Investing in athletes for golden return

IT’S time to take a serious look at Australia’s funding model for the majority of our Olympic sports and their athletes as we countdown to Paris 2024.

As legendary Aussie swim coach Laurie Lawrence once said: “You can’t eat gold medals”.

Our top Olympians like Ariarne Titmus, Kyle Chalmers and Jess Fox are able to cash in on their sporting success as major brand ambassadors.

Other stars like Mary Fowler or Josh Giddey and Patty Mills also play in some of the most lucrative sporting competitions in the world.

The majority of the Australian athletes who will be pursuing their Olympic dreams make great sacrifices to proudly wear the green and gold on the world’s biggest sporting stage.

In this issue of PARIS.24 counting down to the Games we look at the rise of athlete brand ambassadors and what it takes to secure sponsorship dollars as well as shine a light on some of the real costs of being an Olympian or Paralympian.

Winning an Olympic medal might be priceless but Australia lags well behind other nations when it comes to offering a modest $20,000 for a gold medal, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze as an incentive for athletes to train on.

At least 20 countries reward their athletes a six figure sum for an Olympic gold medal.

The AOC is overhauling its Athlete Incentive Scheme which will enable all the different sports to individually market the Olympic rings. But is that going to be enough? For our female Olympic athletes in particular the answer is probably not.

The rapid professionalism of women’s sport in Australia and the enormous surge in popularity is creating a genuine threat to traditional Olympic sports.

As the players’ salaries continue to grow for codes like AFLW, NRLW and Super Netball those sports will look more and more attractive to the next generation of our best athletes.

If we don’t address the funding issue, Olympics sports like track and field, rowing and other water sports will start to suffer.

PARIS.24 EDITOR

Mick Carroll