketball to baseball to football, White House visits celebrate the achievements of teams, not individuals. There’s a reason tennis players, golfers, and other stand alone professional athletes don’t visit. Hosting a team sends the message that America values working together over going it alone. It’s ironic, sure. America is also the land that birthed the iPod and iPhone, metaphors for the i-culture of consumerism, self-centrism, and individualism. But the power of teamwork makes a better headline than the power of a me-first attitude.
2. Surfing doesn’t have the viewership.
When it comes to sports viewership in the US, the Superbowl is king. According to Statista, the 2016 game reached over 111 million households. Sunday’s Game 7 is being touted as having received the largest audience ever for an NBA game, with 30.8 million viewers. Surfing simply doesn’t compare. To be fair, comparisons aren’t apples to oranges. Instead of sitting down for a clearly defined hour to two hour stint to watch a football or basketball game, WSL events go on for hours over the course of several days within 11-day wait periods. But, the WSL attempts to utilize similar analytics to assess viewership. Following the 2014 Billabong Pro Tahiti, the WSL issued a press release claiming the event reached over 12 million households. That doesn’t include online viewership via the webcast either–just through broadcast TV partners. In addition to seeming inflated, if this number were accurate, it’s also worth noting that it represents global viewership, i.e. in Australia, Brazil, Portugal, France, and Hawaii. In other words, viewership in the US represents only a portion of that number and pales in comparison to that of other sports. This is proof of an even larger argument that surfing is not (and probably never will be) a part of mainstream American culture.
3. Surfing is too international.
More than anything visits to the White House honor the achievements of Americans, or at least they’re supposed to. This season, the Cavs boast 6 international players. But, most are American. And apparently mostly American is good enough.
The WSL, though, is made up mostly of athletes not from the US. Of the 32 surfers on the world tour, including Hawaiians, 7 are American. That means the chances are high of the world tour producing a champion that is not from the US. And a non-American champ visiting a president that does not represent them is a far less interesting storyline for the White House Press Secretary.
4. Barry O don’t surf.
Finally, an invite to meet the president has a lot to do with, frankly, the president’s interests. John F. Kennedy was the first president to invite the NBA champions–the Boston Celtics–to the White House in 1963. And the first NFL team to meet the president was the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1980, during Jimmy Carter’s tenure. So, it’s conceivable that the tradition of inviting the WSL champ to the White House each year could break all the rules outlined above if only the sitting president had a vested interest in surfing. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, Barack Obama was the best shot we had. He was born in Hawaii, which is something. Trump and Hillary have zero connection to surf whatsoever. But it never happened. And now, never will.
