Interesting look at the pro's and their rewards

mossym

it's a single snapshot, doesn't factor in endorsements/sponsorship (which may/may not be a lot, may only be for the top few and may just cover free gear), but still, interesting read on the income levels of the top pros this year

http://t.co/sAvM4f1buK

makes you wonder how they fare when career is over. great to see Rinnie and co posting pictures of their dealer provided cars, but they won;t keep coming when the career is over

sconhome

Not much by way of financial reward there. Dare we say 'vocation' ?

When you think of it Gavin Noble landed on his feet post career with a good position (no idea of finances) as a brand ambassador for Specialised. Just shows that the key would be a long term association and relationship with a brand which you would hope if you play your cards right leads to a job at the end of it all.

Right up your street Mossy is an assessment of the marketability of the individuals and key to this will be their social presence. You may not have to be the best triathlete (no disrespect intended to anyone!) in the world to land yourself a nice job, your personality and likeability may be a factor in the end of it all.

mossym

AKW wrote: »

Right up your street Mossy is an assessment of the marketability of the individuals and key to this will be their social presence. You may not have to be the best triathlete (no disrespect intended to anyone!) in the world to land yourself a nice job, your personality and likeability may be a factor in the end of it all.

excellent point. look at Jordan Rapp, jesse Thomas, guys who aren't winning Kona, are succesful enough to be known, and are using that to build social presences/start companies. Thomas and the aviator glasses/hair is brilliance in itself. Both are engaging the fan base directly, (in the US mainly, but that's their home/target market), and probably have more people rooting for them at races than the actual favourites.

the assesment you mentioned would be pretty interesting, but i don;t get out of bed for less than a pro triathlete makes.....(i wish )

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

Now compare that to the top 20 in other sports, leaving football, golf, NFL, NBA aside.
Hard living to make and quality of life must be sh1te living on a shoe string for most pros.

mossym

Louisa Sparse Gasp wrote: »

Now compare that to the top 20 in other sports, leaving football, golf, NFL, NBA aside.
Hard living to make and quality of life must be sh1te living on a shoe string for most pros.

and the hurlers who do it on the faint hope of a night in a hotel in dublin in september:)

mossym

something else occurred to me. on such meagre rewards, it must be extremely difficult to be near or even off that table and look further up and see those who have been banned for PEDs and allowed back in earning more than you.

peter kern

good stuff
but one point is that rapp has acutally lost a good few sponosors in the last yer despite his social presence so this not everything.
and the way he writes he would have prefered to stay with spcilazed but was sacked.
( i would not worry though as I guess he will own slowtwitch in the next 5 years or so)

sconhome

mossym wrote: »

something else occurred to me. on such meagre rewards, it must be extremely difficult to be near or even off that table and look further up and see those who have been banned for PEDs and allowed back in earning more than you.

Also begs the question about what / who is funding the use of PED's?

Could be an interesting side topic (not to speculate about anyone) as from my understanding of PED's you are talking abut thousands of $/£/€ for a managed course of treatment. Can't see that being afforded off prize money so sponsorship money being used...

joey100

excellent point. look at Jordan Rapp, jesse Thomas, guys who aren't winning Kona, are succesful enough to be known, and are using that to build social presences/start companies. Thomas and the aviator glasses/hair is brilliance in itself. Both are engaging the fan base directly, (in the US mainly, but that's their home/target market), and probably have more people rooting for them at races than the actual favourites.

From my experience in another sport (Kayaking), that didn't have as much people taking part as triathlon, this was the key for people sponsoring. All the boats got to a level where there was very little difference, not enough to say that one boat was miles better than another anyway (something similar could be said for bikes, majority of the time a bit of work on the engine would save more time than a brand new superbike). This meant results where not the number 1 thing companies looked at when deciding on sponsorship, they wanted people who had a presence within the sport, not just at competitions.
Wasn't huge money in winning competitions in the sport, any money came from coaching/instruction and from sponsors. The coaching and instruction was well paid and you can see a lot of triathletes looking at this now as they come to end of their careers, Crowie for example.

peter kern

AKW wrote: »

Also begs the question about what / who is funding the use of PED's?

Could be an interesting side topic (not to speculate about anyone) as from my understanding of PED's you are talking abut thousands of $/£/€ for a managed course of treatment. Can't see that being afforded off prize money so sponsorship money being used...

i guess some see it as an investment like many companies play foul . Show me a bank that makes real money with ethical decisions.

if you get 3 % faster and go from 10 000 eranings to 50 000 .....
or from 50 000 to 500 000
(athletes are human beings like all other too and some fall for it.

mossym

peter kern wrote: »

good stuff
but one point is that rapp has acutally lost a good few sponosors in the last yer despite his social presence so this not everything.
and the way he writes he would have prefered to stay with spcilazed but was sacked.
( i would not worry though as I guess he will own slowtwitch in the next 5 years or so)

very true on rapp. would you call it losing or realigning though? he lost the specialised ride, but they had a big clear out, and i think he saw it coming even if he didn;t want it. he quickly got himself onto a ride which is generating a lot of public interest, which suits both him and dimond. probably suits his apparent model better than specialized in fairness.

