Givers and Takers

Every year, sponsorship contracts run out. Some might reach the end of a five-year duration. Others might’ve just been a 12-month partnership. Your friends at Stab have heard a whisper or two. We dug a little deeper. A lot of talks never eventuate into the penning of ink. Sometimes they do. A few who didn’t? Kolohe Andino received an offer to return to Billabong but likes his current digs too much. Kolohe still gots swooshes in his eyes, for now and for another 10 years. Probably. Kai Otton ain’t leaving Insight, according to him. Stab was told that the curly-haired WT wildcard had flipped over to Reef, head to toe. But… “Nah, there’s no validity to that,” Kai told Stab. So, is he staying at Insight? “At this stage, yeah.” Another goofyfooter, Matt Wilkinson, had Volcom blazing after him earlier in the year, but the company lost interest as the year went on. “We’ve been hearing that rumour a lot, too,” says a Volcom insider. “He’s not riding for us.” And Wilko wasn’t the only Rip Curl teamer with outside interest. Another industry insider told us that Mick Fanning was being courted by Hurley but, in the end, he re-signed with Rip Curl for another five years.

So, what about talks that did come to fruition? Compared to Jules’ Nike swap, this year was a little less cray. Noa Deane, a Cooly kid we’ve recently come to dig, walked outta head-to-toe Oakley and into Rusty. Now, a Preisendorfer under his feet and an ‘R’ on his teo. Oh, and another killer junior, Luke Davis, has gone from O’Neill to Reef. The Cali nu-romantic will join the likes of Paul Fisher on the footwear company’s head-to-toe roster.