Top 100 pros make over $150,000 a year?

Triathlon Forum
1

I was just reading an interview with John Duke, the publisher of Trathlete magazine.

http://www.trinewbies.com/Article.asp?ArticleID=102

The question of the money pro’s make came up, here is a quote.

John Duke "But mark my words, the class act triathletes out there, the Machellie Jone’s and Lori Bowden’s and a list of probably 100 or so pros are making a very good living. No they are not getting a Payton Manning size contract but they are making more than most of my readers and the average reader makes $150,000 per year…** "**

Hazen Kent “Really? So that is the average income of your reader?”

John Duke “Yep. Today, our reader averages $150,000 per year based on a poll we took last year.”

I don’t know what I find harder to believe, that the average Trathelete reader makes 150k a year or that there are 100 pros making more than 150k a year. Can this be true? Is there that much cash is this sport?

Dave

2

That can’t be true. Either Mr. Duke was misquoted or he has some serious misconceptions about salaries in the sport.

Come to think of it, wasn’t Mr. Duke heir to some huge fortune or something?

3

I would venture a guess that the income estimates are based on a combination of winnings and sponsorship support. That number may not be very far off the mark.

4

What is he smokin’?!

Maybe, just maybe, 10-20 tri pros in the entire world make anything like that…

5

I don’t really see why not…

Most get a grant from different organizations in their countrys (say 20,000 a year). Sponsership money (which can be a lot of money for some), say 50,000-100,000.

Now you have race money (Kona is 100g’s!), and some even get payed to come to races.

That said 100 is a lot, I’d say more like the top 50 in the world make that much.

Now cycling is a different thing. I heard Ullrich drives an Audi A6…

6

All you need is a couple millionaires and it would throw the average to the high end. Any magazine poll will skew to the high end anyways because it looks more attractive to advertisers.

7

I only know a few pros, most of them are driving old cars, and they sure don’t act like they’re making that kind of coin(although they could simply be conservative spenders.) If I were a pro making that kind of money, I wouldn’t be sharing an apartment with three other people.(and I’m talking about folks who have won championships.)

I’ve seen USAT and Triathlete bandying about the $150K number for a while now, and while it is likely that there are a lot of folks in that range, they’re probably talking household income, assuming dual income earners(you know, all us dinks).

As near as I can tell, they’re using it as a license to gouge. “Oh, look, our customers make a f***load of money, so host our events and screw them.”

Sorry about the mini-rant.

If triathletes didn’t have a lot of money, no one would be building Blades, $500 wetsuits, charging $1500 for hotels for IM events, etc. But I don’t believe there are that many pros taking down $150K.

8

I think the average poll respondent makes $150K per year. I don;t repsond to those polls becasue I don’t make enough money!!!

9

And then there are those of us who think that how much we make is nobody’s damned business, or at the very least, that it is not a subject for public discussion.

10

Maybe Bill Gates is a reader, that would easily bring the readership average up that high.

11

Having worked in the print media on and off over the years all I can say is don’t believe absolutly what you see in print in a gioven publication.

Some comments:

  1. John Duke is well plugged in and should know what he is talking about. He knows many of the key players in the sport on the athletes side, on the sponsorship side and obviously in the media. However, I am not quite sure about a theoretical top 100 list of pro triathletes who all make over $150,000 grand a year. At the very top - say the top 10 - 20, some/ all of this group would. However, my suspician is that after that the money drops off fairly dramatically and quickly to athletes who are covering expenses, to just barely making ends meet, to loosing money and or tapping into savings significantly.

  2. On average income of triathlete readers. Sometimes this is broken out as household income, which would make this more believeable and other times it is purely individual income. Either way there is no denying that the triathlon demographic is a good one. Let’s face it, you have to have a decent amount of money to compete in this sport. It is not a poor-man’s game. I know that you can do things on the cheap, but it’s challenging. There are so many things that seem to be “must haves” if you want to participate and/or do well. Note that I said “seem”. Years later, you learn the reality and start to seperate some of the fact from the fiction.

12

It only makes sense to inflate the income of your readership since this guy’s trying to sell advertising to companies. I also remember reading somewhere that triathlon was one of the top 3 sports for income of its participants. Golf and sailing were above it.

