The WSL says its viewership is booming. (Photo by Manel Geada/World Surf League)
Viewership numbers are a brand’s key to making sponsors happy. But they’re usually closely guarded, saved only for clandestine sales decks to fish for more revenue.
Apparently, the World Surf League (WSL) was so happy with their 2025 viewership numbers that they decided to unveil them to the world — the most comprehensive such global statistics that I can recall them disclosing, at least in recent memory.
In a press release, the WSL said its competitions reached 80 million people across linear (scheduled TV) and digital in 2025, according to data from Nielsen, a media measurement company. The fans, roughly the size of Germany’s entire population, watched WSL content for 20.3 million hours, an increase of 19 percent from 2024. Three-quarters of fans watched the content live, while 25 percent replayed the streams.
They said, on average, 2.5 million people tuned into each event. The CT Finals — in its last season before reverting to a cumulative points ranking — was the pinnacle of viewership with 45 million people tuning in. The webcast stream audience increased by 17 percent year over year, the biggest area of consumption growth.
Finally, WSL boasted that their social media posts generated 1.5 billion impressions (an impression counts every time a piece of content is displayed to a user, regardless of the number of users), a 46 percent increase from 2024. WSL’s social media garnered 849 million views, a 31 percent increase, and its YouTube grew its subscribers by 28 percent (now at 1.38 million).
The WSL’s main social media accounts have healthy followings of 4.1 million on Instagram, 7.5 million on Facebook, 2.4 million on TikTok, and 1.8 million on X (formerly Twitter). They also have separate Portuguese-language accounts for the Brazilian audience.
WSL CEO Ryan Crosby said the growth signals future opportunity.
“Our audience is not only expanding; it’s engaging longer, sharing more, and returning event after event with even greater passion,” he said. “With the 2026 season now underway, the WSL builds on its most comprehensive year of audience and distribution growth and elevating the sport to new heights on the global stage.”
So, why did the WSL release such detailed information? Is this a new era of transparency? Is this a mating call to potential sponsors? Is it a counterpunch to the ISA allegedly not including them in the Olympic qualification system negotiations?
Notably absent from the viewership numbers were any financial figures, which the WSL doesn’t have to release as a private company. But who knows, maybe this is the year professional surfing becomes profitable.