CTO at slowtwitch. nice little number too. sets him up nicely for other media jobs.

you wonder are guys like that doing the other jobs to race, or racing to do these jobs? and as a follow on, are they sacrificing some of their potential to put some of their time into their other ventures? Thomas and his nutritoin company for example.

and also, are any of the european guys trying to do similar? some of them do regular magazine articles, but can't recall any real outside centures/social presence of note. Language barriers liekly come into play there i guess, more fragmented fan base

peter kern

I cant really talk about an individual person,( he is very inteligent and likely needs more brain stimuli than just training) but off course one gives up perofrmance with too many outside tri engaements ( henceforth its so so hard to defend the hawaii title )

as for planned strategy i dont think he really found a shoe sponsor yet so I think that would give a higher chance that diamond was more his last straw than wish ( i could be very wrong )
i agree with his ivey league enineering backgound he will play a biigger role with start up dimond than at spcialiced. but of course he will have to invest more time in it . As i would say a lot of his pay will depend how many bikes dimond sells.

anyway back on track its a 2 fold problem what the pros earn is Ironman on one side, and the pros that dont get togheter on the other side. and by know ironman really onle needs a few world class pros ( as long as they keep hawaii) and they will come through itu so they really dont need to think aobut pros anymore. Challenge needs the pros more so thats the last chance for them.and the think is the good pros worked very hard to get to the top and dodnt really want to share ( understandable but it does cost the sport)

mossym

peter kern wrote: »

anyway back on track its a 2 fold problem what the pros earn is Ironman on one side, and the pros that dont get togheter on the other side. and by know ironman really onle needs a few world class pros ( as long as they keep hawaii) and they will come through itu so they really dont need to think aobut pros anymore. Challenge needs the pros more so thats the last chance for them.and the think is the good pros worked very hard to get to the top and dodnt really want to share ( understandable but it does cost the sport)

also shows how a couple of high prize money races, like the Challenge Dubai races can skew the earnings significantly, and back up your point that Challenge needs the pros.

tunney

John Degenkolb's win in Roubaix earned him the same amount as 46th in the Masters.

Its about the demographic of your target market and the longevity of that market. Tri might tick the boxes of the demographics (male, 30s, 40s, disposable income) but the longevity skews the attractiveness. Why pump money into a sport for the pros when the audience (a) doesn't care about the pros (b) will be out of the sport in two years tops.

desertcircus

tunney wrote: »

John Degenkolb's win in Roubaix earned him the same amount as 46th in the Masters.

Its about the demographic of your target market and the longevity of that market. Tri might tick the boxes of the demographics (male, 30s, 40s, disposable income) but the longevity skews the attractiveness. Why pump money into a sport for the pros when the audience (a) doesn't care about the pros (b) will be out of the sport in two years tops.

Nibali's yellow jersey would put him alongside Rory McIlroy in fourth on the Masters list, though.

tunney

desertcircus wrote: »

Nibali's yellow jersey would put him alongside Rory McIlroy in fourth on the Masters list, though.

Three week grand tour............
12 hours golfing............

mossym

tunney wrote: »

John Degenkolb's win in Roubaix earned him the same amount as 46th in the Masters.

Its about the demographic of your target market

last weekend, my twitter timeline was full of comments about the masters. a lot made by people i know don't play golf, and have no real interest. additionally, it crossed genders, ages and geographic boundaries. universal appeal.

I'm not sure tri's problems lie in longevity. Most of the sports people are comparing it to have huge interest levels among those who don't participate themselves. and even if they don't regularly watch it,the marquee events pull in the viewers.

even among those into tri, a very small % have any interest in pro racing. even if you could change that, i don't think it's enough to change the financial situation. the difficulty for tri is in attracting people who don't compete, building the audience outside of those who participate

never happen i hear you say? unfortunately i'd tend to agree..

desertcircus

tunney wrote: »

Three week grand tour............
12 hours golfing............

If we're comparing earnings at the top of each sport, then the level of suffering is irrelevant; the Masters should be compared to the Tour. Even the suffering of a three-week tour isn't automatically harder to cope with than the Masters; a dominant cyclist can effectively win the Tour halfway in and rely on his team to keep him safe for the remaining eight or nine stages, while a golfer can start the final day with a huge lead and see it disintegrate over a few holes.

peter kern

tunney wrote: »

John Degenkolb's win in Roubaix earned him the same amount as 46th in the Masters.

