The fact that the WSL is looking for investors and says it might be sold, that it has quietly sold Kelly's wave pool, and that it hasn't yet commented on the matter, seems like a very important issue that has barely been discussed.

It's true that the news came out yesterday and surely we'll find out a little more.

So, what's behind all this? What impact will it have? What will happen if a potential sale or investment comes from a streaming channel or an entertainment agency?

What's behind all this? It seems like a good time to sell because the trend is that channels like Netflix and Disney and others have boosted entire sports by buying them and becoming their sole owners.

Ziff has reportedly been philanthropic with the WSL, but he is a businessman and philanthropy for him has its limits.

Meanwhile, regarding the impacts, it seems to me that firstly, if Netflix buys WSL, we have to forget about being able to watch it for free on YouTube and TikTok, and that we will have to pay Netflix to do so, Netflix or whoever (it is known that at the time the sale with the platform did not materialize).

In other words, from the user's point of view, it's about paying to watch.

From a sporting perspective, I think everyone has been relatively cautious (Erik Logan was the kamikaze who tried to do something foolish from the WSL that backfired). It's been trial and error; I don't think they'll completely disrupt the world tour or make any radical structural changes. But really, with this, you never know.

Finally: The hardest question to answer is the last one… How will this impact the sport? It seems to me that the problem hasn't been how the sport is marketed; I think surfing is marketed well and the league does things right… Beyond an endless five-month break, what we see couldn't be better.

The problem is that the sport itself, besides being technically complex and difficult for older audiences to understand, is boring to watch. Days without waves, minutes and minutes without anyone surfing, and without people understanding that this moment of priority creates a certain tension… A tension that is extremely boring to watch: It's two people in the sea, one chasing the other.

Then he takes a wave that lasts 10 seconds.

We fans love it. The general public doesn't.

The perfect example is Formula 1, which used to be a niche sport and now has thousands of uncles, grandmothers, and cousins ​​who are fans. And they justify it because that documentary was made and then well-promoted on streaming platforms.

But Formula 1 is simple: There's a start, a finish, and in a few hours the race is over. Some fans know a thousand implications that the average person doesn't, but the basics are wonderfully simple: Whoever gets there fastest wins, period.

That's not how it is in surfing. And it's great that it's not.

So I think it's naive to dream that it will grow beyond other sports or that a sale to a chain will change the history of the sport.

It might grow a little more, we might have to put up with a bunch of noobs in the water who surf like they're just kicking a ball around in a park—in other words, it's all the same to them, not their whole life. But it will always be, on a grand scale, a niche sport.

And I hope I don't have to eat my words because, as much as abrupt growth would be very beneficial, I like it as it is.