After a highly watchable conclusion to the 2018 Championship Tour, the WSL announced the Tour will conclude at Pipe for at least the next three years. Photo: Sloane/WSL
On Saturday the World Surf League issued a press release announcing that on the heels of a highly-watchable conclusion to the 2018 season, the League has secured approval to run all of its Hawaii events during the same periods for the next three years.
That news may feel rather anti-climactic if you were either unaware or forgot about the controversy between the WSL and the City of Honolulu back in February.
Here’s a refresher: the City of Honolulu and the County each require those wishing to hold surf contests to file the necessary paperwork. Apparently, though, in 2019 the WSL wished to kick the year off with the Pipe Masters instead of ending the year on the North Shore. To do that, their hope was to simply change the name of the 2019 Volcom Pipe Pro to the Pipe Masters and vice versa – different contests by name alone. The City of Honolulu’s mayor, Kirk Caldwell, however, explained that a Qualifying Series contest is very different from a Championship Tour event in terms of attendance, environmental impact, and therefore the City could not approve the change.
Still, Mayor Caldwell recognized the economic importance of the WSL’s events to Hawaii and pleaded with them not to “yank [their] contests.”
With respect to the World Surf League, Mayor Caldwell may have inadvertently saved the League from making a huge mistake – one that’s abundantly clear in the wake of a phenomenal 2018 Billabong Pipe Masters.
Prior to news breaking of the WSL’s efforts to kick the season off at Pipeline in 2019, rumors swirled about sweeping format changes to revamp professional surfing including a playoffs-like finale where the top handful of athletes in title contention would duke it out during an Indo boat trip. The WSL wouldn’t comment on these format changes but efforts to change the date of the Pipe Masters hinted that major changes were afoot.
Thankfully, though, this recent announcement from the WSL means the League has abandoned moving the Pipe Masters to any time of year other than where it belongs – at the conclusion of the season.
Over the years, a number of world titles have been decided before the Championship Tour’s annual pilgrimage to Oahu. Still, the ones that have been decided at Pipeline, as was the case this year, always seem to carry so much more gravitas. That two Pipe specialists would be granted wildcards into the event by way of the Pipe Invitational has to be concerning to anyone hoping to win a world title.
And then there’s the wave itself. When it’s on Pipe is short, technical, and explosive. I would argue there’s no wave more highly-suited to fomenting drama on Earth than Pipeline.
In their announcement, the WSL appears to recognize this.
“The permit approval is a great step to not only ensuring the world’s best surfers continue to be tested in Hawaii’s hallowed waves in the coming years but that these events provide infrastructure and developmental support for up-and-coming surfers from the region,” said WSL CEO Sophie Goldschmidt in the release.
The next few years will see a few milestones, too. In 2020, the Billabong Pipe Masters will celebrate 50 years, while 2019 will mark the 45th Vans World Cup and the 35th Hawaiian Pro.
