Ashley Uhl-Leavitt landed a possibility most athletes can solely dream of – an opportunity to compete within the 2024 Olympic Video games. Whereas this Florida-based marathon runner has run in among the most iconic races on this planet just like the New York Metropolis Marathon, that is her first time to compete within the Olympic marathon.
In lower than 100 days, athletes and spectators alike will converge in Paris, France, for an occasion synonymous with bringing the world collectively whatever the calibre of world geopolitical tensions all through the historical past of the trendy Olympiad.
“A whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals tried to get a handful [marathon] spots. It was such an extended shot,” Uhl-Leavitt informed Al Jazeera.
However with that blessing comes a hurdle on the monitor to the video games. The way to prepare and canopy one’s prices.
“Once I’m in marathon builds, it’s very time-consuming,” she mentioned.
She has to suit coaching in the place she will between her two jobs – one as a private coach and the opposite as a bartender in her hometown of Ponte Vedra Seaside, Florida – roughly 20 miles (32km) from Jacksonville.
To offset the prices of attending to the video games, she turned to the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe.
Coaching for this excessive stage of athletics is a full-time job. Athletes additionally journey to compete in numerous video games to hone their abilities within the lead-up to the large day. However since most potential Olympians should pay their very own approach for all this effort, it’s a practically not possible state of affairs having to determine between working or competing.
Solely a choose few land a profitable company partnership. Allianz Life Insurance coverage Firm, for instance, is just sponsoring 5 Olympians and Paralympians (the video games for these with disabilities).
There isn’t a wage for athletes coaching for the Olympics. There are restricted stipend alternatives, however solely as soon as they’ve certified for the video games – a long-shot endeavour in itself. Whereas stipends differ, some are as little as a couple of hundred {dollars} a month. The coaching as much as that time is out of pocket.
Greater than 90 p.c of all Olympians reported spending as a lot as $21,700 in competitors charges and membership dues within the lead-up to the video games. Greater than 1 / 4 of all US Olympians report making lower than $15,000 yearly in complete revenue.
As for healthcare, Olympian athletes reported spending as a lot as $9,200 for out-of-pocket bills amid accidents and as little as 16 p.c have been reimbursed, based on a report from the Fee on the State of US Olympics & Paralympics – an unbiased fee appointed by Congress in 2020 (PDF).
Uhl-Leavitt is likely one of the many athletes over time who turned to different means to finance their Olympic journey. One other is boxer Jennifer Lozano of Laredo, Texas, who, based on her crowdfunding marketing campaign, is the primary within the south Texas city she calls residence to get an opportunity to compete.
Lozano’s coaching routine is bodily and time intensive – a should for this 21-year-old in her efforts to convey residence the gold. She begins each day as early as 6am. She will get a stipend from USA Boxing to cowl her day-to-day prices like automobile funds whereas coaching and for journey for the video games.
She informed Al Jazeera that she had been getting a stipend for the previous eight months, earlier than she formally certified for the workforce at a global competitors in Santiago, Chile, in October 2023. She declined to share the quantity and frequency of the stipend.
Earlier than that, although, all prices got here out of her pocket and that of her household. She declined to share the greenback determine for these prices as effectively.
Lozano informed Al Jazeera that she’s utilizing the funds from her GoFundMe marketing campaign to cowl the prices related to getting her household and coaches to the video games.
Lower than the federal poverty line
Monetary constraints hit Olympian athletes however not different high-level athletes like these in skilled athletic leagues. In sports activities like American soccer, even gamers who don’t play in an official sport receives a commission effectively. The minimal pay for a participant on the observe squad this 12 months in skilled American soccer is $16,800 per week, based on the Nationwide Soccer Leagues’ most up-to-date collective bargaining settlement. As for Main League Baseball – gamers inside their minor leagues are paid a minimal of $60,300 for the 2024 season.
Whereas many Olympians don’t rake in compensation from their time on the video games, the medal winners do. A gold medal finisher walks away with $37,500, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for third-place finishers.
In context, that signifies that third-place finishers make lower than the present federal poverty line for one individual. To afford lease in the US, you’ll must make greater than double what a gold medallist earns on the naked minimal.
The USA has pretty low payouts for Olympic prize cash in contrast with different nations. Over the past Olympic Video games, Italy provided $213,000 for gold medallists. Singapore provided the equal of $737,000 for first-place finishers. This time, Singapore is elevating the stakes and can provide first-place winners $1m in prize cash. But when historical past is any indicator, it might not should pay that out because the island nation has solely produced one gold medallist in its historical past.
“Your lifetime earnings as an Olympic athlete are within the extraordinarily excessive unfavorable figures. There’s little doubt about that,” mentioned Victor Matheson, professor of economics on the Faculty of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts and the creator of Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics.
