50-120K with no job security and no career advancement... I mean, I would still personally go for it if I had been that good, but it sucks that you have to struggle and seriously reduce your lifetime earnings to chase the dream.
50-120K with no job security and no career advancement... I mean, I would still personally go for it if I had been that good, but it sucks that you have to struggle and seriously reduce your lifetime earnings to chase the dream.
High hopes wrote:
palaed wrote:
Hundreds of American/former NCAA runners make 50-120k every year. Average to above avg American salary.
People in this thread are sour grapes they weren’t ever remotely close to that level.
Also, experiences and accomplishments as a professional runner tend to lead to other good things if you play your cards right as well as Glory is priceless.
But it’s okay if you didn’t want to be a pro runner, luckily you never had to make that decision ;)
50-120k for a career that lasts maybe 7-10 years? Cool, I guess. Now what do you do with the remaining 30 years of your working life if you were just one of those mediocre runners who never troubled the front of the pack on the big stage? Tbh,
sorry no one wanted to sign you and your pathetic 5 minute mile, champ.
palaed wrote:
ex-runner wrote:
Yeah for the sport to be a career it needs to pay people money.
I personally think that is why we have the East African dominance of distance running. Not solely because of genetics or altitude but mainly because of socioeconomic factors.
There is a huge financial risk for a western person to make athletics their life focus. Even for a very very good athlete, you might make the same money annually as a middle manager in some IT company.
The risk is an athlete trades years of ordinary career progression to instead run around in circles. If an athlete is unable to break into big money brackets, then they are left with no fall back and no financial security.
In rural East Africa the choice for many is farming/working in the food markets/coffee shops etc or running. Even if you are an mid level athlete you will make 10x what you could ever make farming. Even if you just place in one race once, it's life changing. And if it doesn't work, you just go back to being a farmer.
The level you need to achieve to actually set yourself up for life is astronomical. Maybe a handful of athletes actually get there, mostly sprinters.
Even Olympic medallists are overall unlikely to make enough money during their athletics career to be able to not work after it. Athletics is a hobby. If you want a career in sport as an endurance athlete then do triathlon or cycling.
Hundreds of American/former NCAA runners make 50-120k every year. Average to above avg American salary.
People in this thread are sour grapes they weren’t ever remotely close to that level.
Also, experiences and accomplishments as a professional runner tend to lead to other good things if you play your cards right as well as Glory is priceless.
But it’s okay if you didn’t want to be a pro runner, luckily you never had to make that decision ;)
You think 50-120k USD a year is good? It's livable if you ran till you were 65 years old maybe.
Average there is $85k before taxes and living costs. So call it $30k savings a year by some miracle.
If you make that every year out of college until you retire from running that is less than $200k to live on for the rest of your life.
You'll need to get a job which means starting from scratch in an entry level role you could have got 7 years ago. And that's if you are lucky enough to have got a decent degree whilst you focused on running. Most will end up with no career experience and no decent education.
Point is you trade your early years of career experience and potential salary increase for running around.
The sport should pay better, but athletes and fans alike seem to think running should be about 'the grind' rather than commercialisation.
If you can’t seriously save and invest off 100k at 23 years old, then you have bigger problems.
I have pretty much never seen an elite level runner struggle to get a solid job after transitioning away from running full time. There's this thing they teach in business schools these days... something about nets and working, and how these nets can help people achieve advancement in their careers? Idk, I never paid attention in class...
ex-runner wrote:
palaed wrote:
Hundreds of American/former NCAA runners make 50-120k every year. Average to above avg American salary.
People in this thread are sour grapes they weren’t ever remotely close to that level.
Also, experiences and accomplishments as a professional runner tend to lead to other good things if you play your cards right as well as Glory is priceless.
But it’s okay if you didn’t want to be a pro runner, luckily you never had to make that decision ;)
You think 50-120k USD a year is good? It's livable if you ran till you were 65 years old maybe.
Please google “compound interest”.
Also, do you think working for somebody else is good…? People with the most skills and intelligence work for themselves.
gobulls wrote:
50-120K with no job security and no career advancement... I mean, I would still personally go for it if I had been that good, but it sucks that you have to struggle and seriously reduce your lifetime earnings to chase the dream.
Yep, it's a unique journey and pretty much thankless aside from the intrinsic rewards. This guy, whom I've never heard of before today, went to one Olympics and as pointed out never troubled the front pack. With a degree in exercise and sports science from 8+ years ago what does he do now, tend bar? People who have gone to multiple Olympics have retired from pro running to find out nobody truly cares how good they were at running when it comes to the next career opportunity. Then they have to scramble and scrap and wind up selling cars or real estate or being personal trainers or high school coaches. Just look at Alan Culpepper, he got to rep the USofA and had a really nice running career that would be the envy of 99% of LRCers. He tried doing the running store thing with little success, then worked for Competitor which went nowhere, then worked his connections at his alma mater for a gig that he then jumped out of to go be a low-paid assistant at a C-USA school. Dude is almost 50 with a college degree and is essentially a graduate assistant, something his peers would have done about two decades prior. Wouldn't be a surprise at all if he were an Uber or Lyft driver in his down time. It honestly looks really frustrating to try to provide for a family after delaying the real career track by a decade or more to chase illusory dreams of Olympic glory and continually finding such poor opportunities as a result.
It’s up to the individual to be successful. For every cherry picked athlete who is a loser now I could name a bunch who aren’t.
Sour grapes….
palaed wrote:
It’s up to the individual to be successful. For every cherry picked athlete who is a loser now I could name a bunch who aren’t.
