Do you have an instagram? Do you like surfing? Do you follow Jonah Hill? You are probably up to date on the WSL and women’s longboard tour. If not, here is a brief recap.

On February 7th, Joel Tudor called out WSL’s Erik Logan and Jessi Miley-Dyer via instagram regarding the women’s longboard tour being cut down to 1 event and the fact that the prize money for women’s longboarding is nowhere near equal to the amount women on the CT get. Jessi sent Joel a text asking him to take the post down, which he respectfully declined. Then the WSL sent out an email stating that Joel’s post was “inaccurate and misleading related to the WSL’s approach to equality.” Bodega Board Crew started a petition on Change.org to reinstate the World Longboard Tour, that currently has over 700 signatures. Jonah Hill thought this was a worthy cause and shared it with his 3.6 Million followers.

Where do we go from here?

Reports have shown:

• Female surf-inspired consumers spend 6% more than their male counterparts.
• Females are two thirds of the fashionistas .
• Females are 6% more likely to wear surf-inspired brands. All the time.
• Females are also significantly more likely to buy a surf-inspired gift for someone else.

Do you know what type of surfboard most of the women buy is? You guessed it… Longboard.

It make’s sense why majority of the women’s brands use longbarding in their marketing. It’s inviting, longboarding has soul, the waves don’t have to be scary. The young and the old can trim their local break while dreaming about Malibu or Waikiki. Matter a fact, Billabong ran women’s longboard ads during the pipe masters. They are no dummies, they want to introduce as many women as they can to “A Bikini Kinda of Life” (Do they still use that) because your average girl doesn’t want to paddle out at 10′ Pipe.

The girl’s in the marketing are stoked! They get paid to surf, have fun, make videos, and some ladies don’t have to leave their local breaks. What about the women who make a living from the pro longboard tour? How will they earn a decent wage if there is 1 event and earrings for a win are $10,000?

We know revenue is not going to be generated by online viewers to pay a bigger prize purse. We have heard that 80% of the viewers log off when women’s shortboarding starts. So what is the solution? Here is an idea… Turn women’s longbarding into a marketing event. Have you been to a Sisters of the Sea contest? Girls and families are on the beach at the event all day? Sam does an amazing job growing the women’s surf community in North Florida through Sisters of the Sea. Ever been to the Super Girl Pro? Talk about women’s empowerment.

Imagine The Roxy Longboard Pro. Roxy could set up times to surf with the pros, swimsuit and wetsuit fittings, bracelet making, partner with a local surf shop to do autograph signings or do it on the beach. Sell more products through their local partners while selling D2C on the beach. Inspire hundreds of young ladies to become Roxy Girls. This could be the female event of the year and it could be held in Huntington Beach, just 20 min from Roxy HQ. Have a couple more brands do the same and like Joel said, let longboarding piggy back on to some of the existing tour events. Now you got a six stop tour.

Let’s see if anyone sees this as an opportunity.

I’ll leave you with this quote from the WSL 2017 Marketing campaign “It Takes a Tour”.