How Surfers Get Paid Season 2, Episode 2

Over the decade that we’ve done the Stab Rich List, we’ve seen surfboard sponsorships go from six-figure to zero-dollar deals.

The goal of this How Surfers Get Paid episode is to investigate how contemporary surfboard sponsorship works between the best shapers and surfers in the world. 

Interestingly, in Stab in the Dark, a smaller-scale shaper has never tasted victory. Plenty of final finishes from the likes of Pukas, Chilli and LSD, but in nine years, no small- or mid-sized brand has won over the big dogs: Matt Biolos, Britt Merrick, Marcio Zouvi, Darren Handley and Jon Pyzel.

It’s remarkable that year in and year-out, these names rise to the top. Also remarkable is that almost every big-name surfer ends up on a top-tier shaper’s boards. 

Speaking of which, there are a tonne of fascinating characters who run the behind the scenes of the surf industry. John Florence’s production company, Parallel Sea, is headed up by a gent named Spencer Klein. (Spencer’s a super smart guy who recently talked us through a WSL Finals strategy that we’re trying to convince him to publish for us.) Anyway, when we were licensing footage of John Florence and Jon Pyzel for this episode, we shared an early cut with Spencer. His response: “I’ve always felt like DH/ Biolos/ Pyzel were local incarnations of the same soul…  like their differences in board shapes were microcosmic of their personalities — so many similarities, but discernible and shaped by the environment in which they grew.”

We were racing to get this episode out before the WSL Finals. When John Florence failed to make the top five in Tahiti, we pushed back the episode and changed up the ending thanks to a last-minute starring role by Channel Islands’ Britt Merrick.

A small round of applause is due to our talent. None more so than Jack Freestone. Jack was very good-humoured about his previous relationship with Darren Handley and Jon Pyzel, which was a major unlock of storylines in this episode. 

Similar to our approach in the Twiggy episode, we’ve allowed the shapers’ narratives more time and space to evolve within the context of performance shortboards. And, given the popularity of the alternative surfboard, we’ve separated that into its own episode that we’ll craft and feature down the track.