13

Take a look at the sponsor money Hawker gets, it is over $150,000 a year.

http://www.chadhawker.com

14

Personally, I would love it if all the top pros were making that kind of cash. That would show that this is a serious sport with a strong future. It would also give hope to a lot of up and coming athletes that there is a payoff for the countless hours of hard work. But I just don’t see it. That’s why I had to reread the article a few times to make sure that’s what he had said.

As far as some of the age groupers making big cash, all you have to do is look at the parking lot of any triathlon to know that is true. I just thought 150k was crazy for an average. For every CEO you have a several Team Secondhand Racing candidates out there.

Dave

15

That’s true. If Susan Dell reads, and she probably does given the article about her last year(or at least they give her credit for reading), well that’s a couple hundred million more right there.

Next year’s announcement, after almost everyone cancels their subscription in disgust: “The average Triathlete Magazine reader has a net worth of $62.3 Million, owns a 47’ boat, and flies a private jet to their estate in Kona for the WTC championships. They own a home in the vicinity of each race locale, and have a full-time chef and personal coach.”

IMNA entries will then be raised to $5,000, The Holiday Inn will charge $1,500/night with a 14 might minimum, and you won’t be allowed on the course unless you are riding a Lightspeed Blade or custom Serotta. All entrants will have to purchase a $50,000 race shopping pass to be used to purchase things at the race venue, with no refunds for unused monies.

Race support will be purchased cafeteria style by each racer, and various support packages will be offered.

Level 1(Platinum): A swimmer will be provided for you to draft during the swim. Gourmet food, chilled bottled water, energy drinks of your choice, mixed to order, fruit platters, and energy bars at every rest stop. Full bike support, including tune-ups, will be provided. A personal valet will be provided to you on the run. This person will fetch food and beverages for you. A personal porta-potty will be available specifically for your use and transported via helicopter anywhere on the course. You will have a personal medical team assigned to you.

Level 2(Gold): Chilled bottled water, Gatorade, energy bars, and fruit will be provided. You will receive bike support if available. You will have access to the Reserved Porta-Potties. If you require medical assistance, the first IV is complimentary.

Level 3(Silver): Tap water in used bike bottles, watered down Gatorade, Gu(only gross flavors). Honey buckets will be located at miles 20 & 76 on the bike.

Level 4(Bronze): Dirty lake water, bring your own bottles, no Gatorade, expired Gu packets. Go in your shorts. IV’s are $100/each.

(I had much higher hopes for this, but that pesky work keeps interfering.)

16

John Duke’s estimate of 100 triathlon pros making $150,000 or more is probably quite close to the truth. Here’s a few things to consider:

**The people on this forum see Ironman as “triathlon” . . . but in 2003, there was $3.5 million in prize money at the Olympic distance worldwide, vis a vis about $1.5 million at 1/2-IM and above. Moreover, while it’s tough to race effectively at IM distances more than twice a year, racing 12-15 time at the Olympic distance is no big problem. In other words, there is more money to chase at the Olympic distance and more opportunities to chase it.

**National Olympic Committees provide a substantial stream of money to athletes showing real potential towards realizing the Olympic dream. In the U.S. alone, for example, funding is approved for up to 12 members of the “Gold Team”, and with the monthly grants, expense accounts, and performance bonuses, the average payout probably averages $25,000+ annually.

**Sponsorship has not reached that of NASCAR yet, and probably never will, but it is still substantial. Several of the U.S. Olympic athletes reap total sponsorship payments of $75,000 cash or more, and that doesn’t even count all of the product sponsorships.

**Nearly every first-world nation gives substantial support to its top Olympic triathletes. Look at the ITU points standings (www.triathlon.org). New Zealand has six men in the top 20. Brazil has three of top 20 women. Throw in Australia’s powerhouse program, plus Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, France, Spain, and Russia. That’s 10 countries right there, with Olympic programs approaching that of the U.S. Austria has a couple of rising stars (one a Aussie ex-pat). Belgium has a woman in the top 10. Twenty-year-old Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal has already won a world cup and recently finished fifth at worlds (which had a prize purse of $175,000). Rasmus Henning of Denmark won the Athens test event. Kazakstan has two men in the top ranks, including Dimitri Gaag, the new #1 ranked athlete in the world and a national hero.

**The lure of the Olympics provides earning opportunities that transcend ordinary sponsorship. Sheila Taormina, for example, gets frequent requests for paid speaking engagements; her fee ranges from $2,000 to $5,000 per talk.