Sour grapes….
Believe what you want, the reverse is ridiculously common. Even among contemporary male marathoners in the US, the few not named Rupp who have clearly set themselves up for a good future are Jake Riley, Marty Hehir, and Jared Ward. That's because they saw the writing on the wall and didn't put all their eggs in the running basket. And these are highly successful guys! Far more common are the Fauble, Stinson, Llano, Droddy, Austin, Colley, Derrick, Iacofano, Raneri types, they've had a taste of success in the sport and just keep riding that shred of hope out for another 4+ years.
palaed wrote:
If you can’t seriously save and invest off 100k at 23 years old, then you have bigger problems.
How many 23 year old athletes are making 100k USD. Let's be realistic. Very, very few. Most athletes make less than $50k and all of that money comes from shoe sponsorship. None of it comes from the actual sport.
You are trying to change the facts which are that the vast majority of once professional western athletes do not make enough money to be able to retire from work after their career in sport. And none of that money comes from the sport, any money they do make is from external sponsorship that anyone can get, professional runner or YouTuber.
That is the fact. And it is in stark contrast to other professional sports such as football, basketball, baseball, cycling, triathlon, bowling, fishing, darts, snooker....
ex-runner wrote:
palaed wrote:
If you can’t seriously save and invest off 100k at 23 years old, then you have bigger problems.
How many 23 year old athletes are making 100k USD. Let's be realistic. Very, very few. Most athletes make less than $50k and all of that money comes from shoe sponsorship. None of it comes from the actual sport.
Lmao. Please keep showing your ignorance. Anything else?
This is a good and an eye opening thread. Guys like Steve Holamn and David Krummenacker were able to land on their feet quite well. Should definitely plan for life after athletics (for you younger runners). All the best to Chris.
palaed wrote:
It’s up to the individual to be successful. For every cherry picked athlete who is a loser now I could name a bunch who aren’t.
Sour grapes….
Go ahead, name some of the mediocre ex-pro's that are now successful. I will bet good money that almost all of them fell back on family money or a spouse with a good job. Pro distance running is a luxury career for most Western athletes.
Focus On The Family wrote:
gobulls wrote:
50-120K with no job security and no career advancement... I mean, I would still personally go for it if I had been that good, but it sucks that you have to struggle and seriously reduce your lifetime earnings to chase the dream.
Yep, it's a unique journey and pretty much thankless aside from the intrinsic rewards. This guy, whom I've never heard of before today, went to one Olympics and as pointed out never troubled the front pack. With a degree in exercise and sports science from 8+ years ago what does he do now, tend bar? People who have gone to multiple Olympics have retired from pro running to find out nobody truly cares how good they were at running when it comes to the next career opportunity. Then they have to scramble and scrap and wind up selling cars or real estate or being personal trainers or high school coaches. Just look at Alan Culpepper, he got to rep the USofA and had a really nice running career that would be the envy of 99% of LRCers. He tried doing the running store thing with little success, then worked for Competitor which went nowhere, then worked his connections at his alma mater for a gig that he then jumped out of to go be a low-paid assistant at a C-USA school. Dude is almost 50 with a college degree and is essentially a graduate assistant, something his peers would have done about two decades prior. Wouldn't be a surprise at all if he were an Uber or Lyft driver in his down time. It honestly looks really frustrating to try to provide for a family after delaying the real career track by a decade or more to chase illusory dreams of Olympic glory and continually finding such poor opportunities as a result.
Jake Riley said after making the Olympics team that his degree from Stanford was useless after spending years as a pro runner. I forgot what he said he did before making the team but I think he was another real estate agent.
Remember the tall Russian guy who finished first or second at NCAA cross 5 or 6 years ago. He I think ran for Harvard or Stanford. He saw what was ahead for him and went straight to work in real world. A smart move. Or have a back up plan and keep working it like Donn Cabral did while running full time.
Unless this has seriously changed in the last decade (a possibility I don't think is super high but not discountable), I and two of my training partners were top 15 in the 1500 in the US, and the best paid of us made less than 30k / year total from anything running related.
There just happens to be less room at the top in this sport due to it being individual and the way placing and ranking goes.
Are you all not aware of the earnings of say even a AAA baseball player?
Yes, at the top other athletes are earning WAY more, but percentage-wise there are probably similar numbers struggling in all of these sports.
CuriousPerson wrote:
Unless this has seriously changed in the last decade (a possibility I don't think is super high but not discountable), I and two of my training partners were top 15 in the 1500 in the US, and the best paid of us made less than 30k / year total from anything running related.
Can you imagine how much a US top 15 cyclist will make. Times that figure by 10 at least.
And the point I keep making about sponsorship is that a cyclist will be paid by their team to cycle. That is their job. Turn up to training, do the job in races, go home.
In athletics the majority of athletes get 0 income from the actual sport. Prize money is very small, professional teams/clubs don't really exist which pay wages (although that is starting to change), some nations support a select few athletes with funding packages but it's chump change.
So the athlete gets paid by a sponsor, usually shoes, on their advertising potential. That determines their market value.
You could get a better sponsorship deal by being popular on YouTube or Instagram. Many do, in fact.
And think of other sports - the worst paid player in the NBA gets $91k, the minimum salary for an MLS player is $81k and that will rise to over $120k by 2027. That's right, the worst payed soccer players in the US earn more than a lot of Olympians. I know why, free market, etc, just pointing out that T&F isn't an attractive financial option for many
MLB has something like $500K min. salary if on a 40 man roster.