Local is Lekker

According to the press release, Billabong already has one of the best ASP World Tour events; the Billabong Pro J-Bay, as well as the longest running Pro Junior surfing series in the country. In 2011, Billabong will look to expand this by investing heavily in domestic competitive surfing all the way from grassroots development through to provincial, national and Pro Junior level.

Driven by the brand’s ongoing commitment to the sport, Billabong has cited a number of reasons for this restructure.

Firstly, according to Gerard du Plessis, Strategic Marketing Manager for Billabong South Africa, “The primary intent driving this change is to inject new energy into junior competitive surfing. Growing up surfing as many contests as possible, I can recall travelling to a different event almost every weekend – there was ample opportunity for everyone. You also constantly saw new faces at all the events. The domestic calendar has now dwindled down into only a handful of events where the same small number of competitors are the only ones fighting it out each year.

Secondly, it seems an element of fun has somewhere escaped from competitive junior surfing. By taking some of our events back to basics, we will aim to re-introduce the pure stoke and fun that junior surfing was originally founded on, and indeed why we all started surfing in the first place.  

Furthermore, for us to continue developing future ASP World Tour campaigners, we need to promote depth and develop talent within South African junior surfing. In a decade that produced the likes of Davey, Travis, Royden and Jordy, there were dozens of events within a solid competitive structure that expanded and nurtured depth across all divisions. It is this structure that we aim to address and the diversity of the new calendar is certainly a step in the right direction.”

In lieu of the aforementioned reasons; Billabong is proud to announce the introduction of the following additional events;

1.    Billabong has signed a three-year partnership agreement with Surfing South Africa, the official governing body for the sport, to present the Billabong SA Surfing Champs. The aim is to the rekindle the prestige of the country’s flagship domestic competitive surfing event by providing world class event infrastructure, a proven media model with online, print, social network and television leverage as well as re-introducing considerable prize-money amounts to attract the best surfers in South Africa. This year will also see the introduction of a new competitive format which will focus solely on the premier divisions of Open Men’s, Ladies and Pro Junior Men’s and Girl’s.

2.    Billabong will offer each province infrastructural support required for the implementation of successful provincial surfing trials, within all the South African Surfing Provinces.

3.    Billabong will continue to sponsor the Billabong SA Grommet Games and ensure it receives improved media leverage, which ultimately contributes to growing the stature of this pivotal national event.

4.    Billabong will introduce a series of grassroot ‘Bad Billy’ events. These events will focus solely on a free, fun, family-oriented beach day for U16’s and under. Along with a host of new and exciting surfing formats, product prizes will replace all prize money and entry will be FREE and open to all.  

In addition, Billabong will retain the flagship Pro Junior event in Vic Bay in September as well as the Billabong Pro J-Bay ASP World Tour event in July.

“The Billabong Junior Series has always been an iconic part of the SA surf calendar so it certainly wasn’t an easy decision to give our event strategy a bit of a shake up. But we definitely see the need to broaden the scope and offer a more comprehensive calendar that assists at all levels of SA surfing. Of course there will be some negativity around the reduced number of Billabong Pro Junior events, but we are confident that this will be counter-balanced by the positivity that our other events will generate. We also understand that this negativity is driven more out of frustration with the lack of top level events in South Africa.

The current calendar is certainly lacking events from many key surf brands and the health of South Africa’s competitive surf scene is dependent on all companies involved in this industry locking in some events. If each brand does a little, we will have a great local calendar - one, which will help our young surfers build careers” says Peter Nicholson, Billabong’s National Sales and Marketing Manager.

With an event almost every month for the rest of the year, the details of each of Billabong’s events follow:

oBillabong SA Grommet Games – Date: 20-24 April. Venue: Port Elizabeth
oBillabong SA Surfing Champs – Date: 12-15 May. Venue: Eastern Cape
oBillabong Pro J-Bay 2011 – Date: 14-24 July. Venue: Jeffreys Bay.
oBad Billy’s Event #1 – Date: 13-14 August. Venue: KZN
oBillabong Pro Junior Vic Bay – Date: 1-4 September. Venue: Vic Bay.
oBad Billy’s Event #2 – Date: 5-6 November. Venue: Western Cape.
oBillabong Girls Get Out There – Date: December. Venue: South African Coastline.