Absolutely agree and the chopped 125 clip is always a good watch for inspiration.
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Itâs all financial reasons. Sure, some gear is better than others. But if a brand is willing to pay you $60k+ a year, youâre going to ride that brands gear no matter what.
Look at Code losing riders. Pretty sure we can all agree code makes good gear. But riders are now leaving code to go get a paycheck. You canât blame them for doing that. There is a limited amount of time before the foil industry implodes and all these brands disappear. So the rider has to take what they can while they can get it. Efoil companies no doubt have the biggest pockets.
Weâre all grown men right? Would you sign a year contract for 2 full setups? That doesnât really seem worth it to me as someone with a full time job.
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Eric is obviously one of the best and agree that clip is a true classic.
To run down the tangent of talking about sponsors: I would be very interested in seeing one of their contracts. Back in the 2000âs WSL surfers had $100-200k contracts with the big surf brands that was basically the peak of extreme sports contracts, aside from one-offs like Kelly and Shawn White etc, because the clothing was so lucrative (low quality cotton clothes produced in asia and sold at 20x for the branding to Americans). Sponsorships are so bad now due to the collapse of the surf clothing industry that pro surfers now are forced to become youtubers to make a living.
I cannot imagine how small foil surf sponsorship contracts are. Probably $10k or less. Adam B has a millionaire business wife so he does whatever he wants, Eric has surfing contracts and a low-cost lifestyle, noone is making a real living with pro foil surf contracts. At least thatâs my theory.
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Yeh Iâve been thinking along the same lines. Foiling is always going to be niche and now that gear improvements are small gains rather than the (I hate this phrase) âgame changersâ of 3 years or so ago, it would make sense to slow down on the releases to prolong the industry a bit. My hope as someone who enjoys Uni is that the DTC model will allow long term survival - as small, cost effective batches can be done according to demand.
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I have not seen any pro level contracts myself. I have heard 4th hand through coconut wireless and coconut whatsappâs that the top contracts are much closer to 100K than 10K. When you add up several sponsors for one person then you get more of the guys hitting $100k US.
Iâm not saying these guys earn this. Iâm speculating here. I would imagine that top level of rider is someone like Adam, Eric, Noah Flegel, Edo, Alex Hayes, Cash Berzolla.
The guys who can cobble together several brand deals and hit that range would be guys like Jack Ho, Oscar, Ku, Guy Bridge, Tom Constant
Follow the money though. You have Edo leaving F-one to ride for a brand that has no DW foil, right before Hawaii race season. He was a sponsored athlete while in school, then finished school and had to get a real job selling commercial real estate. He wants to go back to athlete, so he starts a coaching course and switches to a new brand. Money had to have been involved there.
You have Jarrod Snow who was having great success at Code and seemed to get along great with the team, leave Code for someone else mid DW season. Why else would he leave mid season except for money?
Good on the guys that get paid to do a sport.
I have seen some of the smaller contracts for local ambassador type riders and they are full of instagram post obligations, social media requirements etc. No money involved in those though. Just a setup or two.
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I was originally gonna say they should offer some sort of equity to a rider like Eric to keep him on but what do I know⌠If he helped them design the progressions, that was basically their bread and butter. He coulda easily kept pumping out the vids and gotten more involved in growing the brand. Of course I dont know squat about what goes on behind closed door sponsorships⌠Im just another beginner foiler.
Werâe all watching all these foil hype clips trying to decide which brand offers the best secret sauce lol. Its probably more like mtbs tho. A Santa Cruz mtb isnt gonna make you ride any better than a Dengfu but people still fork out 5x more for Santa Cruz⌠something like that. So the diff between Code/F4/Uni could exist but at most skill level we wont be able to capitalize on it nearly as much as these guys⌠Now Im rambling⌠Yeah Eric still has great style and the only foiler Ive seen that uses his s turns as a way of moving thru the water. Would be cool to see him foil in Aussie power conditions
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heh. This is a confusing statement due to the name. Eric G just rode for Unifoil. Erik who owns these forums and the progression project podcast was the one who helped design the progression foils. Not sure if you are putting that together or not. 
Iâd imagine that Erik does actually have a stake in Unifoil at this point.
Damn, Adam B seems like he has won in life, dude has got it all!!
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I think we have all won⌠Foiling!
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On a 3 year old foil with the tips chopped off⌠I watch this video whenever i start to think my foiling skills deserve the latest surf foil.
Hereâs another one where he absolutely rips on a rather large 170 Progression. https://youtu.be/qpSHFwkm80A?si=C5RMRbPsRbExDV0R
man that is a rad one I hadndât seen. somehow seriously doubting that itâs the 170 (someone in the comments too..) the dims at the end in the video, but those turns are too fast for a 170 surelyâ
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I think thereâs a mix of full sponsorships that are happening:
- Flat salary - $X per year to ride for us, use your likeness, get gear, etc
- Content shoot - athlete proposes a trip with $X budget to cover their costs and then a licensing agreement for brands to use the content
Jack Ho and Dane Wilson hit on this a bit I believe on Generic foiling podcasts
Whichever way you look at it, the glory days of just surfing and a photographer following you around to send pics to the mag are long gone due to Social media.
Seems appropriate to the discussion. 
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He has joined 2 sessions together in that clip. Donât think he is riding the 170 prog.
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I ride flite and have foiled with EG multiple times. Guy is a fucking wizard and the nicest human. I will say the gear is a level above for his style of riding I switched from code and my group has mentioned I am foiling much more aggressive. The problem is when you foil with EG it downs seem possible what honor Adam can do
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Josh, Adam, Oskar and seemingly many others with the orange waterproof drone promo, how much do they get for that I wonder? clearly the best money in the foil industry 
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Iâd imagine just a free drone.
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After seeing Josh Kuâs video of the drone almost hitting him because of how low and close it flies⌠Iâd wait for the next generation haha
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Hahaha definitely saw that too. Yeah kinda sketchy all those videos dropped the same day. Too much marketing hype turns me off these daysâŚ
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Like the Foildrive mini pod - every shop, pro and their dog worshipping a piece of plastic on the same day.
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