Pro women salaries discussion

Category 3: mid range young ish pros like sage hurta, Josette Andrews, Courtney Wayment, krissy gear, Weini kelati, Elly henes

Weini Kelati is not a mid range pro. She’s won national titles. And Andrews is not youngish. They’re all 24-25 and she’s turning 29. Probably her last shot at the Olympics.

The women superstars beside their training scedule need multi contracts or at least 2 more jobs like modelling and other sponsorships, to stay in athletics.

Every women beside a superstar is doomed! But, they maintain, that's why they're the super wonders of the athletic world.

The dudes, can't even imagine how that is.

I had two former team mates (male) that went pro and met with a few shoe companies. They did not get great offers from one in particular that rhymes with Shoe Balance.

That brand said hey we sponsor athletes to move our products. Men’s distance runners don’t move a lot of product because most men don’t look like you physically and don’t want to. Your body isn’t an “ideal”

Same person said we sponsor a lot of women, the move product. Sports bras, shorts, tanks. Women want to look like these women, running clothes are more in fashion for the every day female.

this shoe company in the US at least sponsors a whole lot of women because it is good business

So, which category they were in?

Yeah, didn't new balance only sponsor relatively hot, almost all blondes, women until like ~2015?

Also, so why is New Balance doing all the NIL deals then?

It was a while ago but from what I was told, women can make a lot of money shoe deal wise as a mid tier athlete. Not making world teams but running fast.

But a lot of money in track is not that much money. Most of these top athletes are pretty smart as well hard to turn down real life money

Not much money involved in the nil, especially the high school ones. Seems like mostly women here too.

The college and HS nil is basically to build a relationship with the athlete. If they turn out to be a star, you have first shot at the pro deal due existing relationship.

The handful of people's contracts I know of span $30k-$120k, and funny enough the l lowest paid runner was a Nike athlete making US teams, and the others had yet to make a US team. The contracts have some hefty bonuses built in, it wouldn't be abnormal for an athlete to make the same amount in bonuses in a year as their base contract if they had a really good year. Winning a US title once on the track and not being top 3 much outside of that seems to bring in a better second contract than a person who sneaks into 3rd more than once but never wins. I'd say your Alicia Monson/Elise/Cranny/Grant Fisher are 'guaranteed' around $200k. I don't think Nikki Hiltz is nearly as high, I wouldn't be shocked if she's under $100k.

Marathon allows you to make more. A popular American marathon runner who is finishing as 3rd American in Chicago/New York/Boston and finishing around 7th-10th at Olympic trials probably has a contract of over $100k guaranteed and making $30k+ each time they run one of the American WMM races. Meanwhile a 5k runner who gets 8th at the trials this summer is likely not near $100k and makes very little prize money and no appearance fee money.

We used to joke about how many hyper fit athletes in Eugene, Boulder, and Flagstaff were on food stamps or disability payments just to survive. That is a very sad reality for many post-collegiates chasing the pro dream.

Are you talking about the men or the women?

I have little sympathy. Pro domestique male cyclists have to ride 20-40 hours a week and race 50 days a year, tens of thousands of race miles. And it's extremely dangerous.

These guys barely make a decent wage. Like as much as a school teacher. Unless you're super star which is only like 20 guys.

These women run 5-12 hours a week. They have tons of time for part time jobs. They race like once a month and the race is over in 10 minutes. There's no risk of death or seriously injury (think helicopters to the hospital).

I don't think it's sad; it's called life. If no one's willing to pay you to "chase the dream," that's called a hobby. Don't quit your day job.

in that case.. general and normal work, should be called a hobby too

Dez and Kara recently discussed contracts and such on their podcast. Probably not the level of detail you're looking for.

Salaries from sponsors are driven by marketability and reach, which is somewhat correlated with global medals but has nothing to do with fast times or theoretical ability. Of all the runners you listed, I'd bet Emma Coburn makes by far the most money because of her appearance and social media presence. On Instagram she often promotes New Balance gear -- which make sense, because that's how she creates value for the sponsor. Simply running fast, e.g. Alicia Monson, ain't gonna land you a big sponsor deal. I'm a huge Monson fan, but she's not a "superstar" by any definition.

I could tell you all these things with specific details. But it’s much more funny to let you arm chair clowns pretend you know anything and spew goofy stuff. Like the guy with the new balance story that never happened.

Race once a month?!? No, they don't dare, why would they want to make the fans happy by racing that often?!?

Alica Schmidt gets can deny 6 figure sponsoring deals when she does not like the product.