Rumours swirled this morning that Samsung had pulled out as the title sponsor of the WSL. The news broke on Beach Grit, but reeked of another salacious rumour dressed up as click bait. Curious, Tracks sent an email to World Surf League’s VP of Communications, Dave Prodan, asking him to confirm or deny the story. Minutes later he replied, saying:

“Samsung has been a great partner for the surfing community over the past three years, elevating the sport to new heights and honoring the community’s heritage. We thank them for their partnership and look forward to an exciting 2017 season. The WSL is excited about upcoming announcements in the commercial space. More to come when available.”

Well I’ll be damned. No title sponsor is a little scary given the current climate in the surf industry. Everyone is pinching pennies. Surf mags are closing, high paid pros are getting cut and we have a league without a major sponsor.

The WSL has never disclosed how much money Samsung brought to the table. So we can only speculate how much this will hurt them on the bottom line. What we do know is that

interim CEO and reclusive the billionaire Dirk Ziff, co-owner of ZoSea, is bankrolling the WSL and with this latest announcement will have to dig deeper into his pockets to ensure that the tour continues to stay afloat.

For how long that is remains to be seen.

If the WSL fails to draw a title sponsor it seems unlikely it will continue to chug along as is. Their model certainly needs a shake up. Event venues need to change, the number of surfers needs to drop and non-loser rounds need to go, and while we’re at it the waiting periods need to shrink.

With Speaker departing in January and this bombshell today it’s easy to poke fun at the current state of affairs in WSL HQ. But no one wants the WSL to go under. Sure we’re glad we don’t have to sit through the painful Samsung ads but if the lights go off we won’t be watching a live stream of the world’s best at all.