Max Siegel lashes out defending his $3.8 million pay: “Have you seen one gold medalist in there that’s been critical of me?"

Among sports NGBs (national governing bodies), Siegel’s pay is an outlier.

USA Basketball, with $26.7 million in 2020 revenues, paid CEO Jim Tooley $467,714.
USA Gymnastics, with $23.6 million in 2020 revenues, paid CEO Li Li Leung $410,967.
USA Hockey, with $42.7 million in 2020 revenues, paid executive director Patrick Kelleher $415,386.
USA Soccer, with $64.9 million in 2021 revenues, paid Sporting Director Earnie Stewart $825,720 (but also paid head coach Gregg Berhalter — now in Qatar for the FIFA World Cup — $1.32 million).
USA Swimming, with $4 million in 2021 revenues, paid CEO Tim Hinchey $1.04 million.
And USA Volleyball, with $37.1 million in 2019 revenues, paid CEO Jamie Davis $488,951.

Man, I wish the worst week of my life would involve earning $3.8 million/year while Internet randos made mean comments about me. I would sadly gaze from the window of the new Mercedes I bought to cheer me up, or something like that.

$3.8M is what they pay L.A. media execs who have a list of big TV shows or movies they honcho'ed to billions of global viewers.

Dude is so tone deaf it's insane

Great post.

small point, but Siegel’s equivalent at US soccer would actually be CEO JT Batson ( was Will Wilson until recently). as best as I can tell historically US soccer CEO pay is sig less than 1 million per year.

Also looks the swimming guy is overpaid, but Siegel is ridiculously overpaid compared to all of them. complete farce.

I’m surprised swimming revenues are so low.

I was about to say USA Swimming actually makes Siegel look good by comparison - but it turns out there's also a "USA Swimming Inc." with $40million in annual revenue and CEO compensation of $750,000.

projects.propublica.org

Usa Swimming Inc - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica

@ProPublica

Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax fil...

Link:projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/org...

Siegel's supposed fundraising prowess suddenly doesn't look so great when you consider we're somehow getting our asses whooped by volleyballandswimming. And that groundbreaking exclusive Nike deal is gonna be worth peanuts by 2040 once inflation, commissions, kickbacks, etc. have taken their bite.

LRC note: I didn't realize someone had already started a thread on this great article so I started my own thread on it. I have merged the two threads but kept my thread title as I'd already linked to it from the front page. The other thread was titled, "USATF CEO Max Siegel speaks — first public comments on his $3.8M pay."

Ken Stone of the Times of San Diego has published a must-read piece in which Siegel tries to defend his exorbitant salary.

Siegel starts out by playing the victim card.

“This frankly is the worst week of my life. It should be the best. We should be going down [to Florida] to celebrate, have reunions and brainstorm.”

Siegel said the criticism of him is "not professional criticism" and Stone wrote that Siegel implied it's racially motivated.

"When my daughter … who’s now 19 sends me crap that people tweet and send her about her dad, you know, or my family, I take it personally because it’s not professional criticism."....

Siegel (who is biracial with paternal grandparents being Russian Jews) hinted a racial aspect at play in the social media criticism, noting that Fleshman and Beach, both white, are among “the same people” who find fault with USATF.

He asked: “Have you seen one gold medalist in there that’s been critical of me?”

What? What do you have to do with gold medallists? I'm pretty damn sure Sydney McLaughlin would win gold whether you or a third grader were running USATF. Sorry, Max, the criticism is professional. Even if I thought you were doing an amazing job (I don't. We don't even have a site or qualifying standards for 2023 USA Indoorw which takes place in 3 months), I think you are grossly overpaid for a non-profit of USATF's size. Part of a CEO's job is to keep expenses down. That's professional criticism.

Siegel's main defense is that revenues have gone way up under his watch.

“The eight years before I got here, the organization’s actual revenue was about $129 million,” he said. “Since I’ve been here [it’s been] $359 million. Those are just facts. That’s not my hyperbole, right?..”

“I hate the fact that somehow or another, this organization figures out how to create drama. Good lord. Can we just have one annual meeting where everybody goes home happy?”

Max, we aren't creating drama. You and the board are. It's hard to comment on the revenue without seeing all of the individual contracts (I've always believed revenues have gone up almost exclusively due to the Nike deal), but again we don't care that revenue went up 3 times. Your compensation has gone up way more than that and it's way too high when most pro runners are struggling to get by.

As Ken Stone points out, the USA Tennis brings in ten times the money that track does (Does anyone think Tennis is ten times more popular than track) and paid their CEO roughly 1/3rd of what you earn.

There is some good news near the end of the article.

Siegel says at he has been recruited to leave USATF “for a bigger job.”

Great. Please take it and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Wait, you say that USATF is corrupt and filled with cronyism? It's been this way longer than Lauren Fleshman has been on this earth.

Janky, amoral, dumpster fire of a money-ruined society, and this man is the poster child.

I’m curious if he can actually name a current gold medalist.

Seriously. I would never feel the need to “lash out” or even respond to internet randos. If people were criticizing me I’d just go for a swim in my pool of money like Scrooge McDuck. It probably says something about the dude if he can’t help but “lash out.”

Yes at the end of the day this is exactly correct. You just start to believe your own hype and make excuses. He feels slimy to me.

The only person worse is Mike Conley. Max just took the money that was given to him.

I think the board should get equal criticism for approving the compensation package. Mike Connelly (sp?) and all!

Also, somewhere else it said that part of the Nike money comes in giving USATF free merch to sell, and they use the MSRP value, which is beyond ridiculous, as the actual cost can be 10% of that.

Max should be let go. He is not doing anything to popularize the sport or uniting all the different factions (ie., XC series, indoor/outdoor meets, road races, marathons).

Why are you being Russophobic?

Max is Ticketmaster. His service fee is like 11%. That’s way too much Max when so many athletes are struggling.

Its worth noting again that almost nobody is blaming the people who put him there AND decide on his salary AND still defend it? If y'all are fired up, direct 60% of that toward Mike Conley. Fire the Board. They clearly have indicated they would pay anybody the same if they like. Siegel seems slimy for sure (which is so rare for a lawyer/agent), but man you guys are mad at the wrong people.

I don’t know the specifics about how the ustfa is organized and operates (I’m a Canadian), but someone should look into suing the board for approving this ridiculous pay.

Basically his argument for his pay is that the organization was run terrible before and now it’s being adequately. So he deserves a huge pay package because of how terribly it was run before. Did I get that right?

Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with the ceos of large non-profits being paid lucrative salaries. The ceos of those non-profits can only be asked to take so big of a salary cut compared to what they make in the private market. At a certain point, accepting the job becomes stupid. If he was making around a million, I wouldn’t care. But 3? Really? That seems grossly excessive compared to what similar ceos are making.

I don’t believe for a second the ustfa couldn’t find someone equally competent for $1 million a year.

He brought in new sponsors and increased revenue, but that's his job, that's what they should expect of him.

It is just greed to claim you deserve a large portion of the money you brought in to the business. Any profits should be shared with all the workers and all the athletes, not go to just one guy. Everybody is working hard, not just this guy.