Filipe Toledo’s board choice at the New Zealand Pro is a small case study in why sponsoring Championship Tour surfers matters. Sharp Eye, Toledo’s board sponsor, says the “Modern 2” model he rode is flying off the shelves since it grabbed attention for its unique outline and fin arrangement.
There’s definitely been “a dramatic surge (in sales),” Sharp Eye CEO Rob Chalfant said on a phone call. “We went from basically having a handful of those in stock to (everything) gone within a week.”
According to Chalfant, the board was released in 2017 with East Coast groveling in mind — a flat rocker board with notched rails and a swallow tail that can be ridden on a two-plus-one fin arrangement, as Toledo used it. Performing well initially, sales tapered off over the years. But once Toledo put the board under the spotlight of the CT broadcast, the phones started ringing off the hook: a dozen new board orders came in, partners around the world asked for the updated files, and inquiries flooded the website.
The company hadn’t seen a comparable surge in sales for a model since Toledo rode the “Inferno FT” quad the last time he won a world title in 2023.
“We kind of feel like we’re cast into, ‘we only make high-performance shortboards,’ and we’ve had these alternative boards for years,” said Chalfant. “So it’s nice to get a little recognition for those.”
Toledo’s board choice didn’t catch Chalfant by surprise. Before heading off to Australia, Toledo had asked them to make a Modern 2 for the first leg of the tour. The request initially puzzled Chalfant, but Toledo insisted he wanted to test the board in case he encountered any small, weak conditions. When the forecast for Raglan called for exactly that, the Sharp Eye team manager gave the headquarters team a warning: he was actually going to ride the board in an event.
Toledo managed to take down Joao Chianca and Gabriel Medina, narrowly falling to Griffin Colapinto in the quarterfinals. The board went viral on social media.
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Chalfant says he doesn’t crunch numbers to calculate Toledo’s worth to the company. “The return on investment is if the company’s still thriving,” he said.
Sharp Eye doesn’t pay its surfers a salary, which he notes has caused them to lose athletes in the past. Former Sharp Eye riders Kanoa Igarashi and Jack Robinson both switched to JS Industries, where, Chalfant says, they were offered salaries along with their allotment of free boards.
“We’re honored when people come to us and want to ride our boards, because we’re not out there offering anybody money,” Chalfant said.
In Toledo’s case, he receives 60 to 80 boards per year, some of which he gets to keep, while others are returned after he’s done with them. But as a token of gratitude for the value he’s brought to the brand, Chalfant says they’re giving him a piece of ownership in the company — something they have yet to announce publicly.
“It helped both parties. We helped Filipe, and Filipe helped us,” said Chalfant. “So Marcio (Zouvi), out of respect and acknowledging his impact on our brand, decided to do that for him.”
“Maybe when he retires, (we can do) more Modern 2s and make surfing look fun, hopefully still being viable where people pay attention to him.”
