Surfing Has Just Become The Official Sport Of California
States like to have their “official” things on record, and California can add surfing as our “official sport,” thanks to a bill signed into law yesterday.
By nowproducerdave on August 21, 2018
We’ve got great skiing, some good road racing, we love our baseball, and there are some good football rivalries here too. But surfing has just become the official sport of California, thanks to a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday.
We told you back in January that this might happen, and it just did. Sure it took 8 months, but whatever, we knew there’d be a process. Governor Jerry Brown signed it yesterday, and talked about how big surfing is here in the state. The bill does talk about surfing’s origin, giving credit to the Polynesian people. It also added that it really came here thanks to Hawaii.
We have contributed a ton of great things into the sport though. For one, we’ve got great water off the coast for surfing. I mean, look at the Mavericks Big Wave Surf contest. El Granada, just south of the city is where that happens, here in Northern California. Not to mention all the other surf contests held up and down the coast. Technology-wise, we invented the wetsuit here in the Golden State. A lot of surfboards are made here, and there were a lot of breakthrough designs and research done here too. Surf forecasting was fine-tuned here, too.
Surfing also brings somewhere around $6 billion, with a “B,” in tourism money into our state every year. It’s a seriously big deal, and it does seem right that we name it our official sport of California. Do you surf? When was the last time you got on a board? See some more info about the bill our Governor signed here.
