How much of this is for relevance as an athlete to gain sponsors and how much is to remain relevant after the last gate is crushed?
Good question,
@Tricia.
And of course, I'm going to give you the ultra vague "it all depends" answer. I can only speak to the athletes who's circumstances I'm somewhat familiar with, and most are alpine racers. As I have mentioned, the disparity is enormous in current earnings, as well as future earnings both before and after retirement. It also seems like the real "mother lode" arrives when you seriously become a global star.
As you and others ^^^^ have pointed out, particularly with your priceless comment:
@Frankly I'd love to watch ski racing if I could find it.
And the comments about lean advertising budgets, etc., the basic business is not that encouraging for the majority the athletes, particularly in North America. There is ZERO TV or mainstream media coverage for the sport in the USA. Yes, we'll get our token snippets on NBC during the Olympics, but otherwise you have to be a cyber whiz or a detective to track down the racing. Does it have ANY appeal for advertisers? Seriously? Even if it were on ESPN3 with fewer than 100K viewers, is that a group that anybody would pend advertising budget on?
So, the "pool" of corporations or organizations that are willing to invest in these athletes is smaller than ever. If you have serious global appeal, well, things are different. Bode Miller or Ted Ligety can pretty much walk down any street in their country and go unnoticed. So can MS, and obviously Mancuso. Lindsey Vonn, probably not. Some of that may be her very stunning physical presence in terms of her size. But ANY of them is instantly recognized, and some of them moved with autograph and selfie requests in Europe. Think Hirscher would be recognized in the US? No. Svindal's GF lives in NYC, and he loves being here as he is just another big guy on the street, riding his bike in the park, getting coffee, etc. Very few of us would recognize him. The general public...no.
Back to the disparity. I'll stick to the USA. The skiers on the C and D teams pay a big price tag to self fund, and it doesn't stop with the USST expenses. They still need to live, and eat. Most want a car. The "delta" is ugly. They need to find the money to pay the USST tens of thousands of dollars to get the uniform, train, and compete. Then, when not with the team, they need a roof over their heads, etc. Being able to work at anything else is pretty much impossible, as it's a year round thing. So that group is scrambling to raise money any way they can. Years ago, if you made the team, you stood a pretty good chance of getting a contract with a ski company that paid you some money. You did not have to be one of the bigger guns. Now those are fewer and far between. The stars of the sport are paid a TON of money by the ski/boot companies. Most of the skiers on the USST are getting very good support in terms of their equipment, some in tech services. Few are putting any cash in the bank.
People like Vonn, Gut, MS, and such earn a lot of money form their headgear sponsors. If you are in a Redbull helmet, you are making serious money. Hirscher earns a fortune. Those women in a Purple Mika helmet are very well compensated. Then look at the USST. It might be the skia rea that you grew up at that throws you $5K to wear the logo. Maybe it's a company near where you grew up, or a regional bank, or a food company. Bottom line...not much money, and very little real return for those renting the real estate on the helmet. Who even sees it?
We all know that MS has the Barilla logo, at least through this season. Do you know who Resi's is? I hear that the price for MS is about 100 times more.
So yes, somebody like MS or LV has a big watch deal. Rolex for Vonn {and Gut}, Longines for MS. Their agents seek and are pitched deals all the time. Do most of the rest even have an agent? Or a good one?
The social media thing, particularly the explosion of Instragram lets these skiers get a much wider awareness and presence, which helps them push their sponsors, as they increase their followers. Again, the disparity in the number of people following these skiers is huge. Vonn has well over 1 Million followers. MS has slightly more than 300K. Gut, and Anna Veith are about the same. Ika Stuhec, Goggia and others probably more like 50K. Resi, less. A youngster like Breezy Johnson, a few thousand.
These followers are currency. One of the issues that I know some research companies are digging into is whether Lara Gut, Anna, and MS all have different groups of followers among each's 300K....or is their a tire group of fans who follow them all? Early they are all still world class winter sports athletes. Vonn? She is moving on to the next career, and she clearly intends {as do her agents and handlers} to have her become a big media star. In what niche, who knows? But the plan is unquestionably to create opportunity and income to blow her current earnings away.
I follow every single young ski racer that I can on Instagram, and hope that friends of mine might follow them after seeing a post that I like. Some of these kids are more savvy than others. Do not post dumb stuff. Do not use the F-Bomb. It's hard as they want to be "normal" kids, and connect with their friends that way. Problem is the stupid platform could be enormous if they handle it the right way. Same with Twitter. It can be huge.
I have a close friend who has been a pretty big player in the sports wear business, shoes to be exact. I was spouting off a few weeks ago about how much I detest Lavar Ball. My friend says the guy is obnoxious, loud, etc., and that he is a genius. Explains to me even if people hate him, they want to know what he's up to. I guess that the number of people following him on Twitter has just exploded. And on Twitter he can take up more space, more words. Not as visual. Obviously both platforms work well.
