The first time Tamyra Mensah-Stock won a world title in 2019, she felt pride, joy, and gratitude for the $50,000 check she received from the U.S. wrestling foundation.
She gave her mother around $13,000, helped her twin sister with a down payment for a car, and paid bills for herself and her husband, and then along came training for the Tokyo Olympics. In a matter of months, the prize money was gone.
“I don’t know where that money went,” Mensah-Stock said. “I mean, it’s nice to get it in a big chunk, a big sum, but there’s people who make more than that in their jobs. … When you’re not used to having money, it can be gone lickety split.”
In her 15-year career, Mensah-Stock won an Olympic gold medal, two world gold medals, and two world bronze medals. For all that, she was paid $417,500 in prize money by USA Wrestling’s foundation and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee — amounting to less than a $28,000 annual salary.
Sponsorship deals helped only so much. When Mensah-Stock, now 31, retired from Olympic wrestling in 2023 and signed a contract with WWE, it was largely because of financial considerations.
“If the payoff was a lot more, I would still be there (in the Olympic movement),” Mensah-Stock said.
The American sports ecosystem frames the most visible professional athletes as wealthy titans. Basketball and baseball players can earn seven-and eight-figure salaries. Soccer stars earn upward of five figures in domestic leagues. Tennis players compete for prize money at year-round events, while star swimmers, track athletes and gymnasts can fetch lucrative sponsorship deals.
But the majority of Olympic sport athletes, particularly those in niche individual disciplines like wrestling, cycling and fencing, often have to borrow money or work odd jobs to make ends meet while chasing their dreams.
One cyclist lived in a van. One boxer worked as a birthday party clown. One taekwondo fighter delivered food.
Unlike most countries, the United States does not provide government funding for its Olympic and Paralympic committee. Athletes and their families often shoulder the lion’s share of costs for equipment, travel, personal coaches, and membership and competition fees. Some work side jobs to earn additional income. It all multiplies the pressure athletes already feel in an immensely stressful environment that takes a toll on mental health.
In other words, competing for Team USA at the Paris Games this summer comes at a price.
“It’s tough,” said fencer Courtney Hurley, a three-time Olympian and London 2012 bronze medalist. “It’s definitely not for the weak, and it’s not for the poor.”
How much do Olympians get paid?
Until the late 20th century, the Olympics were restricted to amateur athletes only and did not allow professional athletes to compete. Even though Olympians no longer have to be amateurs, in many cases they are still paid like it.
In a 2024 report published by the Congressional Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics & Paralympics, 26.5% of high-performance athletes surveyed said they earned less than $15,000 a year. Nearly half, 49.7%, said they did not earn compensation for their participation in the Olympic or Paralympic movement.
The International Olympic Committee does not issue prize money; instead, it is up to each country to decide whether to compensate its athletes. In the U.S., the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC), a privately funded, federally chartered nonprofit corporation, sets the rate. In Paris, a gold medal will net a one-time USOPC bonus of $37,500. A silver is worth $22,500 and a bronze $15,000. Satisfying certain criteria triggers monthly stipends from the USOPC and the national governing body (NGB) overseeing the sport, but it still doesn’t come close to covering what an athlete spent to actually get to the Olympics.
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“I think I can speak on behalf of everyone in our organization, probably all the national governing bodies, in saying we wish it was more,” said USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland. “We need more resources to get into the hands of athletes so that they have both the ability to sustain themselves from a day-to-day lifestyle perspective but then also continue to invest in their training.”
The USOPC and NGBs sometimes pay for travel, equipment, and health insurance — which helps athletes cut down on expenses but doesn’t increase their income.
The monthly stipends vary from sport to sport but are on average only a few thousand dollars, sometimes hundreds, and are often tied to highly selective performance thresholds.
The Olympic pay scale
Most NGBs operate on a tiered stipend system in which athletes are eligible for fixed monthly payments based on their standing with the national team or performances at international competitions. Olympians and world champions start out at a higher base stipend than a standard national team athlete.
In 2023, for example, USA Fencing paid athletes a base monthly stipend of $300. Fencers could supplement that amount by achieving a top-24 international ranking, with a maximum additional $3,450 available to those ranked 1-4 throughout the month. There were also performance incentives for placing at a team World Cup event, with a maximum $5,000 bonus divided among all team members.
Yet there is almost a vicious cycle to that funding. Courtney Hurley and her sister, Kelley, were both ranked among the best 24 fencers in the world for most of their careers. But if they weren’t top four, USA Fencing didn’t pay for them to travel to international or national competitions — competitions that were their best shot to rise up the rankings.
“In general, $2,000 per month was the most we’d be making at any point,” Courtney Hurley said. “It’s very stressful. I remember one time I fell out of the ranking and I was coaching at the fencing club on the side. I had to work because I ran out of money, and it’s not that much to begin with.”
USA Weightlifting separates athletes into two tiers. Weightlifters in the top tier get $3,500 per month and unlimited competition funding and are reimbursed up to $10,000 per year for performance expenses like massage or sports psychology. Weightlifters in the second tier get $1,750 per month, funding to Olympic qualification events only, and up to $5,000 per year for performance expenses.
USA Wrestling is better off than many sports with its Living the Dream Medal Fund, which with help from individual donors provides additional medal bonuses to wrestlers for the world championships and Olympics.
Mensah-Stock considered herself financially luckier than most of her peers. Her main sponsor for seven years, Titan Mercury, paid her a monthly paycheck, supplied wrestling gear, paid for travel to some competitions, and sometimes gave her a per diem on those trips. Because she was consistently one of the top two wrestlers on the national team, USA Wrestling paid for her medical insurance, and she was eligible for monthly stipends.
Even though USA Wrestling was her primary source of income, Mensah-Stock said her maximum monthly stipend was $5,000. And while the cost of living rose from year to year, the stipends did not.
“If (the money) got better, it was only because I kept getting better,” she said. “But their financial support never grew, and if it grew, it was only because I improved. Winning more put me more on the radar for other brands and sponsorships.”
In the congressional panel’s report, 44% of reported athlete income came from stipends from the USOPC or NGBs. So why aren’t those stipends more?
For starters, some national governing bodies are working with shoestring budgets. Rocky Harris, the USOPC’s chief of sport and athlete services, said at a Team USA media summit in April that 25 NGBs make less than $5 million a year.
The USOPC, which in 2023 had a $31 million operating loss but generally operates at a surplus in Games years, decides how much money to give each NGB by considering factors like medal potential and developmental programs. Some NGBs house both non-disabled and adaptive versions of a sport but allocate different resources to each. Harris said the committee knows athlete stipends must increase but noted the onus is on NGBs to request how much they need for athlete stipends when they submit their high-performance plans.
“We prioritize that, so now the high-performance teams and their plans need to make sure that they put that as a prominent part of their plans so we can invest in the athlete stipends,” Harris said. “And then some national governing bodies decide to provide stipends on top of that. So we can be complementary for some sports, and some sports we’re the sole provider of stipends to athletes.”
One way the USOPC makes payments directly to athletes is through its Operation Gold program, which, since its 2017 launch, has determined Olympic medal bonuses and monetary awards for other competitions during each Olympic cycle.
The USOPC designates one competition annually per sport as an Operation Gold event, where qualifying athletes can receive payouts based on their performance. In Olympic and Paralympic years, the Games serve as that event for everyone. In non-Olympic years, payouts are limited to one award per athlete, so athletes who qualify for multiple awards (i.e., a sprinter who medals in several events) receive only the highest one. In 2022, the most an athlete could make for a first-place finish at an Operation Gold event was $6,250. In 2023, it was $7,500.
For the remainder of the year outside the Operation Gold event, however, athletes are largely reliant on NGBs to assist them financially.
Winning doesn’t always equal more money
For some athletes, climbing the ladder guarantees only greater expenses, not greater rewards.
As athletes get better, there’s a domino effect at play. They go to more competitions, sometimes international ones, and need to dedicate more time to training to perform their best.
It’s an expensive undertaking. There are entry fees for specific competitions, membership fees to the sport’s organizing body, fees to train at a local club, and flights and hotels.
Travel to Team USA camps and international competitions is usually (though not always) funded by the NGB, while athletes can be responsible for expenses for national competitions. Some sports provide money for athletes to pay their personal coach, but other athletes must pay out of pocket for personal coaches to train them and travel to competitions.
Access to facilities and national team coaches can be another obstacle. Centralized training centers don’t exist for every sport. Even when they do, it’s not always feasible for athletes to relocate to train, especially in non-Olympic years.
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Randi Beltz had limited exposure and opportunity when she wrestled for a college in small-town Missouri, but she couldn’t afford on her own to travel to many bigger meets. After scrounging travel money from smaller sponsors, she eventually landed a deal with Titan Mercury, which paid for her to compete internationally. She did well enough to catch the attention of USA Wrestling and landed on the national team from 2015-17.
But Beltz was still paying out of her own pocket for her two personal coaches, who were key to her success, to travel with her. In 2016, Beltz placed third in her weight class at Olympic trials — enough to keep her national team spot but not enough to qualify to the Rio Games.
It was a frustrating feeling. As much as Beltz knew she was improving because she kept placing higher and higher at competitions, she could never crack the next level. And that meant she didn’t even qualify for a $1,000 monthly stipend from USA Wrestling or the highest level of medical coverage.
Seeking more stability, Beltz in 2018 joined the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program wrestling team as an active-duty national guard member. The Army gave her a military pay scale salary, housing, food allowances and medical coverage. Her WCAP contract ended in 2021, and when she broke her foot soon after, she decided to retire from wrestling. It was just too much to sustain, physically and financially.
“I know that (USA Wrestling) has done great things for me,” Beltz said. “They let me come to a lot of their camps since I was 15 years old, and they provided me food when I came to the Olympic training center, and housing, and they took care of me the best they could while I was there, and they trained me very well while I was there. The sad truth is any wrestler or any athlete has to decide if it’s worth it or not to them, and they need to find their own way to it.”
Even for the athletes who receive maximum funding from national governing bodies, there are inevitably expenses that won’t be covered, wrote the Congressional Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics & Paralympics.
“The Commission found that the average net financial burden on an American high-performance athlete is just shy of $12,000 per year,” the report said. “This means that, effectively, many of America’s most talented athletes must pay for the privilege of competing under our flag. It is a testament to their dedication that most still do so even knowing the cost.”
Side hustles and sponsors
The morning after taekwondo fighter Evan Medell returned from the Tokyo Paralympics with a bronze medal, he reported for work at his job in a mechanic shop. In his mind, he couldn’t afford not to.
Medell is one of the most decorated para-taekwondo athletes in the world, having won two world championship medals, a Paralympic medal, and two Parapan American Games medals. He’s also a licensed diesel mechanic in Michigan who has washed trucks, waited tables, welded on a factory line and cleaned kitchens to support his athletic career.
Medell is far from alone. Boxer Morelle McCane’s list of odd jobs includes daycare supervisor, mailroom worker and birthday party clown. BMX racer Hannah Roberts and taekwondo fighter CJ Nickolas drive for food delivery services. While training for the Tokyo Games, para-judo fighter Liana Mutia balanced her training with being a full-time college student and working software internships for meager pay.
“It would be nice not to go to sleep for dinner,” Mutia said.
Side hustles are extremely common among elite athletes looking to make every dollar, and minute, stretch. Full-time, higher-paying jobs are ideal but don’t mesh with an athletic schedule that requires hours of training and frequent travel for competition. “You just have to find what you can for the moment sometimes,” McCane said. “Because the good-paying jobs, they want you around for a long time, so you just have to find something that you can get, get quick and keep that income coming in.”
Sponsorships can help foot the bill for new gear, clothing and occasional travel but rarely pay athletes a direct salary. And most sponsorships arrive only after an athlete has medaled at the Games.
BMX racer Alise Willoughby estimated that brand partnerships and endorsements contribute 50% of her income; her biggest personal sponsor, Toyota, signed her only after she won a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics. The USOPC accounts for roughly 20% of her income, and prize money from races an even smaller percentage.
But most athletes don’t receive such deals and, unable to rely on Uncle Sam, often turn to family and friends for additional financial support.
Grant Koontz, who will represent the U.S. in track cycling at the Paris Olympics, has lived for the last few months with his wife, dog and cat in an RV parked on a three-acre plot of land in California. His previous homes include a truck and a van.
