SSL is aiming to be a brand new opportunity for Australian pros. Photo: Super Surf League
When it comes to competitive surfing, the WSL is the big dog. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for some competition, and a new Australian surf league is aiming to provide just that.
In an announcement released today, the Surfing Super League (SSL) announced that its new team-based competition (à la the X Games League) will take place across eight summer weekends on Australia’s East Coast, beginning in Summer 2028.
The new league will feature a team format with 48 players across eight teams of six. Each team will consist of four men and two women, consisting of “Australian surfing royalty,” current elite competitors, one international or out-of-market star per team, and freesurfers.
The announcement also specified that men and women will all earn the same salary: $89,000 a person for the eight-week season.
The actual competition is designed to be a frenetic format with constant action. On game day, each team will field three men and one woman. Over the course of two 40-minute halves, teams will relay in and out of the water. At the end of each half, one surfer will get a second run on a single scoring wave. If a team fails to cross the finish line by time the clock runs down, they will be penalized.
“We built this league so an Australian kid can make a career in surfing without leaving the country, and so the surfers who shaped this culture are finally paid like the professional athletes they are – every athlete on exactly the same terms,” said Chris Mater, founder and CEO of the Surfing Super League. “We are producing surfing with the visual intensity of Formula 1 and the storytelling of the NRL. For 50 years some of our best surfers have had nowhere at home to do this for a living. That ends here.”
Though the actual event wont take place until 2028, the inaugural player draft will runs from April to July 2027.
