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Pipeline Added to WSL’s 2025-26 Challenger Series

Originally posted on SURFER | By August Howell | Last updated Jun 2, 2025 4:15 PM ET

World Surf League CEO Ryan Crosby is officially on a heater. First, the Championship Tour’s return to a cumulative point total and Pipeline as the last event to decide surfing’s world champions in 2026. Now, the CT’s feeder system just got a much-needed boost of adrenaline. Yesterday, the WSL announced that this season’s Challenger Series will finally have what it's been lacking: A barreling, consequential and terrifying reefbreak: Pipeline. For the past few seasons, the main critique of the CS is that it lacks dramatic waves. The venues largely aren’t compelling to a wider audience and they don’t always prepare surfers for the waves they’ll face on the CT. It’s all soft breakbreaks and an occasional pointbreak, but with Pipeline now in the fray, that’s changed.

"The WSL is super excited to announce that Pipeline and Newcastle will be the last two stops of the Challenger Series this season," WSL Senior Tour Manager Travis Logie said in a statement. "Pipeline is the ultimate proving ground and one of the most perfect yet challenging waves on the planet. For the next crop of CT surfers to get the opportunity to compete out there is a huge step forward for the Challenger Series, not to mention incredibly exciting for our fans to enjoy two major events at Pipe in just a couple of months.”

With the addition of Pipeline and a second event at Newcastle, Australia, the Challenger Series now has seven events on its 2025-26 schedule. And because Championship Tour’s Pipeline event will move from January to December next season, the WSL had room to move with its permitting, and is now putting the CS where the CT was for the past four seasons. The Pipeline CS event window runs from January 28 to February 8, the second-to-last event of the season.

It's a bolt move by the WSL, but it gives the CS real stakes. No surfer, no matter the skill level, is immune to getting hurt at Pipeline. And now the road to the CT goes through the North Shore.

Who gains from this? Certainly, watching a field of 80 men and 48 women taking on Pipeline in the middle of winter is a win for the viewer. But, having one of the most challenging and imposing waves in the world will likely benefit former CT veterans currently battling it out on the CS. Think Kolohe Andino, Julian Wilson, and Josh Kerr, and the CT field that didn’t make the 2025 mid-year cut. And don’t sleep on some dangerous local wildcards who will get a call from the WSL.

Let's get the ball rolling now for 67-year-old Michael Ho to get a wildcard into the 2026 Pipeline CS event. Brian Bielmann/Getty Images)

The other news is that Newcastle SURFEST will be on the schedule twice, both to start the year and once to end it. The CS just kicked off at Merewether this weekend, and next year the SURFEST will celebrate its 40th anniversary, marking it one of the longest-running professional surfing competitions in the world.

At the end of the season, the top 10 men and seven women from the Challenger Series will earn a spot on the 2026 CT. The best five of a possible seven results count towards each competitor's end-of-season ranking.

2025-26 WSL Challenger Series Schedule

Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia: June 2 - 8, 2025
Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: June 30 - July 6, 2025
Huntington Beach, California, USA: July 29 - August 3, 2025 (US Open festival window: July 26 - August 3)
Ericeira, Portugal: September 29 - October 5, 2025
Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: October 11 - 19, 2025
Pipeline, Hawai`i, USA: January 28 - February 8, 2026
Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia: March 8 - 15, 2026

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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