Pro Team riders on production boards: Good or Bad?

[andygere]

The Pro's riding stock production boards are doing it because their job is to help the manufacturer sell boards.  Nothing wrong with that.  Pro's riding custom boards are doing it to help the shaper sell boards.  Same thing really, just a bigger company paying the endorsements for the guy riding for the manufacturers.  That said, those manufactured  boards may not be exactly stock.

you can buy the same snowboard Shaun White won the gold medal with

I'm not sure if things have changed, but when I worked for Burton back in the late 80's, one of my jobs was building prototype boards that the team riders used in competitions.  We put the same graphics on them as the production boards, but many of them were different (cores, dimensions, glass, etc.).  Still, those custom tweaks were used to define the production boards for the next year.  My point is that this may be the case with production SUPs as well.  They look exactly like what's available at your local shop, but are they?

[Jeroensurf]

In that case the brand (and the masses) still benefit from the input of the pro,s.
Isnt it this year it will be the next.
 

[SouthbaySUP]

Funny you mention Starboard testing boards at Cloudbreak.  I just returned from a trip to Fiji and there was an entire Starboard crew including their head of Research and Development and two team riders - they were shredding Cloudbreak, Wilkes and Nomotu Left.  They let me try a bunch of their boards and I just went up to Santa Barbara and bought the Wide Point.  Here's a link to the trip: