Is Competitive Surfing Profitable?

The World Surf League has reportedly been operating at a 30 million dollar loss, according to Stab Magazine insiders. The League is primarily funded through sponsorship deals. However, the WSL hasn’t been able to attract any major sponsors, who are willing to contribute major dollars to the World Tour. The estimated cost to run a full World Tour season, which consists of 11 events taking place in different areas of the world, is 45 million dollars. This price tag includes wages, logistics and webcasting costs. The non-profitability of the World Surf League is mainly due to a deal falling apart with Red Bull. Red Bull was supposed to become the title sponsor of the World Tour, as well as, receive media rights and be involved in a network television deal with NBC sports, starting in 2015. Unfortunately, this deal never went through because of faulty business practices on the WSL’s behalf. This cost the league a reported, 25 million dollar title sponsor and arguably many more sponsors who would have jumped on board after realizing a company like Red Bull was backing the league. The deterioration of the Red Bull deal stained the league’s reputation and they were only able to land minor sponsorship deals that weren’t enough to cover their major costs. They did manage to ink a naming rights deal with Samsung, but that deal only costs Samsung a measly 1 million dollars per year. Hopefully, viewership keeps increasing and the WSL can attract bigger sponsors to keep the sport of surfing alive, but for now the league is in limbo.