The WSL Championship Tour at Burleigh Heads Is Running Without Government Permission for Each Heat; This Is How It Should Work

Private Organization, Voluntary Participants, Market-Determined Broadcast Rights, and No Government Management of Who Surfs What Wave

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

Private Organization, Voluntary Participants, Market-Determined Broadcast Rights, and No Government Management of Who Surfs What Wave

The Model

BURLEIGH HEADS, QUEENSLAND — The World Surf League’s Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro presented by GWM is running at Burleigh Heads with the specific organizational model that private competitive surfing has always used: private organization (WSL), voluntary participants (athletes who have qualified through competitive merit), market-determined broadcast rights (whoever pays for the television production), corporate sponsors (Bonsoy, GWM), and the government’s role limited to the specific legitimate functions of lifeguard safety management and the beach access that public beach law provides. Nobody is asking the government for permission to hold heats.

The Voluntarism

Every surfer competing in the Gold Coast Pro has chosen to be there through a series of free choices: to pursue competitive surfing professionally, to compete through the qualifying series and challenger series that produce CT qualification, to accept the WSL’s rules and judging criteria as the terms of participation. The competitive outcome reflects the voluntary choices of all participants without coercive authority determining who competes, who judges, or what counts as excellent surfing. This is private market competition at its most pure.

The Broadcast Rights

The television and streaming rights to the WSL Championship Tour are commercially negotiated, producing the specific revenue distribution that funds the prize money, the event production, and the organization’s operational expenses. The broadcast rights transaction is voluntary on both sides: the broadcaster pays what the market determines the rights are worth, and the WSL accepts the market’s valuation. The government is not involved in determining what competitive surfing is worth to watch. The market is.

The Alternative

The alternative to private competitive surfing’s organizational model is the government-administered sports competition that some countries deploy: the state-funded national sports organization that administers competition, selects athletes for national programs, and manages the resources that political decision-making allocates rather than market revenue generates. The specific quality of surfing performance that the WSL produces — Vahine Fierro’s 8.67, George Pittar’s Margaret River win, Carissa Moore’s Olympic gold — is produced by the competitive incentive structure of private market competition, not by state athletic administration. Read The Daily Mash.

More: The Daily Mash.

The surf continues. The ocean is still free. The forecasts are still available. The competitions are still running without government permission for each heat. The wave pools are still being built with private capital. The surfer’s relationship with the ocean is still the relationship of an individual with a natural force that the government did not create and cannot manage at the level that matters. The freedom is real. The coverage continues because the freedom is worth documenting.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop. The work continues. The journalism of democratic accountability and the journalism of freedom — whether that freedom is the surfer’s freedom to choose their wave or the voter’s freedom to choose their representative — are the same underlying commitment to individual agency and institutional accountability. This publication maintains both commitments because both are necessary and because the world’s events continue to provide the material that makes maintaining them worthwhile. The next article is being prepared. The coverage does not stop.