Filipe Toledo after winning the World Title at the Rip Curl WSL Finals. Photo: Thiago Diz//World Surf League
According to the Wall Street Journal, streaming giant Netflix explored acquiring the World Surf League in 2021 but the deal fell through when the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on a price. The WSL didn’t immediately respond to requests from The Inertia for comment on the reported negotiation, but the story creates some intrigue for the future of professional surfing, nonetheless.
Most recently, Netflix lost out on a bidding war to stream Formula 1 racing. These stories shine a light on just how much money is in the live events broadcasting (or in this case, streaming) game, with Apple signing a media rights deal with Major League Soccer for at least $2.5 billion and a deal with MLB for “Friday Night Baseball,” while Amazon just jumped on the NFL bandwagon, paying $11 billion to stream “Thursday Night Football.” In the race to nab its streaming/broadcasting rights, Formula 1 reportedly received offers from NBC, Amazon, and Netflix, but it ultimately went with Disney, taking $255 million total for 16 of its races to be broadcast on ABC and ESPN.
The sad irony here for Netflix is that their Drive to Survive docuseries has been largely responsible for a Formula 1 popularity boost. In 2018, the racing series signed a broadcast deal with ESPN that brought in $5 million per year. Formula 1: Drive to Survive started streaming in 2019 and was just renewed earlier this year for a fifth and sixth season with a growing fanbase for both the sport and the series, turning Formula 1’s $5 million per year payday into a fresh $85 million per with the new Disney deal. At Netflix, it seems that being on the outside looking in (like this) is exactly what the streaming platform wants to avoid. They also bid for the streaming rights to the ATP tennis tour, U.K. rights to the Women’s Tennis Association, and even streaming rights for cycling events.
The World Surf League figured into the equation with an entirely different approach, reportedly. WSJ sources said Netflix co-Chief Executive Reed Hastings has stated in board meetings that he doesn’t want to be in bidding wars every few years, providing a reason for the company to buy stakes in smaller leagues. Netflix is said to believe they can bolster the popularity of smaller sports leagues like the WSL and make them a viable product for streaming live events, and the Formula 1 experience likely offered enough evidence to support that idea. Owning a league or professional sport outright would obviously cut out the potential for losing those bidding wars in the future.
So, what’s the WSL, and its streaming rights, actually worth? Well, we’re not really sure. The World Surf League launched its own Make or Break docuseries with Apple last year, and then flirted with reality TV on ABC’s The Ultimate Surfer. Neither drew the attention that Drive to Survive has at Netflix, but the model is clearly there and Championship Tour viewership (and revenue) is trending up (according to the League).
In September, the WSL said the 2022 Rip Curl Finals was the single most watched day of surfing in the League’s history, reporting “8.3 million views across WSL Digital channels.” A press release didn’t explain much about those 8.3 million views, how long they tuned in on Finals Day, how many unique viewers the event drew, and so on, but it’s a number they were excited about. And CEO Erik Logan was already bullish on the league before that.
“We are poised to deliver the best financial results in the history of the sport,” he said. “Our revenues are going to be up 20 percent vesus 2019, so we are extraordinarily healthy. One of the things I look at with our Chief Revenue Officer is the number of clients and people who want to participate with us at any level and we’ve got a roster of partners that is up 35 percent.”
