Surfline\Wavetrak, Inc. announced that it has joined forces with LiveHeats, Pty Ltd. to acquire the exclusive, global rights to Live Heat’s virtual competitions platform, Clippero. 

The Clippero platform allows users to run, enter, and judge online video challenges and competitions within their community using interactive judging, scoring, and leaderboards.

Surfline plans to use Clippero’s tech in an events platform for both surf park and ocean-based events. The events platform will be supported by Surfline’s recently launched Surf Park Sessions and videos derived from its network of ocean cameras via its original Sessions launch back in 2019. The company has already partnered with numerous wave pools, and will also be upgrading key locations in its ocean cameras network to deliver enhanced video footage.

“We’re excited with what the platform can do for ocean events, but surf parks bring a new level of possibilities to video competitions,” said Pete Jozsi, Vice President of Wave Venues at Surfline. “When you combine the reproducible nature of surf park waves with great multi-angle footage from a platform like Surf Park Sessions, virtual competitions provide a pretty amazing channel to engage an audience without the restrains of geography or time.”

Pete said the setup is uniquely poised to connect activity across the communities of surf basins globally.

“Whether it’s Bristol or Urbnsurf or anywhere else, this will allow some nice cross talk within park communities and between venues,” said Pete. “It’s a fun, exciting tie into our Surf Park Sessions platform, but doesn’t require it. You can use video from any source, but standardized, HD footage makes competitions easier to run.”

Applications for the platform include inter- and intra-surf park club challenges, group surf contests among friends, and social media comps, to name a few.
 
Surfline’s execution of a perpetual licensing agreement with LiveHeats Pty Ltd, will allow for the company to focus on its real-life competition management, live scoring, and athlete data platform that is used by hundreds of action sports competition organizers, and more than 150,00 athletes globally. 

“Virtual video-based competitions have such a huge potential to engage audiences, irrespective of the athlete or fan’s location” said Chris Friend, CEO of LiveHeats, “Surfline is the perfect platform to roll out virtual competitions with their suite of personalized video tools – it’s going to be amazing to see virtual events and leaderboards added to the Surf Park Sessions experience with our technology.”