Facebook? A webpage.....maybe for some of our demographic group here. Otherwise, not so much. There will be more platforms soon.
Back to Tricia's question, most of our skiers are own Rally Me, Crowdfunding, and doing anything possible to raise every single dime that they can. I really feel for these kids and their families. It is not fun. I have posted many, many times that it is just shameful that the USST can't raise the money to fund the entire squad. I personally think they should cut a lot of overhead, fund the team, and only add headcount that is absolutely essential. It's somewhat bloated.
But the REAL issue is that "nobody", at least in decent numbers, cares about competitive skiing in this country. This is not NASCAR. When the USST pitches sponsorship deals, they are almost impossible to sell. They have some that will dry up when a few key people leave the board, or cash out and retire from work. The USST desperately needs private donations, and I think they do a lousy job, to be honest.
The bottom line is that calling this group professional athletes is not so accurate. As for the men and women who still are ski and racing, late in their 20's, while not sniffing a USST nomination and entirely self funding, in some cases having NEVER had a WC start, and likely never going to, I just don't get it. Do you pay $50-$100K a year to be a professional athlete?
I think that the money is earned by a very select few, in pretty big numbers at the top. I get it. Their brands are stronger, and they bring more value to potential sponsors. It is staggering at how fast the line drops as your world rankings drop. Skiing a full WC schedule, skiing in multiple Olympics, and paying to do it? With virtually no sponsors of any size? That is brutal.
I would assume that after the end of this year, we'll see MS with a lot of new contracts, and that they will be at close to record levels. I bet that we'll see LV's sponsors and deals move to looking a lot like post retirement deals. Maybe she'll leave Under Armor and be back with Nike. RedBull could use her differently. Perhaps fashion, lifestyle. Put it this way, LV is not going to be a ski coach, or earning her living on a mountain. Could she be an ambassador for KSL/Aspen instead of Vail? Yes. In her case, she is in demand, and a million plus people know where she is and what she is doing.....every single day.
LV's game plan has to be to be in the public eye, and very relevant far into the future. I would suspect that Anna Veith is in that mode right now, and that we'll see more looks like that with Gut. Of course both are coming off injury, so you see a lot of non ski stuff. With LV, you see everything. Pretty brilliant.
MS? Building a brand, keeping sponsors happy, and positioning for huge paydays coming. Not that she's struggling now!
Meanwhile, I'm struggling to think if another woman on the team earns close to $50K. Pretty much the same for the men. Ligety and.......hmm. I'd be curious about even Nyman and Weibrecht. Steven might get paid more than he truly should be Fischer. He's been with the forever, since he was tapped as the next greatest thing.
There is a reason why some of our skiers come from very wealthy families. Not all. Some. AW's future is secure, shall we say.
On the free ride side, two big names are friends of our adult kids. BIG names. One of them is everywhere. Films, covers, ski equipment gear sponsorships {and their main face}. You would think that the earns a decent income. No. He gets to ski all over the world. He gets so much free equipment. He'll get bikes and climbing gear. The movies and magazine covers, and product shoots? Not much money. The "sale" is that the exposure will help him cash in down the road. It's been close to 10 years, and the cash has not flowed. When he visits our son, he is treated like a rock star by kids and the ski crowds, and he sleeps on the couch, and is thankful for it.
The son of a friend of mine was not quite at this guy's level, but he was a name that most everybody in that niche knew well. He had "deals" with ski, boot, binding, pole, clothing, helmet, goggle and glove companies. He had a lot of stuff, and not a dime. He "filmed for" all of the indy ski film companies. TGR was the main one. Finally, when he hit 30, his dad said that he simply could not send a dime his way. "This charade is over. You're not a professional athlete. You are broke, and you have NO prospects." It was hard, but nobody else in the sport would be honest. Sick line you skied there, dude, here's another PBR. That blonde chick thinks you're hot.
Now the few guys who they know who were pro freestyle skiers {pipe} and pro snowboarders at/near the top of the game earned a TON of money for a few years. Seven figures plus, annually. They were the best. Snowboarding had a lot of appeal and great numbers at that time. They rode the wave. But most of their fellow competitors were making almost no money.
It's not easy. It's what I always try to give parents who spend a fortune in these things a bit of a reality check to make sure that they are doing it for the right reasons. In the alpine world, the chances of the USST are almost nil, and guess what, you'll still be paying.Most expensive jacket you can buy. College? Yep, great option. Scholarships.....not many. More if you come of the USST. So don't bet on that.
Big Mountain? No USST. No college scholarship potential at all. and less sponsorship money every single year.
That's why I really love the long term focus of just loving the sport. Everybody quits competing at some point so love the sport for a lifetime.
If you're lucky enough to make real money at this sport as a competitor, you are absolutely remarkably special. If it's seven figure income, or much more, you're almost a unicorn. Vonn, MS, Hirscher, Svindal, Gut.......wow.
