USAT Membership Tier Changes

Triathlon Forum
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So on one hand, I’m happy that a portion of my fees can pay to help pros and develop exceptional youth into into elite athletes.

On the other hand, it’s frustrating that the elite, high end focus of USAT (and other federations) is a very different sport than the ones most of the funding amateur athletes are participating in.

Ironman gets a lot of flak for not supporting the pros. What does Sam Long get from USAT? A licensing program that he still pays IM put of pocket to join their pro ranks with? I’d rather the top US long course pros got the funding and attention of USAT than the draft legal Olympic ones.

Most of the world doesn’t care about triathlon and especially not the Olympics version of it. More of the world knows Ironman at least.

People talk about Ironman being big bad corporation, and ignore the politicking and presumably self dealing going on behind the scenes at the Olmypic level. I’d rather see a generation of excellent long course pros developed by USAT than chasing the back of the pack of the Olympics. Yes, we got Knibb, but it’s clear her family influence has driven her to long course. What if USAT was actually encouraging and developing long course athletes? Why feed the Olympic machine instead of the Ironman one?

Lurker likely another american long distance person who cant hang fast with short distance. past 2 male kona champs come from this, blowing away the dedicated long course people. The main problem with olympic distance in USA is ITU doesnt make stops here anymore, and also charges people to view the races. So most americans dont know about it

Err, I’d hope it would be a foregone conclusion that I can’t hang with elite short course athletes. In terms of sprint and oly at nationals, I have been consistently in the top 15-20% of racers overall. I certainly don’t see that as “hanging” in terms of the podium, but being better than 80% of the USAT nationals I’m content with that. Local short course races I’m always podium contention. So better than most but consistently lose to the best is pretty much a place I’d describe myself with!

I’d rather see USAT push their elite athletes into excelling at long course, whether that’s through bonuses, incentives, travel rebates, etc. Most USAT paying triathletes will never care that Morgan Pearson is a strong contender for 5th place in Paris. Is it possible he could be in strong contention for a 70.3 worlds podium? Maybe :slight_smile:
I’ll repeat – Sam Long has done more for American triathlon than most people on the short course crew, with a couple notable exceptions (Knibb obviously, maybe a case could be made for a couple others…likely not). This is to say nothing of his ability to beat any of them, but rather he’s likely getting and keeping more people excited about triathlon than any of the other short course US men.

Which male has generated a better return for triathlon in the USA relative to the amount of dollars USAT spends on them?

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My understanding is that the USA Olympic Committee (USOC) gives funding to USAT (and others like USA Swimming, USA T&F) to develop athletes for the Olympics. This is the primary reason and really only reason these national governing bodies exist… get athletes to the Olympics. While I understand what you are getting at, driving athletes to long course goes against why USAT even exists.

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Ben Kanute has probably been the best return on investment. He’s sorta the ideal athlete who’s gone through full spectrum.

Came through the junior pipeline, made Olympics, won USAT MtR world championships and podiums then moved on to LC having a full successful career.

24

My guess is you pay the extra for the platinum and they’ll give you $300 towards your stuff for worlds
I’m going to guess no from my experiences and this looks like nothing more than a hidden price hike of their TeamUSA administrative fee.

25

My understanding is that the USA Olympic Committee (USOC) gives funding to USAT (and others like USA Swimming, USA T&F) to develop athletes for the Olympics. This is the primary reason and really only reason these national governing bodies exist… get athletes to the Olympics. While I understand what you are getting at, driving athletes to long course goes against why USAT even exists.

This is fundamentally untrue. High Performance is only a portion of its mission. At its core it is a member organization whose mission is growth of triathlon. As part of growing triathlon they support National teams, even though this is an individual sport, the purpose of National Team athletes is to win gold medals to drive interest in their sport. National team athletes are a growth vehicle. This is about mass participation, nothing else.

Because the entirety of their mandate, as a USOC-affiliated body, is to produce athletes capable of qualifying for the Olympics.

That’s their reason for existence.

Everything else is secondary.

Pretty shallow understanding of the role of an NGB.

Literally all I’ve gotten thus far.
Looks like general membership is going up in general and there’s a tiered approach for members as well… tomorrow is the formal update but ran across this link on runsignup

https://info.runsignup.com/...n-membership-changes

https://info.runsignup.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-12-at-8.48.41 AM-1024x571.png

Wish I had purchased the lifetime membership when that was an option. It was 1K.

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But by being an member of the USOC it’s “high performance” is geared ~80% towards olympic pathway athletes, 15% juniors and then 5% all other disciplines (LC / duathlon / aqua…). So there will never really be a ton of resources given to LC athletes. They obviously market the hell out of any multisport pro results that are world class, but beyond ITU support their pro’s basically with nothing. But they are also a very limited funding program overall, the high performance budget the last time I looked years ago was like 2.5 million out of a very larger budget (I can’t remember HP budget, but it was less than 20% overall).

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But by being an member of the USOC it’s “high performance” is geared ~80% towards olympic pathway athletes, 15% juniors and then 5% all other disciplines (LC / duathlon / aqua…). So there will never really be a ton of resources given to LC athletes. They obviously market the hell out of any multisport pro results that are world class, but beyond ITU support their pro’s basically with nothing. But they are also a very limited funding program overall, the high performance budget the last time I looked years ago was like 2.5 million out of a very larger budget (I can’t remember HP budget, but it was less than 20% overall).

