According to SwimmingWorld.com, the United States Olympic Committee has rejected USA-Swimmings new Athlete Partnership plan which, among other things, would double the stipend to post-graduate and professional National Team members from $21,000 to $42,000 a year.
The USOC balked at USA-Swimming’s failure to include any contractual requirements for those taking the increased stipend. They did not, however, close the door on any revised plan that included contractual requirements to promote the sport and support the National governing body.
This was a foreseeable outcome. There still seems to be this idea in the swimming community that just because we put in an incredible amount of work in the pool, we deserve recognition and big financial gains. USA-Swimming in general does not seem prepared to commit its athletes to the promotional and competition-related responsibilities that other professional athletes are subjected to.
I, like everyone else, support as many professional opportunities for swimmers as is possible; however, unlike comments made by some of USA-Swimming’s most prominent coaches, I have a hard time believing that any plan which involves swimmers receiving increased stipends without these increased commitments that the USOC wants will fail in the long-term.
Swimming is at a crossroads. If it hopes to get over the hump, “we practice harder than other sports” can no longer be the answer. The contractual commitments that the USOC wants are what is going to destroy the perception that Michael Phelps is our sport, and that the whole thing will fall apart when he retires.
Hard work in the pool doesn’t produce money. It may produce respect, but it doesn’t produce money and butts in the seats. Interacting with fans, meet commitments (which were also pulled from the original athlete plan), and general promotion of the sport produces money. These swimmers can work as hard as they can possibly work, but if USA-Swimming can’t create a commitment to the sporting public beyond 1 or 2 championship meets in August, the grass roots of the sport is what will suffer.
Imagine if we had a similar situation in the NBA or NFL. If on any given night during the regular season, there was only a 30% chance that Kobe Bryant, or Payton Manning, or any other player for that matter, would show up and compete. And yet, at the end of the season, they still got to play in the Super Bowl. The regular seasons of those sports would become meaningless, and the impact of their championships would be greatly diminished. And then imagine if Kobe Bryant asked for a raise. He would probably be flat-out rejected by the league. That’s exactly what the USOC’s thinking was in rejecting the plan.
I think the USOC was exactly right on its decision to reject the plan in its current form. The sport will never grow as a viable post-graduate career without these top athletes promoting it and making firm commitments to meets like the Grand Prix series.
USA-Swimming’s Board of Directors meet next week, where it’s likely that they’ll at least discuss a revised plan.
I may not be honed in on the exact issues in the behind closed doors meetings, but I am going to take a different approach. IF this is about money, then the MUST be a way to generate the money. Sure sponsors are willing to shell out dollars to top athletes because a million more people watching them swim in your suit will go otu and buy them. This $21,000 or $42,000 comes from where, the USA program? Where is the cutoff? Is it the top 50 swimmers in an event? top 25? Top 5? National team only? Maybe I am off base here but I don’t know if USA swimming can afford a jump from $21,000 to $42,000, especially… Read more »
Apparently, the big hang-up is that the athletes and their agents didn’t want to give USA-Swimming name-and-image-use rights to promote their meets and the organization.
Those are all good ideas. And while they’d definitely generate money for the top tier (who are really unaffected by this APP), they’d also increase exposure for the sport and that second-tier (though still elite and world class) group of swimmers like Clary and Schneider, who are totally anonymous beyond the swimming community.
I’ve seen programs that you’ve described done following around HIGH SCHOOL athletes going through the recruiting process in Chicago, including Eddy Curry. I would think they could get something together for freaking Michael Phelps, no?
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/raw-footage/Content?oid=904649
“Someone owes Dagny Knutson an apology. She was sold the Olympic Dream. You could say that someone owes Dagny Knutson a $26,000 apology, but in reality she’s lost much more than that. At this time last year she had hundreds of thousands of dollars, in the form of scholarships, in her lap. She passed on those college scholarships to chase the Olympic Dream. Her chase has led her across the country and you can be sure she was banking on that $50,000 to support her dream.”
Garrett McCaffrey wrote this today. Not good what’s going on, even though they made some improvements today. (Full article: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/25038.asp)
Agreed on all points Braden.
You make some good points Eric. Swimming never has been a huge spectator sport. At the same time, swimming has never asked for $42,000/year salaries for its top athletes. Bringing back the suits still passes the cost on to the age groupers. The problem is that I don’t think most age groupers (and more importantly their parents) give to licks about the National Team members’ salaries, but they certainly don’t want to subsidize them. Be it right or not, this is where the meaningful resistance is going to come from.
Anywho, I think we’re again taking the argument back to a place where it’s “do these guys need to be paid or not paid.” That’s an entirely different debate (which… Read more »
Braden said, “swimming is at a crossroad” I have to disagree, swimming never was a big spectator sport. Big time individuals definitely will draw a few more views because of the story lines they create, especially now a days with the sports talk radio mentality of today. But at the end of the day lets be honest with ourselves, the only people who care about or watch swimming are swimmers themselves or the people that are their friends and family.
With that being said the only way to get swimming over the hump is from within. USA swimming needs to become self sufficient. I think we all agree that if swimmers get paid enough to continue to focus on training… Read more »
Agreed Braden, you want a raise, tell me why you have earned it and what you are going to do if we give you this raise. The leadership in USA Swimming is really letting its grassroots suffer by only thinking about the elite with a plan like this. Could you imagine what were to happen if all the parents of all the age groupers in the US cared or found out that these elite swimmers were going to get their salaries doubled and weren’t going to do anything for the sport in return. Especially if they knew how much of their yearly fees go to the NT, how much the NT director makes and if any of the increased fees… Read more »
I don’t think that USA-Swimming can corner USOC and the rest of the organization that way though. They should have known that a plan without any commitments from the athletes wouldn’t fly, and they shot themselves (and those who they represent) in the foot by presenting a plan that wasn’t going to fly. USA-Swimming had plenty of time to come up with a good plan, and they instead decided to roll the dice on this one. It flopped. The USOC doesn’t have to pass it just because USA-Swimming did a poor job of making it. Just another example of failed leadership at the top of our sport. It didn’t take all that long for this plan to be rejected by… Read more »
Part of the problem with rejection is not only the lack of stipend increase but also coverage. The 21k right now if only for the top two in the country. Then take Michael Klueh for example. Third in the U.S, 13th in the world, so he would be receiving 42k under the APP. Now, he gets nothing. This is a post-collegian, trying to stick around for 2012, most likely to compete in a major meet next summer, and he has no sponsorship or any sort of way to pay his bills. I think the new stipend should be put in place then the contract on top of that for more money. Pro football players get more than 21k a month… Read more »