Olympic athletes squeezed financially
Gwen Berry had planned to compete in a slate of international track and field meets in the lead-up to the Tokyo Olympics this summer. For the hammer thrower, they were meant to be a tuneup as she looked to make her second Olympic team.
The coronavirus pandemic changed all that, leading to the postponement of the Tokyo Games and a stoppage in competitions. Meets that Berry planned to compete in on three continents were postponed indefinitely while COVID-19 spread and countries enacted travel restrictions.
For Berry, that means difficult times for her training – and for her finances. It’s the money she earns for good performances at those meets that help support her.
“For track and field, we rely on track meets, track events, going overseas,” she said last month. “Because there’s literally nothing, no competitions, that’s our income.”
Olympic athletes often struggle to piece together incomes even in the best of times, looking at prize money, stipends, sponsorship and sometimes speaking fees to constitute a living. For some, a full-time job is required to support their athletic pursuits. Few get rich.
The disruption caused by the coronavirus means, like many Americans, some Olympic hopefuls are struggling financially.
“For many of them, they are the classic gig workers and have been before that was a thing. They do speaking engagements, appearances,” said U.S.
Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland. “While in any one instance, those may not be significantly lucrative, many of them together provide a living for some of these guys, and a lot of that has dried up.”
The delay of the Tokyo Games has led to major economic ripples in the Olympic movement. Postponing the Olympics, which are now scheduled to start July 23, 2021, is expected to increase costs by a reported $2 billion to $6 billion.
Already, Tokyo’s official budget was $12.6 billion, though a national audit report put it at more than double that.
In the United States, the delay and loss of competitions has financially walloped the USOPC and the national governing bodies that run each sport. The USOPC is in the process of reducing expenses, with cuts of 10-20% expected when it finalizes those decisions this month.
Last week it saw more than 30 workers accept voluntary severance packages.
The NGBs, meanwhile, are faced with declining membership and a lack of events – for many, their biggest revenue streams. An Associated Press survey found 32 of the 36 that responded had applied for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program, with those receiving funds totaling about $12 million.
Athletes would be eligible for unemployment under the CARES Act passed in March that offers benefits to self-employed, contract or gig workers.
In Texas, Berry, 30, has been able to continue training at a middle school near where she’s based, making her luckier than many Olympic athletes who have seen their training impacted by gym closures and stay-at-home orders.
She receives a stipend from USA Track & Field but has considered trying to find other work – a daunting prospect in an economy that has seen more than 20.6 million U.S. workers lose their jobs in April.
She’s not alone in that struggle. Tokyo hopefuls might have to find new sources of income even as they prepare for the Games in 14 months.
“America’s best athletes may be working as delivery people or working at grocery stores and whatever else they gotta do,” said Brant Feldman, an agent who represents Olympians and Paralympians.
A dead period for earning prize money
While the movement of the Games presents myriad challenges for athletes, including training for another year, it’s the lack of events now that is causing immediate financial strain.
In women’s rugby, tournaments scheduled in Hong Kong, Canada and Paris presented opportunities for bonuses for finishing in the top four.
“Depending on how well you do, each tournament you can win a couple thousand dollars,” said U.S. co-captain Abby Gustaitis, 29. “It’s a significant amount of money for us. You can earn your whole monthly stipend in one tournament.”
Swimming offers similar opportunities with its TYR Pro Swim Series, which held two events this year before USA Swimming canceled stops in Mission Viejo, California, and Indianapolis because of the coronavirus.
Winners receive $1,500, secondplace finishers $1,000 and third-place finishers $500, said Madisyn Cox, the 2017 world bronze medalist in the 200 individual medley.
“You can go out of there with nothing, or I think I’ve made up to $4,500,” said Cox, 24, who is planning to defer medical school because of the postponement.
Track and field athletes rely largely on prize money. Diamond League meets, the tops in the sport, offer $10,000 for winners down to $1,000 for finishing eighth. The World Continental Tour, where Berry planned to compete, offers up to $6,000 for wins in its toptier events.
“Most athletes are under that six-figure (shoe contract), and some are well under that and some don’t have contracts, so the money that’s generated from prize money is essential to their subsistence as an athlete and allowing them the ability to pay their rent, get their food, etc.,” said John Nubani, who represents about 30 track and field athletes.
World Athletics announced this week that it is rescheduling some Diamond League and Continental Tour events for late summer or early fall. It’s not clear how travel restrictions might limit who is able to attend.
After finishing sixth at the U.S. Marathon Trials, Martin Hehir, 27, expected to run races before a marathon this fall.
The coronavirus pushed organizers of the Boston Marathon to postpone the race for the first time in its history, and it’s now scheduled for Sept. 14. With the Chicago Marathon in October and the New York City Marathon in November, Hehir would have opportunities for prize money or contract bonuses from Reebok, his shoe sponsor.
