Athlete ranked #15 in the world makes only 15-20k per year?

Reflects declining interest in track (not running generally). US has been at rock bottom for years.

It may be the Global nature of track and field where performance in the whole world is measurable that track meets need only pay for the very best and there is no market for more athletes than can fill the fields in a very limited number of meets. So Unions cannot help because there is no need for a "bench" and lots of players who can be substituted. There is no substitute for the measured top five in the world.

If track and field were contested by team against team there would be a need for more "players" to fill teams to get the points for a winning score.

Until then, our sport doesn't need more performers.

What if prize money were to go only to teams and the teams would pay the individuals?

The answer is not unions but team prize money only. Let the teams hire the athletes. Only then will there be enough need for performers to call for unionizing.

Tom

Professional Bowling is about the same.

Doesn't apply to all individual sports though as golf and tennis pay quite well.

Interesting, but why should John Q Public care about whether Team Nike wins Zurich or Adidas wins Oslo? People watch the meets because of the individuals. They want to see fast times that mean something to them, and that by definition means that those who can run the fastest times have greater market value.

The fact is that our sport is part of the entertainment business. Just like the film industry, the extras don't make a ton compared to the stars. In the arts, there is a huge income discrepancy between the "starving artists" and those making millions of dollars. While it sucks to be top 15 and only make $15K, the structure of our sport is such that finishing in the last third of a field is like being a film extra. People saw you, but they didn't pay to see you. You were there, but you remember it more than the fans.

The union idea has some merit, but probably limited to negotiating towards a minimum appearance payments like the film industry does for extras.

Team "Corporation" may be a problem in generating loyalty. Most pro teams are associated with a city, Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees so people have a stronger loyalty to the place they live than to a corporate brand. The corporate bands can change as the cities do not.

Boston vs New York is a much more durable rivalry than Nike vs adidas. Both companies make great shoes and you can alternate a day in Nike and the next in adidas and have to look at your feet to know which one you are wearing, but you are not going to (usually) forget if you are a Bostonian or a New Yorker.

Go team.

Tom

Team "Corporation" may be a problem in generating loyalty. Most pro teams are associated with a city, Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees so people have a stronger loyalty to the place they live than to a corporate brand. The corporate bands can change as the cities do not.

Boston vs New York is a much more durable rivalry than Nike vs adidas. Both companies make great shoes and you can alternate a day in Nike and the next in adidas and have to look at your feet to know which one you are wearing, but you are not going to (usually) forget if you are a Bostonian or a New Yorker.

Go team.

Tom

it may be of immediate interest to just get the stars and not pay the others but that hurts the interests of the sport, which depends upon competition and the development of new stars. Any number of mid level Jamaicans may be winning races in the future, so you need to make running a profession where the mid level people can break in and make a living and have an incentive there for the future stars of the sport to take it up.

If they are only getting 15k, how can they pay for the drugs

to compete with the big boys.

alanson wrote:

Reflects declining interest in track (not running generally). US has been at rock bottom for years.

Nah, not declining interest. What the market will bear.

Seriously who cares about fifteenth in world in a track race? Or even 7,8,9.

I think 10-15k a year is pretty great for 15th in world.

Maybe it's because all the elite sprinters get caught these days. You going to pay big bucks for someone who has a good chance of being banned?

Also many guys in the US get more than that and aren't near top 15 in some events.

Nah, not declining interest. What the market will bear.

Seriously who cares about fifteenth in world in a track race? Or even 7,8,9.

I think 10-15k a year is pretty great for 15th in world.

Yes- and don't forget- how many events? 20 or so. Men and women. Lets say 40 events to pay.

15th in the world out of 40 events? That's a potential 600 athletes.

That doesn't count all the road racers/marathoners making money.

Unpleasant as it may sound, it's mainly the olympics's fault. There is no money in track because average people are only interested in it once every 4 years. In the 19th century, track was a very popular professional sport, but the olympics came along with its amateurism and throttled the development of athletes. By the time it threw out the amateur rules, shoe companies were running the show.

The NCAA is no help. They spend a lot of money training athletes but the vast majority will never be paid a dime in their lives, and the few who are still wasted years working for nothing. College track programs generate little revenue because they are poorly promoted and can't compete with football and basketball for the general public's attention. Nobody cares what school beats which in a dual meet, not even the schools themselves. It's all about qualifiers so they get to go far away and lose to someone from the SEC. The public has zero stake in any of it.

There would still be more low-level pro meets if it weren't for road racing. Road racing is much like crossfit, a lucrative business that swindles average people out of millions of dollars by training them for athletic feats of questionable value. There is no money at all in the much more difficult task of training people to run fast instead of far.

The situation is not much different in the U.S., unless you are an Olympic medal contender in a prime event, you are most likely low middle class. T&F is a pyramid, the difference between the haves and have nots is a canyon. Athletes like Allyson Felix, Mo Farah and Yelena Isinbayeva for example earn over million dollars a year. There is a small middle class of athletes making a comfortable living, but the overwhelming majority of elite athlete are at the base of the pyramid. The appearance fee for 3-4 superstar athletes will be as much as all of the other athletes combined.

Btw, if you are a U.S. elite athlete earning $15-20K a year is not all bad, chances are you don't have a mortgage, family to support or even school loans to pay.