Kathy Bergen, perennial WMA champ, could use help to defray travel costs. Photo by Rob Jerome
In the course of reporting
Nick Symmonds’ impending retirement,
The New York Times says the 800 specialist wants the IOC to share 50 percent of its $4 billion-plus in quadrennial revenue with the 14,400 winter and summer Olympic athletes who compete every four years. “This 50/50 sharing approximates a standard business model in American professional sports. It would amount to about $140,000 per Olympian. Currently, athletes receive nothing from the I.O.C. for participating in the Olympics,” the Times says. Made me think of our WMA world
https://sildenafilhealth.com/erectile-dysfunction/
meets. They certainly aren’t cash cows, but they could capitalize on financial inducements. If WMA gave $1,000, $500 and $250 to all medalists who reached a certain
age-graded percentage — say 95% — that would be a huge PR boost and benefit to athletes. As it stands, WMA means: We Make Apathy. More people would care if prize money were involved — media included. It might even pencil out in terms of sponsors (whose $$$ could underwrite the awards program). Our top elites should get something back for their role-model status.
Daegu — in the home of supercapitalism — is a good place to start.
January 3, 2017
20 Responses
Sorry-for-negativity… no longer a hobby …
Sounds like there would be lots of pluses and minuses. Gambling? Throwing a race for guarantee purse? Sports reps? Only those that prequalify?
Gambling would be great! Another revenue stream. And prize money for winners isn’t even needed.
I’m not convinced. What is this. Competition now for dollars, this is our golden years, we are supposed to be doing this for our health and fun. What about putting funds toward training facilities and/or help in finding them and supporting equipment such as that needed for throwers an d other field event needs. I have to travel from one to three tracks to train on, and pay health club dues to work out.
How about reconsidering this, I’ve heard before of some of these issues from other senior athletes that have these same concerns.
Several good ideas that seem worth considering have been presented. I would never thought of gambling but why not? I am in favor of prize money for the medal winners but being a non-elite jumper, I would like to see some of the funds used to put on more meets and improve training facilities. As John noted in # 3, finding suitable places to train can be challenging especially for the technical events.
I think the age graded calculations are so off base for throwers, they are a joke. Now I may be wrong in doing the calc, but lets say I plug in 18 meters for a 50 year old male shot putter – the age graded result is 20.64, which is 89.28 percent age graded performance. In order to get a travel stipend from USATF – NJ, you have to be at 90 percent. So someone can break the American shot put M50 record, and it still does not qualify for a stipend. LOLOLOLOL What a joke…. If I am doing it wrong, please let me know, but I use the online tables at http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/wmalookup06.html which is the only place I know to look them up. If I am doing it wrong, please let me know what 90 percent age graded M50 shot put distance is.
Patrick, have you considered growing older? A 51-year-old who throws that far scores 91.09%
Grubb is outdated, I think.
Do you want doping also spread in master category for few dollars
2014/15 factors give him the same result:
http://www.howardgrubb.co.uk/athletics/wmalookup15.html
I agree Patrick, age grading for throwing events is meaningless with the different implements. Money for superstars would be great but what is really needed is travel stipends for more medal contenders based on rankings. Its hard to be a superstar if you can’t afford to make to the big meets.
The age-grading breaks down for events where there are relatively few marks available (superweight for example) and for events where there is a high end outlier (M50 and M55 hammer for example). Beyond that, I’ve seen the age grading actually being pretty consistent in giving me around the same age-graded mark every year as I age and my distances drop.
But to the thesis of the original post, money is always nice, but for majority of us, about the only financial incentive that we will see is a free sandwich when officiating a meet. There just is never going to be enough available money to make anything meaningful on the large scale.
O.K., the age-graded tables need some updating, but why not start with a modest proposal that would not break the bank or add to doping concerns:
Why not age grade all men and women marks by age year at a meet. Then give a monetary award to the top three age-graded marks in each event. At $50 for 1st, $30 for 2nd, and $20 for 3rd ($100 per event), nineteen events (100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5K, 10K, SH, LH, SC, LJ, TJ, HJ, PV, DIS, SP, JAV, HT, PENT) would require $1,900. But it would dramatically increase interest in the age-graded tables and increase respect for both women’s marks and older age year marks.
