I wonder if there's some psychology at play here.
No pros riding CI on tour. Does this equal regular duus thinking you can't rip on those boards anymore?
But duus see a bunch of pros ripping on Sharp Eyes, Pyzels, and whatever else.........they think they can rip on them too?
Um, yeah. that's the marketing strategy behind sponsoring tour pros...
whatever viewing numbers the current WSL webcasts get, certainly those are the type of surf geeks that would be trying to work out which boards are being surfed the best.
Of course, I doubt that's still much more valuable than social media-savvy riders like Nate Flo & the Koas putting out highly-watched clips on their Pyzels. I just have a hard time believe kids and groms are really that excited to watch the CI guys (Dane, Gudangs, Parker, M-Feb, Yadin, Bobby) as some other cooler pros. Maybe there's some I'm forgetting, but their team seems relatively old. Doesn't it?