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New Tour format, New Tour singlets and no more guess work. |
Ladies and Gentleman … Start your engines, the new ASP tour is underway.
At the Hurley Pro at Trestles, we saw the introduction of numbered contest singlets during heats. Each Surfer has their own singlet with name and [pre contest] ranking on the back – much like in other sports where jerseys are worn. With the introduction of these jerseys, you no longer have to be a surfing groupie or statistician to know who’s in the water and where they stand on the ‘CT ladder.
“The ASP will not be merchandising the jerseys in the foreseeable future,” says ASP Media manager Dave Prodan. Though I’m sure many a surf junkie would love to get their hands on some. In sports like Basketball and Football, the number on an athletes back has almost created an industry of its own in merchandise sales. Think about Michael Jordan and the number 23, when he left the NBA so did a few million dollars in merchandise-driven revenue. I can just see a marketing-savvy promoter getting hold of a few of these contest rashies and turning them in to gold. Imagine grommets around the globe all sporting “Slater – 1” contest singlets and then the value of one of those if he nails his tenth title?
If there was a way to market ASP Tour-merch [like jerseys for example] and then feed the profits directly back into the World Tour we could finally see the financial backing surfing has been looking for to be able to progress as a sport.
What do you think?
