Kilian Jornet will try to break the toughest ultra record in the books

Lebron James last deal with Nike was over 1 million dollars a MONTH for 7 years. His current deal is a lifetime deal that can make him a BILLION dollars.

More money in endorsements than the actual sport.

Just to speak to Kilian's earnings from my time as a sports agent.. from his early days up until 2015 he was ONLY making 30k euro/year for the past decade. Salomon finally paid his due and he nets close to 300k euro/year including performance bonuses. Salomon matches all prize money earned and Kilian typically has no expenses for his races as they are either covered by the races and/or Salomon. For example, winning UTMB nets him 50k euro, as this directly steals market share from HOKA, etc.

Many of you do not understand how frugal Kilian lives. He has no major expenses (purchased his land in Norway after his 2015 signing bonus of six figures) and has great sponsors - Mercedes with their Marco Polo van, etc. When Kilian was making 30k euro he felt wealthy. Now he is in another stratosphere of wealth. Salomon's marketing budget for Kilian in 2019 was 2 million euro.

Who am I and how old am I? Now I need to be sponsored mountain runner to offer my opinion? Really? Bit of a weird thing to say but reading your posts I know that petty jealousy can sometimes get the better of you.

You’re right about the Lets run posters all made six figures straight out of college, married supermodels and are still running sub 14 at the weekends mob. But you’re in a bitter group all by yourself. 1) if anyone beats you or your times they must be on drugs. 2) nobody could possibly make more money than you from sponsorship, marketing and prize money. So by default, in you’re own little world, you are the best! Go Sage! And nobody can disagree with you because they obviously don’t know what they’re talking about if they are not a sponsored mountain runner.

You write as if you are the authority, never ever do you give in to other opinions. The fact is you have no idea how much Kilian makes and why the hell would you? To underestimate his fame and his value shows that you are the one who is out of touch. If you don’t think that Kilian is making 500k+ A year right now (not 10 years ago, not 5 years ago, not even 2 years ago) then you seriously need a reality check.

Like others have pointed out. 100,000 really isn’t a lot of money to make in a year. Understand two important words. Kilian is a GLOBAL ICON. Get back to me when you’re a global Icon and know how much one makes....

I have no idea how much Lilian makes but I would be shocked if it wasn't higher than Rupp. Rupp may beat him out in Olympic years with bonuses but the other 3 years I suspect that isn't the case.

Kilian isn't really a runner, not in the pure sports sense of the term. He is the most visible Solomon athlete on the planet and the most recognized mountain athlete in the world. He is much more known in Europe and Asia and I'm sure is paid accordingly.

I have no insider knowledge of this but having spent a lot of time in Europe he is a bigger star than people here realize, especially in any region with a mountain. He is hands down the athlete I enjoy watching "perform" the most. More than any other runner, anyone in the major U.S. sports, more than Ronaldo or Messi. The guy is just amazing to watch.

Ok, lets get back to the real reason this thread was started please, money discussions were not intended in any way. The date will be posted today, here is a nice video from TRP on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ijSZ5vUdE&ab_channel=TotalRunningProductions

I'm with 'Alavisca' on this, sorry Sage that above post from you was probably hastily written but you came across as a right bellend.

I'm European and Killian is pretty well known, i.e. he is A LOT, (notice the uppercase letters there?), a lot more well known than Rupp. Thing is Rupp is a runner, Killian is 'that outdoors mountain guy', he doesn't just run. He has much more appeal and also (from a marketing perspective!) is more photogenic too. The outdoor market in Europe is massive, Solomon are a huge company over here. I'd be shocked if he wasn't earning close to a 1m a year. My only concern was he is a pretty frugal chap and probably doesn't want for much, but hopefully he has a decent agent.

Not sure he will get that 24hr record though as just not convinced Kouros's record(s) are legit they seem such outliers.

+1

Jealousy is a destructive emotion and it can only generate destructive outcomes.

I do want to confirm that Galen Rupp earns much, much more money than Kilian Jornet and this is public knowledge. Rupp has a base salary that is 3 x that if Kilian. Kilian makes up earnings with all performance clauses and Salomon social engagement metrics and KPIs. For example, if Kilian is able to get this 24-hour World Record, he earns $25k euro per his contract. Quite similar for Hayden Hawks who earned $10k US from HOKA for winning JFK. There is a tier of big name races that they get paid out to win. Kilian happens to win all the big Euro ones and each of those are minimum $5k euro from sponsor.

But there is no way that Kilian is getting close to Kouros record. Not now in Norwegian winter conditions and not under the most perfect conditions. Kouros was the best road ultrarunner from 24 hours to 1000 miles for two decades. Kilian is one of the best mountain trail runners ever. Two very very different skill sets.

its official - Friday 27.11 10.30AM Norway time

I like this.. just proves that this is majority a mental exercise, as no human is able to train for 24 hr racing in 3 weeks.

Kouros took a few goes at it before he got to his current record of 188 miles. (Though as far as I can tell, his first attempt was still a very good 177 miles in 1984.) Point being, it's asking a lot for Kilian to break the WR on his first try -- if he did, it indicates he's capable of even more... maybe a lot more. All of which is to say, it's unlikely Kilian will break even the 177 miles that Kouros did on his first try. (But also, regardless of whether Kilian had small injuries or not when he did his road 10k, it's likely he would run a faster time if he simply did a few more races.)

Standard Setter wrote:

purchased his land in Norway after his 2015 signing bonus of six figures

Does Norway have public property records like in the US? His place has such amazing views. With Norway having a reputation of being an expensive place, I'd bet just the land had to be over $100k

If Kouros was a mediocre athlete who just had a crazy one and went back to being mediocre Ike the chinese females back in the day you could a case, but since he won his first Spartathlon, where many people thought he had cheated, he performed consistently at an absurd level for many, many years under hard scrutiny.

nemesis wrote:

If Kouros was a mediocre athlete who just had a crazy one and went back to being mediocre Ike the chinese females back in the day you could a case, but since he won his first Spartathlon, where many people thought he had cheated, he performed consistently at an absurd level for many, many years under hard scrutiny.

Yeah maybe, and i definitely think he has a screw or 2 lose which may explain how he was able to do those times/duration. though I'm also curious why he isn't more famous than he is, he hardly got any mainstream publicity for those records. It's not like I ever saw him advertising Duracell or anything. I dunno I just get a little fishy smell with his records. Regardless jornet will struggle to get close, going round in circles for hours on end really isn't his thing.

HITHEREYOU wrote:

I dunno I just get a little fishy smell with his records.

Why is that?

Any evidence?

Out of the top 20 World performances 13 are from Yiannis Kouros alone. Dating from 1984 to 2002.

Just shows how little money there really is in running

He will get €20K for breaking a historic world record ?

That's what, £10K . (Ignore the brexit blip) Thats 2 or 3 months salary for someone sitting at a desk doing menial work whilst browsing letsrun!

Graeme Norgate 007 wrote:

He will get €20K for breaking a historic world record ?

He will not break the record. This is only another attempt at Covid times to keep shoe sales up.