Huh? Being a household name is usually associated with the fact that a lot of people care, which is usually associated with the fact that a lot of people like watching that sport on TV, whcih is usually associated with advertising revenues... (I'll let you deduce the rest).

Absurd metric? Hardly.

Did you read the rest of my post? A guy who no one has ever heard of took home more money for third than is available as the prize purse at multiple ironmans. Similarly, hundreds of professional athletes in the big four sports (who you've never heard of) take home sizeable paychecks.

I suppose you have a problem with that as well?

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I'm a household name in my own house and I'm not getting paid shit.

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It came up in the 'no pros in md' thread. But ironman would certainly be a rare exception if they didn't rely on corporate sponsorship to fund at least a sizable portion of the prize purse. I have to imagine go-pro, ford, budweiser, etc paid a hefty chunk of change to be the title sponsor of Kona. I'm not saying that all the sponsor money goes to prizes, just that given how other races are structured, it's gotta be a significant contribution. If there's evidence to the contrary, most folks here would certainly be interested - and surprised - to see it. Without it, we're both speculating.

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$40k. That's cool. The highest paid soccer players are earning over $400k per week after tax. And then you want to pinpoint a few players on a massive NFL team roster in a sport that grosses billions a year, and use that as an argument that... actually I'm not even sure what your argument here is. But carry on.

Long course triathletes will never be household names, because long course triathlon is as boring to watch as paint drying. My DVR is set to record any triathlon that comes on Universal, but I only watch the ITU stuff. Ironman Cairns was in my queue the other day. Delete. It's boring. And this is from someone who's actually done an Ironman.

You're not making a cohesive argument, and it's making this conversation difficult. Initially it was that unless you're a household name, you shouldn't get paid in sports. Now you're saying that if a sport at a whole is profitable, even non-relevant athletes are entitled to talking home a portion of the money.

You see the contradiction, correct?

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I agree. I only will watch Kona and even then I'm switching between that and television.

I was responding to your point that being a household name is an "absurd metric" to whether or not an athlete "deserves" to get paid. I guess it depends on your definition of "deserves". Who has to train the most? Who is the fittest? Who offers the best entertainment? Take your pick. But the reality is, it's the last one. Who entertains. Who generates revenue. My point was that household names are generally those that entertain the masses, and hence they get paid. You picked on some NFL players to counter that arguement, but you are merely finding exceptions to a general rule. I'm sure you could find a few others. Long course triathletes are not an exception. They don't entertain, hence, they don't get paid. Clear enough?

I would surmise that the only value pros provide to WTC is Kona. A Kona without a quality pro field no longer has an NBC 2 hour program and the eyes of millions of Sat afternoon college football watchers.

The rest of the year, the rest of the events, who cares? WTC runs some races with no pro field (IMLP when IMCDA was the US Champs, and then vice versa the next year; IMMD this year) and it has no impact on the success or quality of the event.

I would say that WTC pays pros minimally year-round at all of these other events solely so that they have an interesting and legitimate "World Championship" come Kona.

There is no evidence to suggest that sponsor money is earmarked for prizes. They pay WTC to be a sponsor. That's it.

Also, for your information, I don't speculate.

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Then why are you on Slowtwitch? We don't have time for facts. This is a fast paced world; you gotta make shit up to keep up.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

BOOOOM! But TRS is still cool and can talk shit. I love this thread.

My point, which you continue to miss, is that you don't have to be a household name to entertain.

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You too deserve your own t-shirt.

What makes you so sure about that statement? It's been made a few times now, but is there real truth behind it?

The NBC broadcast only focuses on a couple of the male and female pros, with the rest of the time focusing on various special interest stories. Remove the dozen or so pros and you're still left with a grueling endurance event, that will still have elite amatures pushing hard for top place. It's entirely possible that having it an amature event would bolster the image, after all the Olympics used to be about amature competition, and the NCAA still consists of unpayed athletes--and both of those get plenty of attention. Part of the alure for Kona/Ironman has been that amatures can participate.

My 2cents: Team Hoyt has done more for the sport than all pros combined.

I don't know. And, you could be right. My gut says that WTC needs Kona to be the de facto IM World Championship and needs the best pros in the world to want to be there. Which it has. Would Kona have the same appeal to sponsors and NBC if it had no pros? Or would Kona show no real detrimental effect if it had no pros, as IMLP and IMCDA showed no real detrimental effect the years it had no pro field? I don't know. I'd love to see pros boycott for a year so we could find out.

Which television shows won out over Kona?

If only we could get Phil Liggett to do the commentary for Kona, it might be a bit less life threateningly boring to watch. Perhaps WTC should send some "prize purse" money or sponsor money or where-ever it comes from money to get some media pro's to call the race.

he has done some of the commentary for Kona, it wasn't that good.

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Liggett doing Kona would convince me NOT to watch the show...hell I stream a Eurosport feed for cycling races so I don't have to listen to him babble nonsense and wrong tech information.

I think Liggett is a secret weapon they use to get people to do their cycling homework... his stream of (mis)information forces thinking people to watch more closely and google more intensely.

Really? That's rather disturbing. Was that recent, as in, within the last 5 years?

Now if NBC were prepared to really splash out and get TRS as head commentator for kona we'd get some worldwide interest and the prize money could go through the roof (well at least ratings would). No more platitudes and back-patting : just real comments and opinions.

College Football.

The same reason that you don't see marathons, ultras, grand tours on TV. Because no one gives a f#ck about what regular people can do. The want to see the elite do it. If you can throw a few regular folk up there as comparison so be it. But NBC is certainly not showing a race that focuses exclusively on 20 lb over weight women running in Kona in slow mo.

And please work on your spelling. Thanks

How about I'll work on my spelling if you work on your logic, since you skipped right over that excluded middle to build a nice big strawman. This discussion has been about pros in triathlon, with the comment made repeatedly that "without the pros there is no Kona coverage." If you remove the pros you still have the elites. Pro coverage makes up very little of the NBC broadcast. I'm pretty sure more time was spent showing overweight women running than pro women running.
So what is it exactly that people care about? Pros or elites? More to the point, who do you think will bring in more viewers: Apolo Ohno or Maxim Kriat?
Oh and overweight is one word not two.