The financial incentives to compete in the Enhanced Games may go far beyond the prize money being offered up at next year’s event in Las Vegas.
The Games gained their most accomplished swimmer to date on Wednesday, with Olympic silver medalist and three-time world champion Ben Proud‘s stunning announcement that he’s effectively ending his international career to join.
Given Proud is putting his accomplished legacy on the line with this move, it stands to reason that the financial incentives extend well beyond just the advertised prize money, and that appears to be the case.
One athlete told SwimSwam that they were approached by Brett Hawke, who is the official swim coach of the Games, with a $250,000 offer as a baseline to sign on with the Enhanced Games, plus medical supervision.
That base pay would come in addition to whatever earnings the swimmers collect at the Enhanced Games next May, where event winners will claim $500,000 and athletes will vie for a $1 million bonus if they can break the world record in either the 50-meter freestyle or 100-meter dash.
Although we don’t have an exact gauge of how much money swimmers are making annually with sponsorships, prize money and funding, it’s fair to say a quarter of a million dollars would be a significant raise for the vast majority of them at the very least.
In late August, the Enhanced Games filed a lawsuit against World Aquatics, USA Swimming and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), saying they are seeking at least $200 million in actual damages, “increasing to at least $800 million after statutory trebling, punitive damages awards, and the recovery of attorneys’ fees.”
If the Games were to win the lawsuit, which accuses the three organizations of acting in an anticompetitive manner and making an organized, targeted effort against the Games, the athletes involved could stand to benefit financially as well.
The irony of Brett Hawke making a payday off of the Enhanced Games after publicly crucifying Pan Zhanle with unfounded doping allegations. What a joke.
Maybe a dumb question but could a swimmer participate by just wear banned tech suits but still comply with wada anti doping standards? I guess it’s sort of antithetical to the point of the enhanced games and you wouldn’t do as well…but seems like someone could in theory be clean and participate in other banned advantages?
Yes. That’s kind of the crux of the lawsuit.
It feels like a catch 22. If a clean Ben Proud beats a doped Gkolomeev…then it’s going to make it hard to sell the protocol.
The Enhanced Games, like the ISL, has zero long term economic viability. The entire business model revolves around the deep pockets of some benevolent person at the top that is willing to dish out more money than what they will take in via gate receipts.
The economic reality of swimming is that it doesn’t draw enough crowds outside the Olympic cycle to provide more funding for swimmers. I’m sure of course that there isn’t enough done within the levers that bodies currently have, but it is silly to think otherwise that professional level swimmers can ever retire in a financial sense off the back of their careers. Only two people will ever do this…Phelps and probably Ledecky.
Proud is delusional… Read more »
Swimming seems like an easy target for the billionaires to exploit, high caliber athletes in other sports wouldn’t think twice with stakes this low.
Brett Hawk is just a cancer
That’s uncalled for.
Take it back
@Braden Keith, Give me your thoughts on this:
Ben Proud has been coached for a long time by James Gibson, who works since 2023 for World Aquatics.
Ben has been training in London last year, where Gibson also resides and you better believe that he is writing him sessions here and there.
Will Aquatics GB tell public and private pool owners in the UK to notify them if they see Ben working with him on pool deck going forward ?
Because I’m 100% sure Gibson has known that Ben was gonna do this joke games and that creates a conflict of interest, specially after WA adopted their latest Bylaw.
How will WA act for… Read more »
My initial thought is that it seems like Ben will be in the US training with Brett Hawke so it might be moot.
Who cares
Why didn’t he pay his swimmers before the enhanced games?
i had a 4:23 500 from 5 years ago, think that could net me enough for some jimmy john’s?