A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

Professional surfing, originally defined almost exclusively in terms of prize-money surf contests, is often said to have two starting points: 1965 and 1976. The 1965 Tom Morey Invitational, held in Ventura, featured a $1,500 purse— gathered largely from the $50 per surfer entry fee—and was the first in a small, unconnected series of prize-money events held in California, Hawaii, Peru, and South Africa. Contests that followed included the 1966 Swami's Pro-Am ($500), the 1966 U.S. Professional Surfing Championships ($5,000), the 1968 Duke Kahanamoku Classic ($1,000), the 1969 Peru International ($1000), the 1969 Smirnoff Pro ($4,350), and the 1970 Gunston 500 ($720). Pro contests disappeared from California in 1970, but continued in Hawaii and South Africa.

Australia's first significant pro event was the 1973 Rip Curl Pro, held at Bells Beach, Victoria. The first pro women's contest was held in Hawaii in 1974. Although sales from signature model surfboards technically created a low-paying professional class of surfer in the mid-'60s, royalties generally weren't included in discussions on pro surfing. In 1969, gig-wave surfer Fred Van Dyke, along with Honolulu financier Ron Sorrell, tried to get a pro surfing circuit up and running—going so far as to incorporate the International Professional Surfers Association—but the effort failed.

"Professionalism" by that time had become the sport's most contentious topic. Supporters claimed that money events would "legitimize" the sport, while purists argued that cash prizes debased an activity that was uniquely free and natural. Fred Hemmings of Hawaii, the 1968 world champion, was the most active supporter of pro surfing, envisioning a time when money contests would be "seen by millions on television," help "project a clean, healthy image for the sport," and "vastly increase the advancement of surfing techniques." Naysayers included Santa Cruz surfer John Scott, who wrote that pro surfers "exchange their wild freedom for wave limits, time limits, area, age and sex limits . . . all for a token benefit." Top surfers themselves had mixed feelings about pro contests. Hawaii's Bill Hamilton cashed checks worth a combined $1,500 for his runner-up finishes in the 1971 Duke and Smirnoff events, just a few months after telling 

 magazine that "surfing should not fit into contests, and contests should not fit into surfing."

There was no such thing as a fully professional surfer in the early and mid-'70s; most pros moonlighted by designing and building surfboards.

Professional surfing coalesced in 1976, when Hemmings and fellow Hawaiian Randy Rarick spearheaded the formation of the International Professional Surfers (IPS) world tour, bringing together 14 previously unassociated men's-only pro contests into what was sometimes referred to as a "grand prix" circuit. Australia's Peter Townend became the 1976 IPS world champion; adding his prize money to his sponsorship income, he earned just over $25,000 for the year—barely enough to cover travel costs. Aggregate prize money for the 1976 IPS circuit was $77,650. The Australian Professional Surfing Association, created one year before IPS, ran a similarly formatted domestic tour in 1975; under the guidance of pro surfer Patti Paniccia, the IPS added a women's division in 1977. The short-lived Beachcomber Bill's Grand Prix tour, which virtually mirrored the IPS tour, was founded in late 1976.

The Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) replaced IPS in 1982; the World Surf League, in turn, replaced ASP in 2015. Over the years, as the circuit grew, professionalism became an accepted fact of surfing, with an elite number of surfers earning a living solely through prize-money winnings and sponsorship deals. The combined worth of the men's and women's world pro circuits rose from $218,400 (1980), to $2,145,000 (1990), to $3,967,300 (2000), to $8,811,000 (2016).

By 2000, nearly a dozen domestic pro tours were operating around the world; pro events were regularly held for longboarders and bodyboarders, and occasionally kneeboarders, bodysurfers, and skimboarders.

Contest promoters also created specialty prizemoney events for big-wave surfing (the Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau), tuberiding (the Tavarua Tuberiding Classic), and for the biggest photographed wave of the year (the K2 Big-Wave Challenge; later called the XXL Big Wave Awards). Some pro contests were held in exotic locations, such as the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia or the Western Australian desert, without spectators, and presented to the surf world via surf magazines, TV shows, and videotaped specials. Others were held in front of tens of thousands of beachside onlookers at places like Huntington Beach and Rio de Janeiro.

Meanwhile, the surf industry—particularly beachwear manufacturers—had long since replaced the contest circuit as the pro surfer's primary source of income. Australian goofyfooter and two-time world champion Tom Carroll became the first million-dollar surfer in 1988 after signing a five-year deal with surfwear giant Quiksilver; six-time world champion Kelly Slater of Florida was thought to be earning a million dollars a year from Quiksilver by 1995. By the late '80s there were also small but growing cadres of "big-wave pros" and "travel pros," paid by their sponsors not to compete, but to ride giant waves, or to travel in search of exotic breaks.

Beginning in the '90s, top-ranked amateur surfers were in fact pros, as they received money from contests and sponsors, usually in the form of contributions to the surfer's "travel fund." But the number of professional surfers overall remained small. It was estimated that about 2,500 people worldwide were paid a monthly retainer of some kind to ride waves in 2002, with fewer than 200 of those earning more than $25,000 a year, and about 20 making over $100,000.

In 2016, John John Florence of Hawaii was the best-paid male pro surfer, with an estimated income of $4 million dollars, most of which came from sponsor deals. Stephanie Gilmore of Australia was the top female earner for the year, with an estimated $1.5 million.

Professional surfing's impact on the sport, meanwhile, has has been difficult to measure. Advances in equipment and wave-riding technique have likely been accelerated by having a paid class of surfers, although commensurate advances were made in the decades before pro surfing. Indifference seems to be today's main response to professionalism. "The thing to remember about Kelly Slater's million bucks a year," former world champion Nat Young said in 1996, "is that the vast majority of people who surf don't give a shit if he gets it or not."

professional surfing

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests