Surf Exposure-Meter: January 2009

josh hunter

• February 11 2009
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Somewhere there’s a fat lady singing her heart out right now. the 2008 Surf Exposure-Meter race is over, and Jordy Smith has claimed his first title. Smith offiically outscored his closest competitor by 2,175 points.

One interesting trend is that it seems to take fewer points to win a title these days. Smith won this year with 54,325 points. In 2007, however, it took Slater 56,750 points to clinch the win. Flash back another year to 2006, and Bruce Irons scored 90,700 for the win. In fact, the all-time high score went to Andy Irons in 2004, when he racked up 96,775 points. That means four years ago the leading scorer posted 42,450 more points than this year. That’ a considerable disparity.

Could this be a reflection of the economy, fewer pages published, and fewer ads purchased? Or, are there simply more surfers fighting for points?

The answer is, well, both. While surf magazines have not been impervious to the economy, the biggest change in the landscape of surf-athlete exposure over the past few years has been an influx of fresh talent.

Aside from the twenty-year-old Smith taking the 2008 crown, other young surfers like Clay Marzo, Julian Wilson, Kolohe Andino, dusty Payne, and Eric Geiselmann all finished in the top 25 in 2008. It’s far from a total changing of the guard - Bruce and Andy Irons, Kelly Slater and Taj Burrow all finished in the top ten - but there has definitely been an insurgent force from young surfers over the past few years.

next year is a clean slate, an empty canvas, a new beginning. So make sure not to miss the season opener in the next issue of TransWorld Business. Check out the entire year-end Surf Exposure-Meter, reflecting January through December 2008 tallies, HERE.