2026 is pro surfing’s 50th anniversary, and it’s been fifty years of epic carnage. 28,000 surfers. Over a billion dollars of investment. You can love it, hate it, or just not care about it, but you can’t really deny it — since 1976, the world tour has grown from very scrappy beginnings into one of surfing’s most potent cultural forces. In these special episodes, Hannah and I look at what’s driven this wild ride, who’s done the driving, and why they even bothered. This one delves into how the groundwork was semi-accidentally laid for a tour to occur — sponsored by a cigarette company, an enthusiastic vodka marketer, and the Australian bottlers of a black fizzy drink.