Well, that’s part of the problem. The crowds were sparse for the Billabong Pro in past years. Unless everybody was hiding upstairs, there weren’t more than a few hundred watching … free of charge … free parking. So a few made it down from Jozi … where were the thousands who could not bother to make it from P.E. or the Western Cape?

How did retail fare? Bearing in mind that Jeffreys Bay probably has 10% of the retail surf merchandise space that Torquay, Australia does. And probably less than 1% of the sales volume.

There’s still world class surfing to be seen at Supertubes with a 6 star event. Were those cheap “10′s” given out this year? If you Saffers don’t support it at this level, expect your surf culture to go the way of the now marginalised tennis scene.

It’s funny how no one mentions local South African money being used to support the event. I wonder why?

I can understand possibly why another sponsor haven’t swooped in, given Billabong’s super strong brand presence in the area. Everyone knows it as the Billabong pro, it would be hard to change that perception and brand awareness of a J-Bay hosted event to something like the ” Monster Energy J-Bay classic” for example.

On a more positive note, I’m happy the local rippers can surf J-Bay and increase their exposure, hopefully against a handful of the top pros, who knows

Finally, I hope that J-Bay throws a defiant finger in the air and pumps out some epic conditions, like that time Tom Curren surfed it in that Pink Rip curl wetsuit of his all those years ago !!!

I challenge the ASP top boys to come and surf Jbay as the 6 star prime event.

Idiots. All I can say, I am surrounded by idiots.