Writer/Former Professional Surfer
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Adriano De Souza Brazilian Surfer Champion

Success sure has accompanied the Brazilian charge in professional surfing. But at what price? Photo: ASP/Kirstin


The Inertia

Since Medina and other Brazilian surfers from his generation established Brazil as one of the major surfing nations in professional surfing’s competitive realm, the Brazilian Storm phenomena has filled the hearts of our fellow countrymen and surfing enthusiasts with pride and joy.

Back in the day, Fabio Gouveia, Picuruta Salazar, Peterson Rosa, Neco Padaratz and many others introduced Brazilian surfing to the world and paved the road for a future generation. Those guys announced that a few things would change, even though they were not very popular outside our country to say the least.

Nowadays, we enjoy a successful period even though we still have to struggle with prejudice every now and then. Brazilian surfers are getting published in all kinds of surfing magazines around the world. Adriano, Medina and others are considered contenders for a World Title very often, even by the international press, and when we look at the World Rankings from the past five years, there’s at least one surfer waving our green and yellow flag among the Top Ten.

What I mean is, we Brazilians are living out one of our best moments in professional surfing. Our top surfers are getting good international feedback most of the time. Some of them have signed very healthy contracts with big international action sports brands. And a small group, like Alejo Muniz, Adriano de Souza, and Gabriel Medina, recently broke out of the surfing industry to get sponsored by soccer teams and soft drink manufacturers.

“Wow, what a great time to be a Brazilian surfer,” you would say. But unfortunately, Brazil is still a tough environment for both pro surfers and surfing professionals if not tougher than it was before. We might be going through one of the roughest times in our brief, but wealthy, economic surfing history.

Let me tell you a few things that you might not know about the way things are in the surfing business around here. From the working-class point of view, I might add.

The recognition from “the rest of the world,” something we desired for so long, took our perspectives to another level. That’s a fact. Ten years ago, if you said that a Brazilian athlete would be making more than $100k a year from an international sponsor, many people would’ve laughed. Especially Brazilians.

Now we know that the top guys are making more than that. Even though real numbers are never revealed in the media, backstage a lot of people know exactly how much those guys make. It’s great to see it happening and they deserve everything they’re getting in return because to succeed as a sportsman in our country is a task that most people raised in “developed countries” can’t even grasp.

If things are finally working out for our top athletes, our local surfing industry chiefs have all kinds of reasons to celebrate. Well, to make a long story short, let me put it this way: the guys that started out making bootleg trunks and homemade wetsuits less than thirty years ago now own multi-million-dollar companies and are responsible for establishing every single international brand that looks for a share of the thirsty Brazilian market.

There are surf shop franchises with more than 30 stores around the country and every single big international company has commercial activity here. The same guys that started Brazilian surf brands years ago now take care of the local operations of the biggest names in the international surfing industry.

So yes, they’re all smiles.

Brazil became one of the most important markets in the surfing world, maybe the most profitable in the last five years. But there’s a side effect to that.

While observing and being part of the proletariat (and by that I mean, pro surfers, photographers, journalists, etc), it becomes clear that we are facing serious problems to be surfing professionals here. Some like to blame it upon the recession that’s striking all over the globe, but looking from the people-that-keep-the-show-running’s perspective, it becomes clear that it’s a matter of ideology and character.

A positive line of thinking that has held our surfing working class together is now ruining it. The expression, “it is going to get better soon,” is now being replaced by, “I can’t take it anymore”. For years and years, we got used to working and getting paid with clothes or no payment at all (ask Brazilian photographers and video makers, they’ll tell you the most unbelievable job offers). In a way, we did it because we used to believe the hype. It was clear to us that our surfing industry had to be built and profit was not available for everyone.

But things have changed, right? Not for everyone.

Raoni Monteiro is the perfect example of what’s going on with pro surfing around here. Amazing surfer, outstanding results, but no logos on his board. And worse, no salary. Brazilian brands turn their backs pretending it’s not their problem while international companies doing business in Brazil say that they don’t need local surfers. Their international all-star surf team can sell t-shirts and wetsuits anywhere.

Like Raoni, many good surfers can’t make ends meet. We’re back to the 80s–selling clothes that sponsors give out like pocket change to pay for entry fees and plane tickets. Magazine editors are struggling to sell ads and keep their publications alive. Photographers depend on family and friends to be able to travel and work. You would think that the Brazilian Storm thing and an open market would be good for everyone, but unfortunately, it’s not working that way.

While a minority enjoys a situation that seemed utopian years ago (well deserved, I have to say), most part of the people that hold it all together are struggling to find a way to keep going. Success and good results should be celebrated. And hard work pays off. But the main issue here is the professional situation of those that legitimize the so-called “surfing lifestyle that is widely announced by companies everywhere.

If there is a crisis in the surfing industry in Brazil right now, it is in fact an ideological crisis. There is an alarming lack of compromise towards surfers and the people that work on a daily basis to keep it real.

Pointing fingers is not the best way to solve this, I suppose. But I’m sure that bringing subjects like this to light will definitely help to find sustainable solutions. I believe that responsibility lies within everyone involved and the capability to change this scenario is proportional to the level of influence that each one of us has.

Surfers, influential businessmen, and all kinds of surfing professionals should be aware of their responsibilities within the current spot that they hold in the industry right now.

While we watch the “storm” passing by, we are almost numbed by our success. The public is blindfolded by good competitive results and all the hype created around a group of talented and hard-working Brazilian surfers. They are now part of an international agenda outshining the real situation of a country that is profitable but miserable at the same time.

One question comes to my mind every time I think about our current situation: once the storm is over, what will we have left?

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