There was some momentum to maximise payouts for these athletes, however there has not been a lot within the final decade. Following the 2016 video games, then-President Barack Obama signed a invoice into regulation that barred the IRS from taxing rewards on medals, dubbed the victory tax.
Thus far, Observe and Discipline is the one sport to supply further prize cash to winners. Earlier this month, World Athletics, the game’s governing physique, introduced it could hand out $50,000 in prize cash to every of the gold medallists. Observe and Discipline is slated to have 48 completely different occasions within the upcoming video games.
Whereas prize cash helps, it doesn’t handle the monetary limitations to entry. Partly, that’s the reason so many athletes like Uhl-Leavitt have turned to crowdfunding platforms in 2024 earlier than the video games.
Coaching itself is pricey. That’s what drove now-retired sabre fencer Monica Aksamit, who earned a bronze medal within the 2016 video games, to begin a GoFundMe whereas coaching for the 2020 Tokyo video games, though it was delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within the months within the run-up to the Tokyo video games, she garnered nationwide headlines by which she defined that it was a alternative between coaching and dealing. She informed the coed newspaper at her alma mater, Penn State, that the US Olympic Committee gave her a small stipend of $300 a month. In the meantime, she spent greater than $20,000 on coaching. Due to the time dedication that Olympic-level coaching requires, she struggled to search out work even at an area grocery retailer.
Aksamit had agreed to sit down down with Al Jazeera in New York. Nevertheless, she didn’t present as much as the preplanned interview nor might she be reached for rescheduling.
There may be some minor assist on the market for some athletes in a handful of sports activities. Associations together with USA Swimming, US Taekwondo and US Rowing provide small stipends for athletes coaching for the Olympics primarily after they’ve certified for the nationwide workforce.
In any other case, choices are fairly restricted to the few athletes which might be in a position to solidify sponsorships.
Due to these large monetary prices and low probability of long-term monetary success, there’s much less incentive for fogeys to get their youngsters concerned about sports activities to start with – not simply the area of interest ones.
“Mother and father pay big quantities of cash within the hopes of getting their children even simply on the varsity workforce in highschool, that elusive faculty scholarship or the much more elusive slot on a regional or nationwide workforce and a possible invite to the Olympics. It’s wildly costly,” Matheson, the economics professor, added.
Solely about half of middle-income and solely 31 p.c of low-income youngsters get entangled in athletics, whereas the extra excessive revenue do at 71 p.c, based on the Facilities For Illness Management.
This has been a problem for Olympic athletes and their households for a very long time. In 2012, Natalie Hawkins, the mom of iconic gymnast Gabby Douglas, filed for chapter amid the excessive prices of coaching.
Nicely-paid executives
In the meantime, the Olympic Video games are an enormous money-maker for a number of completely different events. Throughout each sport, the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) swimming pools the earnings from ticket gross sales, promoting gross sales, and different cash spinners. A few of it’s redistributed again to host cities and accomplice organisations together with every nation’s particular person committee after the IOC takes its reduce.
That’s when, in principle, organisations just like the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee divide up the income and distribute it on its stage to coaching programmes and athletes.
“Nearly actually an excessive amount of of it will get eaten up by overpaid directors and a few stuff like that,” Matheson mentioned.
That’s what occurred stateside.
Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, made greater than $1.1m in 2022 – the 12 months of the latest Winter Olympic Video games. In the meantime, the US Olympic committee had a internet income of $61.6m – the second-highest on report, based on the organisation’s 2022 monetary disclosures. It’s only second to the Tokyo 2021 video games (delayed by a 12 months due to the pandemic), which introduced in $104.6m in internet revenue. By comparability, in 2016, the 12 months of the Rio De Janeiro video games, $78.5m (the equal of $88.9m, adjusted for inflation).
The occasions additionally make some huge cash for broadcasters. In the US, NBC holds the unique broadcasting rights for the video games. The media firm disclosed that it has bought no less than $1.2bn in commercial gross sales earlier than the video games. The broadcaster, which holds unique broadcast rights to the Olympics till 2032, expects report income.
That’s considerably greater than what different broadcasters nab for different high-profile occasions that they’ve unique broadcasting rights to. As an illustration, CBS introduced in a report $635m for American soccer’s premiere occasion – the Tremendous Bowl.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.
The most important names in a handful of sports activities do find yourself with profitable promoting and sponsorship offers, together with athletes like swimmer Michael Phelps, who gained 28 gold medals over the course of his profession, and gymnast Simon Biles, who gained international fame after clinching gold in 2016.
However for many striving athletes, greatness is just not in regards to the marginal likelihood of economic success, however fairly a showcase of a key a part of who they’re.
“Lengthy runs on the weekends are two and a half to 3 hours, and also you’re operating an hour or two hours and a half or cross-training each day by means of the week,” Uhl-Leavitt mentioned. “It positively does eat your life.”
