In a recent post by SUPAA, the topic of professional athletes not being paid race winnings was addressed.

In the ensuing discussion of the article on the SUPAA facebook page (and at beaches and cofee shops around the country) comments similar to the following were made:

These types of discussions seem to suggest that SUP is little more than a leisure activity and raise the question “does the world need professional SUP athletes?”

On the surface it seem that the answer to that question could be “No – we do not need professional SUP athletes.” Without professional paddlers, the earth will spin, life will go on, Bruno Mars will continue to make unlistenable music,  and we can all still race our boards.

Considering the question of whether or not we need professional SUP athletes a little further, however, you may come to the conclusion that the answer is not that simple. What we believe we will demonstrate in this post is that every paddler on the planet ultimately benefits from the work of professional paddlers. We believe that we need professional paddlers for the sport to grow.

Reason 1: No professional athletes – no good SUP events.

There is a chicken and egg relationship between SUP event organizers and equipment vendors that goes something like this:

• To put on an SUP race, in many cases, race promoters need to attract sponsorship dollars  from vendors and manufacturers

• To justify sponsoring a race vendors and manufacturers need assurance that people will attend the race so they can advertise to them.

• To get people to the race race promoters need to put on a good show. That show involves attracting the best competition so winning the race means something.

• The easiest way to raise the level of competition (and attract spectators) at any event is to entice professional athletes to participate in the event.

In this scenario professional athletes  are critical to the success of any SUP event. For any amateur SUP race or surf athlete who wants to attend a race that is well organized and well supported you are indebted, at least a little, to the professional SUP athletes who compete in those events.

Part 2: Without professional athletes we would be stuck in 2005 paddling crummy boards and paddles

Professional athletes are an essential cog in the development and sales of new products.

• To stay in business manufacturers must sell products

• To sell products they need to advertise

• An easy way to advertise is to have someone win races or surf events on their products

• To enable professional athletes to win on their  products they need to keep developing their products and pushing the boundaries of their equipment.

Given this relationship between new equipment, manufacturers, and professional athletes, an argument can be made that the future development of our sport relies, at least in part,  on the success of professional SUP athletes.

Reason 3: We all need heroes

Call it silly. Call it cheezy. Maybe people are fundamentally flawed. Whatever your take, we all need heroes and heroes encourage future generations of paddlers to take up the sport.  For example, an 11 year old boy lives in my house. He recently watched each and every Kai lenny Red Bull video about 2 dozen times each.  He shared the videos with his friends. Those Kai Lenny videos encouraged him and his friends to pick up a paddle (and probably drink Red Bull). Kai made paddling cool.  Every paddle manufacturer, board manufacturer, leash and fin manufacturer whose products these kids will buy in the future directly benefit from the work Kai Lenny has done as a professional SUP athlete.

This effect is not limited to 11 year old boys. There is a reason that Kai’s videos have been viewed 150K+  times and Kai has 40k+ followers on Facebook and you or I don’t. We all need heroes, Becoming a hero takes time and money.

Reason 4: Professional athletes are a source of inspiration and knowledge

If you have ever had the opportunity to have a professional athlete drop in on your paddle training group you will witness something idiotic but unavoidable. What you will witness is that the level of paddling of the entire training group will be elevated compared to normal. Although the pros hate this effect (it is one reason why they often train solo) but tolerate it because they understand that professional athletes are a source of inspiration.

Even if you do not have any pros drop in on your training paddle, professional athletes inspire us as they set the bar higher and higher. They indirectly encourage us to paddle faster boards, surf smaller boards, and push our limits to paddle faster and farther. The past accomplishments of professional athletes encourage use to push ourselves because we know there is room for us to grow.

Professional athletes are also a source of knowledge.  We need to tap into their experience when we have questions about our training, surfing, and racing. If you have ever attended a paddle stroke clinic at your local race (if you haven’t you should) you directly benefitted from the experience of a professional athlete.

Conclusion:

The bottom line on all of this is that although it may seem like the world will go on without professional SUP athletes, it is our opinion that we all benefit from their hard work and the future success of SUP depends, at least in part, on their efforts. We “need” them and they should be encouraged and supported without any negativity in online forums. Professional athletes should not worry about getting paid their race winnings. Finally, event promoters  are encouraged to work toward creating a competitive  environment where events follow a standard set of rules so professional athletes can be judged on merit rather than random chance.

As one professional paddler (who is also waiting to get paid race winnings)  stated…

“You could ask if professional athletes are relevant in any sport.Why have professional golfers, surfers, snowboarders etc… in all of those sports, the sport would continue without having there be a professional side but how much more fun is it knowing that there are pros out there making it look really good. it gives us something to look forward to and to dream about. It allows young kids to dream of winning the masters, playing at Wimbledon or competing in The Pipe Masters. If there were no professionals setting an example and pushing the envelope, sports would be kind of boring.”