Professional World Of Warcraft players make $1,000,000 a year... professional runners make less than 50k a year, wtf..?

Other top end WOW streamers like Sco make $500k + a year as well.

Maybe pro runners could live stream some of their workouts and have some fan interactions on easy days.

My health club treadmills get Youtube and Netflix, I'm not sure about Twitch. It would be pretty cool to be able to get on a treadmill and do a workout with the BTC. Run the same times, take the same rest, just go a shorter distance.

"Do Tuesday's workout with Emma Coburn."

?

I definitely blame the pro runners for this. Over the years (decades), they just didn't fight hard enough to get more. Shoe companies are trying to maximize profit and cut expenditures and a lot of racing opportunities are for non profit organizations looking to draw talent without cost. Pro runners are a commodity with value, but why would a buyer pay for something it can get for free? This has lead to non running social media influencers filling in the vacuum and taking in a nice paycheck.

David S wrote:

Maybe pro runners could live stream some of their workouts and have some fan interactions on easy days.

My health club treadmills get Youtube and Netflix, I'm not sure about Twitch. It would be pretty cool to be able to get on a treadmill and do a workout with the BTC. Run the same times, take the same rest, just go a shorter distance.

"Do Tuesday's workout with Emma Coburn."

?

Athletes should honesty make twitch accounts and do workouts, it would be fun to watch and would help build a fan base.

Asmonbald wrote:

This country is twisted when the people putting in serious physical work to be the best athletes in the world make a fraction of what proffesional World of Warcraft players make.

What are you talking about? the best athletes in the world make way more than $1 million a year.

It's actually damning of the video game industry that they are still rehashing these ancient titles and genres, can't come up with one new thing.

This one in particular is just an MMO port of one of the finest RTS games ever made, but which was already past its prime by the end of the 90's.

Online multiplayer and especially massive multiplayer destroyed all originality and creativity.

There is no point in a Twitch workout livestream. Unlike with gaming, there is no international audience who would be able to watch you at any given moment working out.

Gamers capitalize on the fact that their audience is very international and it doesn't matter what time of day they choose to stream, someone in the world will be watching

Also...in a world where hardly anyone watches distance races on television...what makes you think they're going to watch your GoPro running livestream? Watchng a solo run is even more boring than watching a race. This idea is Dead on Arrival.

He talking about distance runners. Not sure who makes more than 1M beyond Kipchoge. Also, no one actually cares about running other than serious runners.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Also...in a world where hardly anyone watches distance races on television...what makes you think they're going to watch your GoPro running livestream? Watchng a solo run is even more boring than watching a race. This idea is Dead on Arrival.

But didn’t over a million people tune into YouTube to watch Kipchoge break a 2 hour marathon?

Runnin is boring. World Of Warcraft is fun.

/thread

I never played WoW. I only played Warcraft 2 Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal. I want to go back and play them again. I enjoyed building custom scenarios. Looking back I played way differently to the way I've watched youtubers play these games. My strategy was always to straight away build as many guard towers around my base as possible so I was always in defense mode. Eventually I would start attacking if I hadn't died yet or run old of gold and lumber or oil if it is a sea mission. Even though WoW is 3d it somehow doesn't look that appealing to me. W2 was classic. It didn't need any extra fancy graphics or features.

Discus

This makes sense to me. I don't know anyone who has paid to go watch people run. I do know a few nerds who spend money to play and/or watch video games.

It's like the difference between men's soccer and women's soccer. I don't know anyone who has ever paid to go to a women's soccer game, but I know plenty of people that regularly pay to go to men's soccer games.

People (teens/early 20s) with discretionary income want to watch people game more than they want to watch people run. You should've figured this out in 9th grade where the only spectators for league races were some parents. I'd like to see more money thrown to the pros as well but I think expecting that is equally as ridiculous as the current situation considering the blatant lack of demand.

eGaming is the future of sports. Kids relate to it, millions upon millions watch the streams. With pro running, you'll have 1500 people (and they will be friends and family).

If Bekele started playing WoW it would be cool to follow him. I wonder would he destroy the field there too?

Moral of the story.. pro runners make crap money. Most Olympian’s live in poverty.

Its sad. When growing up I always dreamed of being an Olympian or professional athlete. Kids these days want to be youtubers and gamers. This is what they aspire to now.

Why does this shock people? Professional Track and Field athletes don't make anything because of simple reasons

1. Think of the major platforms that broadcast track and field. Dog s*** streaming services like flotrack that makes you pay $150 a year so I can watch race footage filmed by someone with Parkinson's disease. NBC sports gold isn't worth a subscription neither for we only can watch current track events going on and theres virtually no cross country.

2. Think about all the cliche comments you get, being a distance runner and just imagine random people sitting to watch a 5k on the track or anything for that matter. It's RUNNING people don't gravitate too it. More people run for leisure rather than competitive. I'll guarantee you hobby joggers couldn't name a Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles, Matt Centro. From a money standpoint the industry doesn't pull the numbers to directly support athletes.

3. Less Demand for something (Pro Running) Less pay.

4. More people watch wow online (More Pay) It's common economics

5. There just isn't enough content for XC/T&F to be a year round thing

I understand this is a sounds smug at some point and an 80mpw runner myself, pure athletics isn't interesting enough to make it all the way unless the only way to watch it is paying for crap. It needs to be on ESPN, NBC free TV more to make a push.