Ian Walsh at Killers, Todos Santos Island. Fred Pompermayer//Red Bull Content Pool
Does a sport lose legitimacy if it doesn’t crown a world champion? According to decorated big wave surfer Nic Lamb, that is indeed the case in big wave surfing, which hasn’t crowned true champions since 2018.
“We must be able to see who’s the best (big wave surfer),” Lamb told me in an email exchange.
At the beginning of summer, new social media accounts were quietly created under the name “Big Wave Alliance.” And then more recently, the group launched a website (with several broken links) and began to divulge its plans to bypass the WSL Big Wave Tour (BWT) – which has been quasi-defunct since 2018 – and launch a new platform to determine who the best big wave surfers are in the world.
The new tour is the brainchild of Gary Linden – the former ASP President, big wave charger, shaper, judge, and founder of the BWT (which was acquired by the WSL in 2014). Linden is working closely with big wave surfer Freddy Olander to create a tour that unites existing big wave events to filter qualifiers into a single championship event.
The idea is to have six events that maintain independence, but if they can’t run due to conditions, the events can feed surfers into the final event via previous results or however they deem worthy. It’s the ultimate laissez-faire approach to a surf tour.
As mentioned, the BWT was founded and run by Linden in 2009 until it was acquired by the WSL in 2014. The WSL kept Linden on board, hiring him as the vice president. The tour ran under the WSL to varying degrees until 2018 when it sputtered out and hasn’t fully run since. The WSL took an approach of elevating and growing the tour through heavy investment in the events and broadcasts. But Linden wants to take it the other direction, to the core big wave community with significantly less financial pressure and risk.
“You have to start at a grassroots level and let things grow organically,” Linden told me on a phone call. “We can’t just try and elevate something to a level that proves to be unsustainable. It has to grow sustainably till it gets to the level that you envision at the end.”
“When the WSL took over the Big Wave Tour from me, we were at a sustainable level that was about 10 times lower than what the WSL tried to create – without any prior attempt at funding that level,” added Linden. “They were never able to do it. They had some difficulty in calling the events, so a lot of the events never ran, and that didn’t help them find sponsorship.”
Linden’s new concept attempts to eliminate all the problems that plagued the WSL. The events are owned and run by the locals, free to use their own formats and judges, free to call the shots when they run. As a result, each individual event is responsible for its own finances: generating funding, paying out prize money, pitching sponsors, etc.
View this post on Instagram
The alliance includes Santos del Mar in Chile, Nazaré Big Wave Journey in Portugal, Punta Galea Challenge and Vaca Gigante in Spain, Thriller at Killers at Todos Santos, Mexico, and CBSurf Big Wave Mormaii at Praia do Cardoso, Brazil, which Linden is pitching to serve as the world championship final in the Southern Hemisphere winter of 2025.
Linden points to his Thrillers at Killers event that ran earlier this year as a proof of concept of what the championship could look like. The format would feature two men’s semifinals, a men’s final, and a women’s final (of 6). Prize money would be equal between the men’s and women’s divisions.
As a result, the Big Wave Alliance itself assumes little risk, incurring only minor costs such as website hosting and putting together a business plan. That’s not to discredit all the hours of unpaid labor that Linden and his team have/will put into it, but without the gargantuan cost of footing the bill of a world tour and no investors breathing down their necks looking for ROI, they have considerably less monetary pressure than the stagnant WSL tour.
“There are set-up costs, but to run the tour (itself) right now, there’s no cost (to the Big Wave Alliance),” explained Linden. “But (I can’t say) there’s no cost. That’s like saying the time and energy put in has no value. We don’t have a tour sponsor at the moment, but we have a group of people who are passionate about getting it done.”
“A sponsor will come, but at this point, we don’t need it,” continued Linden. “I’ve seen in my 74 years of life that, to be successful, it’s all about the passion that’s put into it. The reward comes after. So I’m not even concerned with that. Of course, I’d love to have a tour sponsor, but it’s not the thrust of my energy right now.”
Lamb is one of the big wave surfers who has helped advise the Big Wave Alliance behind the scenes, although he made it clear he’s first and foremost an athlete who wants to compete.
“I am confident (the Big Wave Alliance) will succeed because you have a visionary in Gary Linden who created the blueprint for the BWT,” said Lamb. “Additionally, we took a hard look at the unnecessary expenses and bloated infrastructure costs of the insolvent WSL (BWT) and removed them all. This leaves us with a refined structure that deploys capital where necessary to ensure it supports the athletes and will be a spectacular event to watch as a fan. For this tour to work you need to give the ocean as many opportunities as possible with as many events as possible. This provides that. With more events, we will have more opportunities for success.”
“The main challenge will and always has been putting on an event around nature’s cooperation,” added Lamb. “But the main pain point is also what makes these events so special when they do happen.”
Lamb told me he’s “100 percent” confident the new tour will attract the top names in the sport.
I put a few other feelers into the big wave community, namely Albee Layer and Nic von Rupp, to hear their thoughts on this new model. Interestingly, both gave me the same response: What’s the Big Wave Alliance?
When I relayed that story to Linden, he said he’s careful to keep expectations in check while this project is getting off the ground. He doesn’t want to promise things to big wave surfers that he can’t deliver, but he’s confident that the tour will find its footing.
“It’s going to evolve,” said Linden. “But we aren’t going to have a million dollars in prize money and $700,000 in production value (right away). It grows slowly, step by step. We will have a world champion so the big wave surfers have a platform to showcase their ability.”
I admire Linden’s efforts to revive the tour and hope he succeeds. It’ll be great for surfing and those blue-collar chargers around the world who don’t have a competitive platform. However, new ventures are always a risk – people can only afford to work for free until generating revenue becomes necessary. So, best of luck to Gary and all those underground big wave surfers around the world. When things get cranking, don’t forget to include Nic and Albee in the group chat.