Its about the demographic of your target market and the longevity of that market. Tri might tick the boxes of the demographics (male, 30s, 40s, disposable income) but the longevity skews the attractiveness. Why pump money into a sport for the pros when the audience (a) doesn't care about the pros (b) will be out of the sport in two years tops.

a is correct
b is the same for cycling.

desertcircus

For what it's worth, I don't think there's much chance of mass interest in triathlon as a spectator sport as it's currently comprised - not at long distance anyway. I've watched ITU and Ironman highlights on Eurosport, and the ITU races are a lot more interesting - more happens in a shorter timeframe, and draft-legal bike legs mean the race isn't over as a contest by the time the run starts.

mossym

desertcircus wrote: »

, and draft-legal bike legs mean the race isn't over as a contest by the time the run starts.

didn't watch kona 2014 did you

desertcircus

mossym wrote: »

didn't watch kona 2014 did you

I didn't, but I assume you're referring to Carfrae given that (as far as I know) Kienle set the fastest men's times on both the bike and run. Her performance was cracking, and an incredible feat of athleticism, but between the men's and women's races, that's one major race event across the last four hours of both. That's not enough to sustain a mass audience.

F1 may actually be a good model to follow: there are entire seasons where one driver is comfortably clear, but they do a good job of hyping podium places and making the end-of-season rankings a huge deal. That's why I think ITU is probably more promising: races are under two hours, and one athlete bossing the field in a single race doesn't matter as much if the overall points table is competitive.

mossym

desertcircus wrote: »

I didn't, but I assume you're referring to Carfrae given that (as far as I know) Kienle set the fastest men's times on both the bike and run. Her performance was cracking, and an incredible feat of athleticism, but between the men's and women's races, that's one major race event across the last four hours of both. That's not enough to sustain a mass audience.

.

i was indeed. i agree with your point by the way, in case it came across that it didn't. well, teh point on it not being a mass spectator. i find itu unmatchable. people say it is more exciting. i can't see how. it's a 5 or 10km running event. they all group up, arrive into t2 together, and the race really starts from there. for the majority, what has happened before hand is largely irrelevant. whereby for the last few years i've sat and watched the whole race from Kona. much prefer it.

just backs up the argument. very difficult to make tri appeal to the masses

mossym

resurrecting this to add this link

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2015/07/news/a-look-at-triathletes-global-prize-earnings_119442


interesting was the level of earnings across the genders, women well on top in the two highest spots (have to think frodo has moved well up now though), and the numbers stick reasonably close all the way down. The numbers at kona may be off, but this would suggest that at least the potential for women to make as much as the men exists

rainbow kirby

The coach for my Friday evening swim sessions is an Xterra pro. She spends her summer as a movie stuntwoman to afford to spend the winter racing in Asia and Australia.

peter kern

mossym wrote: »

resurrecting this to add this link

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2015/07/news/a-look-at-triathletes-global-prize-earnings_119442


interesting was the level of earnings across the genders, women well on top in the two highest spots (have to think frodo has moved well up now though), and the numbers stick reasonably close all the way down. The numbers at kona may be off, but this would suggest that at least the potential for women to make as much as the men exists

frodeno would be 78 ooo now after frankfurt , at the same time price money would be an insignificant factor of his earning .after sponsorship and other engagements. and i am sure only for frankurft he got close to as much in apperance fee than he made in price money in last 10 month and oveall his appreance fees double price money.

And of course price money potenitla has to be easier for females if there is half as many female pros. at the same time sponsorship potential is much lower for females ( especially bike sponsors )

interestingly it would appear challenge lifted that table from TRS

mossym

peter kern wrote: »

frodeno would be 78 ooo now after frankfurt , at the same time price money would be an insignificant factor of his earning .after sponsorship and other engagements. and i am sure only for frankurft he got close to as much in apperance fee than he made in price money in last 10 month and oveall his appreance fees double price money.

And of course price money potenitla has to be easier for females if there is half as many female pros. at the same time sponsorship potential is much lower for females ( especially bike sponsors )

interestingly it would appear challenge lifted that table from TRS

agree with all that Peter. the bit in bold is interesting though. seen it mentioned before, and does raise the question, does having half the number of pro's mean there should be equal number of spots for females at kona?


also raises the question, chicken or egg, enough prize money to support the pros, or enough pro's to live off the prize money

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

mossym wrote: »

agree with all that Peter. the bit in bold is interesting though. seen it mentioned before, and does raise the question, does having half the number of pro's mean there should be equal number of spots for females at kona?


also raises the question, chicken or egg, enough prize money to support the pros, or enough pro's to live off the prize money

Some of the pros should not really be classed as pros, wont make a difference as those same athletes are unlikely to take money away from the proper pro athletes. When you see races where 2nd place is finishing 30mins behind first it says it all really.