Last I checked, Long Course Triathlon is not a World Level sport. But the vast majority of their membership are long course and non draft, and they want more of us. They have done very little at the grassroots level (hard) to make draft-legal racing accessible. But again that’s not their mission. Their mission is growing triathlon.

Now, for the World Level Sport, and the USOPC funding. Based on how I’ve dealt with things in Rugby, 100% of that funding goes to national team short course stuff. It cannot be used for say “age group nats operations”.

In another thread you asked if the PTO donation/check had to be on the taxes. Well USOPC funding is audited every year. And if they misappropriated that money the Federation would get slapped around.

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Long Course Triathlon is not a World Level sport.

It is, there are a bunch of disciplines within multisport that USAT “supports” world triathlon world championships- LC tri, Duathlon (short + long), it’s just they give such small support for those disciplines because well the Olympics is where the big time funding is. So even if you wanted to get LC support- it would be in the WT long course event, not 70.3/IM World Championships because it’s an sport that is so connected to the sport federations.

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Is there a professional circuit put on by the ITU? Because I don’t see one. Yes they have their token long course championships. But this isn’t Rugby 7s and XVs here.

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It’s not the “token” world championship. Because USAT is a sport federation of world triathlon, that is the defacto “long course” world championship. The same for any other discipline- duathlon / aquathlon that all have elite fields and elite world championships. Again USAT suppports many elites in those disciplines at different times that no one ever knows about or hears about (usually it’s travel only or travel only if you podium at any discipline outside of the Olympic pathway itu circuit). So if Sam Long wanted “support” the best chance he would ever have is racing WT LC World’s, getting a podium and then likely getting travel paid back. He could win Kona and USAT would do nothing but give him kudos and talk it up on the socials for weeks as the best thing ever (yet he’d get nothing from USAT essentially other then social media love).

31

My understanding is that the USA Olympic Committee (USOC) gives funding to USAT (and others like USA Swimming, USA T&F) to develop athletes for the Olympics. This is the primary reason and really only reason these national governing bodies exist… get athletes to the Olympics. While I understand what you are getting at, driving athletes to long course goes against why USAT even exists.

USAT gets 7 million in membership fees from regular Joes like us. It gets a little over million from the Olympic committee.

I’m HAPPY to pay membership to an organization that helps triathlon in this country. I’d just rather see that membership help the kind of triathlon I and most others do.

If USAT gave a 7:1 ratio of benefits to mid/long course athletes over drafting short course thst would be proportional. If they gave 2:1 or even 1:1 that would be disproportionate for the revenue they collect from mid/long course. But at least it would be something.

I totally agree Ben Kanute has been a good return overall for triathlon. But I’m assuming they haven’t done much since he was racing short course.

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Years ago they had a flow chart of where your membership dues went, I believe it was 2-8% only goes into the high performance pathway; as you noted they get their own specific funding outside the membership. So 90% of your membership goes back into services to directly support/help you the AG athlete. We are talking very min funds here that support or don’t support the specific elite pathway you want or don’t want to support.

ETA: The main issue is that the LC races that would get LC athletes “support” are the races that don’t matter in the US in particular because of our fixation on IM/70.3 branded world championships. That’s sorta persona non grata for funding purposes.

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I’ll repeat – Sam Long has done more for American triathlon than most people on the short course crew, with a couple notable exceptions (Knibb obviously, maybe a case could be made for a couple others…likely not). This is to say nothing of his ability to beat any of them, but rather he’s likely getting and keeping more people excited about triathlon than any of the other short course US men.

Which male has generated a better return for triathlon in the USA relative to the amount of dollars USAT spends on them?

circle back to my point of short course blocking the ability to track athletes with their pay for play tv coverage. If same long is so great as you think he is, he can go try for ITU. A few long distance champs tried their hand and struggled… macca, lucy charles. Professionals in the sporting are the best, not the ones who can market even though they may get more money

34

Replying to the thread

For platinum, it says Ability to Race Internationally with Team USA

So does that mean if you get a bronze or silver and you qualify for world championships you’re not allowed to go because you didn’t pay for the platinum?

Or maybe you don’t even need to qualify you just buy a platinum level membership and you get to compete at worlds?

To me, USAT licenses are just gatekeepers that force people to pay to play. I have paid these fees for 18 years and they never provided me with anything but allowing me to register for a race. The CEO and board members are sucking on the teet of affluent people. Give the customer the option to not buy one and still race and few would buy a license because it provides no value.

Benefits include: 
Exclusive Training Resources: comprehensive training plans developed specifically for USA Triathlon members by a certified coach to help you achieve your goals Don’t want it, don’t need it. I don’t know anyone who has used it. I would buy it if I wanted it. Digital subscription to USA Triathlon Magazine  Unlimited free triathlon resources on the internet already. Exclusive access to race and partner discounts valued at over $500. USAT never provided me with a discount to enter a race. But I do have to pay them to enter a race. A 50% off Rudy Project discount is not exclusive to USAT. Race Access: Unlimited racing at thousands USAT sanctioned events. PAY TO PLAYKeep you safe: provides accidental medical coverage during all USA Triathlon events. Show me the details of this policy. I’m paying for coverage and I can not see the policy that covers me? I also have health insurance. **Discount on upgrade **to Gold/ Platinum membership More PAY to PLAY options. hmmmmm… I wonder if they are hiring. Get money for doing nothing. Spend that money like an irresponsible teenager. Expect more money next year for doing nothing again. Continue to spend irresponsibly. I can do that!