For those keen on SUP racing, there's a bunch of new info out about the 2012
Stand Up World Series... for those who don't care about racing, look away now.

The SUP World Series is being organised by the same crew that do the Stand Up
World Tour (...SUP World Tour = surfing, SUP World Series = racing).

Their main goals seem to be; to have one single World Champion, to increase
TV coverage of the sport, and to get professional events into areas where
there's a lot of paddlers but not a lot of races.

The main schedule got announced last week and final details should be out
by the end of January. But I was a bit impatient, so I went and got some more info...

* 16 races for the 2012 season (including last month's Fiji event). Though three
more stops could be added.

* Some events will be piggybacking on local races (eg. Naish Maui Paddle Challenge
in July), some will be entirely new events, and a couple will run alongside the SUP
World Tour surfing contests (France and California)

* Each event will have two races; a Knockout Surf Sprint and a Long Distance
race. Both races are on 12'6" boards (at least if you want ranking points). There will
be one overall winner at each event, based on combined results from the Surf Sprint
and Long Distance races.

* The first 15 races will act as a World Qualifying Series. The 16th and final race will
be the World Championship Finals (Oahu in October)

* The winner of the World Championship Finals will be the World Champion,
regardless of ranking during the season.

* There'll only be one men's and one women's World Champion. There won't be
separate champs for separate separate divisions, nor for the separate races.

* There'll be a Star System to separate the bigger events from the smaller
regional events. Similar to what the ASP use with surfing comps.

* Prize money will be minimum $5,000 (for the smaller events) up to
$20,000+ for the main events.

You can get more info here...

Stand Up World Series updates (prize money, points, and the one World Champion…) | SUPracer.com
www.supracer.com/stand-up-world-series-updates-prize-money-points-and-the-one-world-champion/

Sounds pretty cool. And if they achieve even half of what they're planning,
it's gonna be a big year.

Though there's already 3-4 different "World Champion" events for SUP, so it'll be
interesting to see if they can attract all the elite talent to the Finals in October.
And also whether or not this Series becomes the legitimate World Championship
event, or if we'll be stuck with a boxing style triangle of World Champs.

Yeah it's pretty cool to have a global series, so hopefully the
inaugural season is a success.

One of the goals of the whole thing is to move the SUP racing focus
away from just being on Southern California/Hawaii. Those spots will
still get their own events (and deservedly so), but the World Series
will have events in at least 10 different countries.

The Knockout Surf Sprint format sounds cool, though it's probably
the prize money that'll attract the elite guys at the end of the day.

As for the TV; they've signed up with one of the world's largest
distribution companies, so the coverage should be fairly decent.

And as for webcasts; I think they're only planning on streaming
two races for the inaugural season (the World Championship Final and
the California event). But that number should grow in 2013.

...and for those who haven't seen it, here's the calendar for the
2012 SUP World Series (2-3 more events might still be added).

Fiji: 13th – 18th November, (2011)
Chile: 17th – 18th February
Mexico: 9th – 11th March
Brazil: April
France: 5th – 6th May
Australia: 19th – 20th May
Chicago, USA: 16th – 17th June
Norway: 23rd – 24th June
Sweden: 14th – 15th July
Maui, Hawaii: 21st – 22nd July
Kauai, Hawaii: 3rd – 4th August
Oregon, USA: 18th – 19th August
Germany: 31st August – 2nd September
Florida, USA: 9th – 11th September
California, USA: 26th September – 3rd October
World Championship Finals, North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii: 12th – 14th October

www.supracer.com/2012-stand-up-world-series-schedule-announced/