Revered economist deduces there are approximately 720,000 professional surfers on earth!

Too many.

David Lee Scales and I get together every single week for a lively chat, an occurrence which with, I think, you are familiar. There are no topics off limits. We banter about men who prefer to ride shotgun instead of driving, whether a shopping cart should be returned after usage, the appropriate way for a man to urinate at home and, occasionally surfing. Quickly, did you know the Germans have a word for men who prefer to sit while taking care of urinating? They do. Sitzpinkler. How good is that?

In any case, on today’s episode number 235, a revered economist emailed with a shocking bit of information. He had been trying to discern while the surf industry is failing so hard, the World Surf League selling its offices, all the big surf brands being bunched into one and sold, etc., and he deduced that there are simply too many professional surfers.

720,000 to be exact.

An astonishing number and though he did not provide his research, it stands to reason. The more I thought about his assessment, anyhow, the more I found myself agreeing. No sport or pastime on earth can survive such a crushing amount of professionals. Tennis, for example, has 3500 professionals.

Eating has 50.

Now, surfing, as a competitive profession, should not be encouraged at all. Qualifying tours, ISAs, juniors etc. all stink. They are not enjoyable to watch, nor enjoyable to participate in, I’d imagine. They take way too long, are usually held in embarrassing surf and the prize money has not increased for years.

Parents who instill competitive professional surfing dreams in their young children should be prosecuted for abuse.

Surfing as a YouTube profession should, likewise, not be encouraged. Not that all “content creators” must go away immediately, we just don’t need anymore for a very long time and inspiring young children to pursue the influencer life is equally troubling.

I figure if we can get the number of professional surfers down to a manageable 30, we’d right this ship and quickly.

Happy days here again.

What do you think?

David Lee Scales and I, anyhow, also discussed Stab doing Jack Freestone dirty. Having not watched the How Surfers Get Paid drop, I had no idea that the premium surf blog actually pulled the old using-answers-for-one-question-for-another-question-that-was-never-asked-because-of-fear trick.

Rude!

You can listen and enjoy here. Share it with your children, in fact, and reduce the number of future professional surfers by however many you have.