Plus, your spouse might be happier if you brought home $80 instead of more medals for the shoebox or curtain rod. And it would sure beat getting a patch.
See November 2006 False Start Column:
http://ortmanmarchand.com/fsi.html
We are an amateur sport. I don’t see where giving money based on performance is going to change things. As the age goes up, the number of competitors goes down and it would be unfair to award money prizes when there is no competition.
However I would like some things to change. I don’t run in relays at WMA meets because they are on the last day of competition. My events start on the 1st day with prelims which invariably roll to finals. If relays were in the middle of the schedule everyone would be accommodated.
Also why two “rest days” in the middle? We are used to doing all our events on one day. I am sure WMA guarantees a certain # of competition days to the host city forcing athletes to have hotel and meal expenses the whole time.
I go to these meets to compete. I don’t want to walk around and sight see. I am not on vacation because I probably would never choose these locations, e.g.Porto Alegre. USATF Masters are not blameless. Baton Rouge in July? Indoors in Winston Salem on a flat track? Multiple Nationals in the mid-west? Why not pursue more attractive locations?
FYI I’ve never asked for assistance to go to a meet nor do I need it. I go to meets when they fit my schedule.
Kathy Bergen – Our National Championships go where we are wanted. Baton Rouge got the nod because they presented a bid to the National Committee. We cannot hold a meet where we are not supported. Winston- Salem indoors on a flat track? So are we going to select only banked tracks for our indoor Championships? Good luck with that. We will soon run out of venues. There are a finite # of banked tracks in the US and and even fewer willing to host our meet. Turning your nose up at flat tracks only makes choosing an indoor site more difficult.
Mike Travers
USATF-NE T&F Chair
Mike Travers (no. 14):
1. For 2018 indoors we will be in Landover, Maryland, yes? The facility features a flat track but, interestingly enough, seems to have had the highest (2013) and second-highest turnouts in the history of our program, correct?
2. It is unlikely that Reggie Lewis Center (Boston), Boston University, and other Boston-area venues will be holding our indoors in 2019 or 2020, correct? Or would it be improper to make such a statement at this time?
3. We do not have a site for 2019 indoors, correct?
I think that Landover drew about 1020 in 2013. Does anyone know how many entrants Albuquerque drew this past March for indoor nationals?
Different implements are of course incorporated in the age gradings (#10). There is no big problem in the age gradings, but there is a problem when using percentages. It is quite easy to throw half the distance of a top thrower, but running two times longer than a top runner (i.e. the same percentage) does not occur often, while jumping half the height of top jumpers is nearly impossible. All runs are comparable when using percentages, but all throws or all jumps, that doesn’t work the same way.
On topic: I would not mind receiving some prize money, but I would not mind too when this will never be implemented. I do not often attend worlds and many other record holders do the same, so we always will have disciplines with winners who do much ‘worse’ than world records. But regarding the fun of the sport there is no problem of course, nothing is ‘worse’ when many do not attend!
Peter –
1. You are correct. I believe Landover holds the top 2 positions. The 2014 meet @ the Reggie follows those with 970.
2. I can safely say that Boston Univ. will not hold any of our indoor championships. It’s a great track, but its not set up to host a meet like ours. No plans for the Reggie as I type this.
3. 2019 Indoors is JDL FastTrack in Winston-Salem.
Mike
Mike Travers
I have asked this question before and never got an answer. Do we reach out to venues or just wait for a bid to come in. You make it sound like you represent athletes from a leper colony. You don’t see the problem in competing in Baton Rouge in July? No one else bid? Did we pursue other locations?
As for indoors, there are about 20 banked 200 meter tracks in the U.S. Do we pursue them at all? Again what is the process. A fair question.
Bert Bergen
Bert & Kathy –
I would love to respond to this but this is a complex and lengthy subject. Really not comfortable with this limited and somewhat awkward blog setting. Feel free to email me and I would be glad to respond without reservation.
Thanks
Mike Travers
mtravers@usatfne.org
Leave a Reply