The wait is over: 2018 Pro Runners Salary Data Revealed: How Much Do the Pros Make?

Lets understand some basics here.

Agents will always inflate what they say an athlete is making.

Why? They want to increase the value of the athletes they represent hopefully increasing market value.

Im not sure but where the agents quoting base salary or full value meaning added bonus potential and salary.

Quoting on what they think other athletes make is assumptive not factual.

In the business we look at athlete values in relation to their ROI, return on investment.

Few transcend beyond on the athletic performance to translate to actual shoe sales and building brand identity. Beyond the few enthusiasts that follow the sport, little trickles beyond the boundaries of the sport.

Agents would like you believe without their athlete signed your missing out? Truth be told, its nonsense did Nike sales collapse when Mary Cain did? Did Nike sales explode when Matt Jr. won an Olympic gold, of course not.

Opposite my statements, did Leo help Hoka? Yes, even thought his performances were average he helped with brand awareness beyond the ultra market identity.

Asics has a very small athlete support program but have a big shoe count presence in major marathons. Shoes being ran in by actual runners be cause the shoes work.

Truth be told most contracts and athletes support are a form of charity helping athletes stay competitive post collegiate.

I’d be interested to hear what the agents think about Clayton Murphy, Drew Hunter, and some of the international athletes like amp Farah, The Ingebrigtsens, some of the Ethiopians like Kejelcha and Barega.

What about time/record bonuses? And don’t the medal bonuses rollover into the following years contract? For example, if Centro got $1 million for winning gold his 2017 salary was would be base + $1 million.

Not surprised about the note that Jager was unhappy with his salary. If you look at his Instagram post from the beginning of the year he uses the word “renegotiate” to announce that he resigned with Nike.

there are purely guesses and I know my estmates for the bigger stars were larger than the so called average LR posters

fun topic , just very inaccurate

Interesting response to the "educated guessing game" article. Frankly, I appreciate the effort.

"Out of action with a calf injury for most of 2010 and 2011, Bekele earned approximately $1.2 million (About Sh100 million) from a successful 2009 season that saw him clinch a 5,000m/10,000m double at the World Championships in Berlin.

Over half of that amount was from prize money and endorsements from his shoe sponsors, Nike."

www...nation...co...ke/sports/athletics/Ethiopian-legend-who-ran-his-way-to-fortune--/1100-1283372-4kfjd7/index.html

The last sentence is interesting - besides prize money and endorsements, where would Bekele get an additional ~$500k from?

"Haile earns up to USD 150,000 from Adidas and an additional USD four hundred thousand annually if he wins competitions."

ethiopianbusinessreview...net/index.php/sport-biz/item/223-running-for-the-gold-running-for-the-money-investments-of-ethiopias-world-beating-athletes

Wow. I guess whatever I did with the links just made things worse.

Why does Nike pay Rupp so much? The dude doesn't do anything to promote the brand besides run. In fact, with all the shady doping stuff around him and Salazar if anything it lowers my opinion of Nike. Guys like Centro and Merber do so much more to interact with fans and promote the sport in a way that's appealing to high school and college kids. If Rupp didn't consistently win I'd imagine he'd have a hard time getting a contract, he's not marketable at all.

mofarahncstate wrote:

Why does Nike pay Rupp so much? The dude doesn't do anything to promote the brand besides run. In fact, with all the shady doping stuff around him and Salazar if anything it lowers my opinion of Nike. Guys like Centro and Merber do so much more to interact with fans and promote the sport in a way that's appealing to high school and college kids. If Rupp didn't consistently win I'd imagine he'd have a hard time getting a contract, he's not marketable at all.

Rupp has been The Man in US long distance running for nearly a decade. Every high school XC runner boy in the last 10 years has thought of him as “the best”. That has value even if people like you don’t like him.

Ehso wrote:

mofarahncstate wrote:

Why does Nike pay Rupp so much? The dude doesn't do anything to promote the brand besides run. In fact, with all the shady doping stuff around him and Salazar if anything it lowers my opinion of Nike. Guys like Centro and Merber do so much more to interact with fans and promote the sport in a way that's appealing to high school and college kids. If Rupp didn't consistently win I'd imagine he'd have a hard time getting a contract, he's not marketable at all.

Rupp has been The Man in US long distance running for nearly a decade. Every high school XC runner boy in the last 10 years has thought of him as “the best”. That has value even if people like you don’t like him.

This. High school kids love Galen because he has been the best.

LetsRun.com wrote:

We polled some of the top agents in the world and asked them how much the main shoe endorsement contracts were worth for some of the top runners in the world. We also asked them about marathon appearance fees. We also polled you, our esteemed readers.

The results are in on what we hope to make an annual survey. We're revealing this first to our message board visitors since you're the lifeblood of our site and the sport of running.

Happy reading:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2018/09/pro-runners-salaries-much-professional-runners-make-unveil-one-sports-biggest-secrets/

It's a lame duck exercise in that it's unlikely much of it is accurate.

Incentives tho? wrote:

Thanks for the research, but this has to be taken with a grain of salt..I personally know of a couple of men's US elite (no Rupps ) marathoners who have similarly low~10-25k "base" salaries as listed here, but actually make 40-70k by the time you add in appearance fees, sponsor incentives, prize money, etc.

The estimates are only shoe salary base contract estimates. We're not talking total $ counting prize money and appearance.

We had estimates for 20+ athletes and me saying the agents may have represented some of the people in the survey gave them away? I seriously doubt it.

This is the problem with track and road racing athletes, they are all talk. They want to be like the other major sports, but don't make anything public. Do what the other professional sports do. Talk about your training, what workouts you did, if you are hurt going into a race, how recovery is going, AND disclose your damn contract. I would love rooting for someone in a race knowing they are making $20k and beating someone making $200k.

Amazing the large gap between running and cycling salaries. Just the base salary for Chris Froome is $3.9 million.

Even the domestiques earn up to $500k annually. So a domestique can earn more than Kipchoge.

http://fortune.com/2018/07/29/how-much-prize-money-will-geraint-thomas-take-home-for-winning-the-tour-de-france/

Wow, what a terrible clickbait headline. I don't expect any journalism standards from Letsrun but you guys only revealed 2 things:

Jack & Sh!t.

Cyclists race a lot more, and it is a far more popular sport in Europe...which attracts much more sponsorship and prize money.

I can tell you that JH makes six figures, but that is (hopefully) obvious to anyone with half a brain. I'ts low six figures but certainly a good bit more than 100K. add in bonuses and appearances, she more than doubles her base salary.

Sowinski makes $40k while Isaiah Harris makes $140k? My goodness.

sanchobaile wrote:

The points on appearance fees for Shalane and Desi were interesting. I still wonder... might winning a major actually DECREASE your potential appearance fee the following year? I mean, wouldn't it be kind of assumed that you'd want to defend your title? and thus wouldn't that reduce your bargaining power? I mean, how often does the winner not try to defend their title? I wouldn't think that would be very often, and thus I'd think that'd depress appearance fees for defending champs. What did agents have to say about this, Brojos?

Shalane winning NY makes her an attractive get for the other fall marathons to say "Hey, we are lining up the winners of all the most recent majors" ... for instance, London loves to put up the Olympic medalists, and major winners in its race. Shalane winning NY made her a hot commodity for other races, which drives up her appearance fee.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most every salary average is nearly half as much. There is hardly any money in this sport. People are enamored with free equipment.