But Hehir, a third-year medical student at Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Philadelphia, knows the spread of the coronavirus could further impact the schedule.
“From a financial aspect, it’s kind of tough knowing there’s really no opportunities to win prize money or capitalize on contract bonuses and things like that during this kind of dead period,” said Hehir, who now might consider trying to make the U.S. team in the 10,000 meters. “We hope all these races happen in the fall, but everything is so uncertain right now.”
Stipends vary from sport to sport
Criteria vary by sport, but the top U.S. athletes can receive stipends from the USOPC, their governing body or both.
Hirshland said the USOPC stipends for this year will not change, and officials from USA Gymnastics, USA Track & Field, USA Weightlifting, USA Rugby and USA Swimming said theirs would not either.
“Our athletes are pretty well protected because we said, ‘Look, first things first, we have to get the athlete stipends out the door,’ ” said Phil Andrews, CEO of USA Weightlifting.
How much support athletes receive from their stipends can vary widely.
Rower Meghan Musnicki, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, said her stipend is less than $2,000 a month. She and many other rowers on the national team live with host families near where they train in New Jersey.
“Unfortunately, from a money-making perspective, we’re not missing out on much of anything,” said Musnicki, 37. “If we’re not performing or we’re not racing, they’re going to be less inclined to give us more money.”
Andrews said USA Weightlifting’s stipends range from $750 to $4,000 a month. In track and field, stipends top out at $12,000 annually at the high end of the tier system.
Berry declined to share the amount of her stipend.
“I feel like the stipend that they give us is not enough to live off for a year, or for a couple months, honestly,” Berry said.
Hirshland said she did not know how athlete stipends, which the USOPC funds for 28 summer NGBs, will be impacted by expenditure cuts in 2021.
“We will take a really good long hard look at trying to retain and maintain as much support for the athlete community as we possibly can in the light of the reality that we are going to have to cut our overall expenditures,” she said.
Who receives stipends is a question the USOPC and the governing bodies are working out. In a typical year, criteria ranging from world rankings to finishes at top international competitions would determine who qualifies for them. With almost no competitions this year, making those determinations will have to change.
Rowing, for instance, would have named its national teams in June. Now, it is in a holding pattern as it waits to hear when competitions might resume.
“It’s mostly uncertainty right now because we don’t know what the funding will look like going forward,” said Olympic gold medalist Emily Regan, 31.
“I’m sure some athletes are losing sponsorship opportunities they were banking on, but there are athletes in some sports who rely on the funding they get in an Olympic year just to be able to train for their sport.”
For now, athletes remain with the same designation as before the pandemic altered the sports calendar.
Spokespeople for USA Gymnastics, USA Swimming and USA Track & Field all said their governing bodies are finalizing criteria to determine who qualifies for stipends.
“On the USOPC side, there are athlete dollars that are still going out to athletes, but it’s not enough to live on,” Feldman said.
“It was never set up to be that way, especially during a pandemic.”
Sponsorship opportunities waning
Six-figure sponsorship deals and contracts with companies outside of a specific sport are the exception rather than the rule for Olympic athletes, and agents fear the economic downturn could lessen opportunities for even small sponsorship deals.
Lamont Dagen, who represents 18 track and field athletes, said he recently has been trying to secure sponsorships for athletes but it’s been difficult in this economy.
A first-year post-collegiate athlete he represents doesn’t have any sponsorship deals and was debating moving home because he can’t work or train.
“Those are the uphill battles that they’re facing right now because so many athletes … don’t have the commercial means or the benefits to be able to survive,” Dagen said. “How many athletes will not compete next year because of this?”
Nubani said contracts with large base salaries were common 20 to 30 years ago. Now those are harder to come by, and athletes often have contracts for apparel and performance bonuses.
“There’s going to be cuts made across the board because one, you’re not competing. Two, you’re not getting the exposure on TV nationally, internationally that you would normally get,” Nubani said.
“We have seen the shrinking of those (advertising) budgets and the lack of athletes under contract with the different companies. It’s been happening prior to this and I just think it’s going to accelerate it even more.”
Nubani said his clients have not lost deals yet. But many deals for an Olympic cycle will expire at the end of the year, and the prospect for renewal is unclear if the economy doesn’t begin to recover.
The financial difficulty could continue for athletes, even if the Games are able to be held in 2021, though that’s not guaranteed with Tokyo organizers casting doubt about the coronavirus being under control by then.
If the economy remains troubled, athletes might lose out on small sponsorship deals that could have come their way, Feldman said.
“I don’t know that those athletes are going to be able to capitalize at the levels we’ve seen in the past after they’ve done well in Tokyo,” he said.