Pro Surfers make their living from an assortment of ways. If they surf on the ASP tour, then they have earnings that come in from competing. Pro Surfers both on and off of the tour also earn a living through product sponsorships. Some are sponsored with boards… some also have clothing sponsors… some have an optic sponsorship… some shoes…. some energy drinks…. now headphones have come into play with Skullcandy. Surfboards have become similar to NASCAR cars. Decals of sponsors strategically placed. If that surfer is capture on film in a magazine with that sponsor’s sticker showing then they would be paid for that exposure.
The hotter you are will usually equate to more sponsorships… larger contract values… etc.. But, what equates to a surfer’s ‘hotness’? Lewis Samuels ran Power Rankings that included all sorts of measures to assign a ‘value’ to a surfer. But, has anyone ever tried to equate a ‘Dollar’ value to a pro surfer? Would you give bonus points to how many contests he’s won? How many films he’s appeared in? How many surf magazine covers he’s scored???
We have taken the time to do some research with an idea. That idea is based on news. That’s right…. N E W S… What’s a surfers’ ‘News Value’. Searching each pro surfers’ name over the net for all news articles that the specific surfer has appeared in during 2010. I know we are only halfway through the year but it is just an idea that we wanted to research. We have assigned a dollar value of $100 for each article credited to each surfer. Example: If a Joe Surfer has appeared in 12 articles during 2010, his News Value would be a meager $1200.
News articles are driven from many different reasons. Winning a contest… PR for a new movie… Accidentially slinging around racial slurs… Injury… Some are driven by their sponsors… some by their agent/managers… If your value is on the lower end then I guess you should be asking yourself… what is your sponsor doing for you? Or, what is your team doing for you? Or maybe even, what are YOU doing for YOU!
So here we go…
Kelly Slater = $106,000
Mick Fanning = $56,200
Taj Burrow = $34,000
Joel Parkinson = $32,100
Jordy Smith = $26,200
Andy Irons = $23,800
Adriano de Souza = $20,600
Dane Reynolds = $18,000
CJ Hobgood = $16,300
Bobby Martinez = $15,100
Damo Hobgood = $11,000
Bede Durbridge = $10,600
Taylor Knox = $8,000
Rob Machado = $7,800
Jadson Andre = $6,800
Jeremy Flores = $6,100
Bruce Irons = $5,500
Cory Lopez = $5,400
Julian Wilson = $5,100
Clay Marzo = $4,100
Jamie O’Brien = $3,900
Freddie Patacchia = $3,600
Shaun Tomson = $2,000
Makua Rothman = $1,800
Wayne Bartholomew = $1,200
Mark Healy = $800
Reef McIntosh = $300
Tony Hawk = $127,000
Rob Dyrdek = $6,100
Mel Gibson = $941,000
Jeffrey Dahmer = $16,100
Eric Clapton = $568,000
Lindsay Lohan = $1,560,000
Travis Pastrana = $29,300
Charles Manson = $131,000
i like it. but expand it to include other surfers. i know a few that would get more then what you have above.