THE NEXT HURDLE
WHAT THE BIG STARS OF THE OLYMPICS CAN EXPECT TO MAKE FROM ENDORSEMENTS,
You won. The anthem plays triumphant, you stand on the tallest podium above the competition, you’re the champion of the world, and the iconic gold — a symbol of victory descended from olive wreaths made in the sanctuary at Olympia — hangs around your neck.
For that moment, you’re an icon of your country, an avatar of global excellence and the object of attention for a million wide- eyed marketers steepling their fingertips.
But, odds are, it won’t do much for your bank account.
Marketing experts and media articles have paraded behind multiplemedal- winning Canadians Penny Oleksiak and Andre De Grasse as though the popular success stories of the Rio Games are near guaranteed to be long-standing commercial winners. And while both are certainly in play to make lucrative earnings for years to come, the reality of commercial investment and Olympic athletes is much more complicated than winning and losing, particularly in the Canadian market.
For winners in less popular sports, like Canadian gold medallists Erica Wiebe ( for 75- kilogram freestyle wrestling) and Derek Drouin ( for high jump), commercial success won’t come as easily.
Kris Mychasiw, a managing partner at Montreal- based Sprint Management, said summer athletes are removed from Canada because many of them have to live and train in warmer climates and that can isolate them from the market. De Grasse, for example, lives and trains in California and Arizona.
“Track and field is also different because they have a season that goes on outside the Olympics, regardless of the games,” said Mychasiw. “We’ve worked with medallists in the past, but for example in one case we had an athlete who had to go back to the Diamond League circuit, so she couldn’t come home. Not coming home means Canadians don’t have access to you, you’re out there for another month and by the time you come home, no one really cares anymore.”
But De Grasse was already a commercial success before he earned Olympic celebrity. His kid- brotherlike relationship with Usain Bolt, the greatest sprinter in history, came to prominence months after he inked a US$ 11.25- million multi- year deal with German sports- apparel maker Puma back in December 2015, after his success at the Pan Am games.
Bolt, meanwhile, makes an estimated US$ 33 million a year from sponsorships that include Puma, Visa, Virgin Media, Hublot and Gatorade.
But those earnings aren’t wholly reflective of his sport: Most track athletes never get commercial deals and the biennial World Championships pay only US$60,000 per gold medal, while Diamond League races pay US$ 10,000 to the victor. U. S. athlete Kind Butler III, who was on the 2013 4x400 relay team, then the world record holders, said he made just US$6,000 from track that year.
Mychasiw said, beyond track, winners like Oleksiak are also trapped by arbitrary periods of public marketability because of the amount of competition in sports broadcasting.
“I get people calling me and asking if they can be helped out, but the reality of it is the games are done and most athletes have a maximum of six months to sustain any public traction — but by October you’ll have the NFL, NHL, NBA and CFL all up and running again.”
He estimates a considerable number of Olympic athletes and winners, many of whom pay for their own training and equipment, live at or near the poverty line.
Even for Oleksiak, Canada’s most successful summer Olympics athlete ever and described by one paper as a “brand- friendly personality,” future commercial sponsorships depend on how she furthers her career in athletics. Still a teenager at 16, if she opts to swim in the NCAA circuit and train at an American university, she’ll have heavy restrictions because of the amateur categorization. If she decides to turn pro, she could sign off on deals, but there’s no guarantee of Olympiclevel interest in the months to come.
Swimmers, gymnasts and sprinters, apart from the major international basketball, tennis and soccer players at the games, also draw the largest ratings, which means other athletes just as successful as Oleksiak, Ledecky, Biles and De Grasse have fewer opportunities. Wiebe, for example, will receive $ 20,000 from the Canadian Olympic Committee for her win — but the sport of women’s wrestling doesn’t match the profile of swimming.
Mychasiw, who has worked with Olympians out of season to sustain their profile, says often they will have to think outside the box to have success outside the limited window of attention available to them.
“Kaillie Humphries, who is the two- time reigning Olympic champion at two-person bobsled, she’s had some great moments where all Canadians joined together with her,” he said. “But she also did a UFC stunt in 2014 where she participated in mixed martial arts, and it was great and kept her in the public eye. That’s what you’ve got to do to stay relevant.
“Canadians love the Olympics, but it’s the Hip who pulled in 11.7 million viewers.”