Koontz estimates that money from friends, family and private sponsors together account for half of his income. There’s no money to be made in track cycling outside the Olympic movement, and USA Cycling doesn’t fund any athletes on the men’s side, so Koontz relies on contracts with road teams to scrape together additional cash while he and his wife, also a cyclist, travel around the country to races where they can hopefully win minimal prize money or attract a team sponsor.
“Track cycling is an expensive sport,” Koontz said. “Flying bikes around all over the world. You need state-of-the-art aerodynamic equipment to be able to even be on a competitive playing field — not to mention all the time and energy it takes to train and to feed yourself and to pay for gym memberships and gas to get around. A lot of people drive themselves into credit card debt trying to make that happen. I’ve pared my life down to the point where I can live on 1,200 bucks a month-ish.”
His first professional road cycling contract with a team in Oklahoma City paid Koontz $500 a month and provided housing. The highest paying contract he’s ever had still paid less than $2,000 a month. As of this spring, he was affiliated with three different teams because each has its own sponsor that provides bikes or tires. He’s also had his share of side jobs, including working for a friend’s vegan waffle company in Colorado.
“It’s a battle in my head: Would I rather have a poorly funded program or no program at all? And of course I would take the program that we do have,” Koontz said. “Really, it is a labor of love, and it has to be that way. I just turned 30, so I’m starting to reach a point where the financial side of it can potentially drive me from the sport pretty quickly here. Month to month, year to year, season to season and quad to quad from the Olympics, so far something has always come through to work out.”
Not every athlete’s family is financially privileged enough to chip in, and even those who can often do so acknowledging that it could be a low return investment. In Hurley’s case, she and her sister were coached by their dad early in their careers, which saved them money that would have been used to hire a personal fencing coach. The sisters also received full scholarships to fence at Notre Dame, which is extremely rare because NCAA fencing is an equivalency scholarship sport. Later in their careers when they became Olympians, sponsors footed the bill for new equipment.
Despite those advantages, Hurley said fencing still put a financial strain on her family.
“My mom went into a lot of debt. She never really told me how much exactly, but I know she’s told me that it was kind of touch-and-go there for a while,” Hurley said. “But she kind of mentioned one time that our full scholarship at Notre Dame would sort of make up for it. So the fact that at Notre Dame we were paying like $50,000 a year or something like that, you can imagine it’s around that much a year.”
Athletes say that people often incorrectly assume that if they are successful enough to compete at the Olympics, they must be wealthy. Just because they avoid debt, however, doesn’t mean they are financially comfortable. In sporting terms: Not finishing last is not the same as finishing first.
What are you worth?
Constantly worrying about making a living wage adds another layer of stress for elite athletes beyond the intense physical and mental demands of their sports.
Athletes already struggle to separate their performance from their sense of self-worth. That takes on an even more literal meaning when how well they do directly impacts how much they earn.
“Even though we were OK financially because of our parents, so fortunate and very lucky, it just takes a toll doing something like a full-time thing for so long and hardly getting any money for it,” Hurley said. “It’s very taxing. You feel what you’re doing is not worthy in the eyes of whoever, anybody, to get paid for what you’re doing.”
Nickolas, the 2023 world taekwondo silver medalist, said that the public and advertisers often ignore Olympic and Paralympic athletes except for when the Games are happening. It feels like after years of work, they are valued for just a few weeks at a time, and being underpaid reinforces that perception.
Simply put, he said, “You get better performances out of us when we have less to worry about.”
Yes, competing “for the love of the game” is real. None of these athletes would be where they are if they didn’t have genuine passion for their sports. But passion doesn’t pay bills or put food on the table.
“Financial incentive is incredibly important,” Mutia said. “How else are you going to pay for your rent, your groceries? How else will you have savings and be able to support yourself and your family, if you choose to have one? It is incredibly important that you are compensated fairly for your time. … It’s just fair really, because how else will you live?”
Mensah-Stock wants to use her platform with WWE to persuade more Team USA wrestlers to join WWE for financial stability and peace of mind and to hopefully raise awareness for the struggles they face. Although she declined to disclose the value of her WWE contract, she said she is happier now that she doesn’t have to worry about making weight or winning every match.
“I don’t have to prove myself competitively with them (WWE),” she said. “Like, ‘OK, you got first. OK, you got second. Here’s your bonus.’ It’s not like that with WWE. I don’t have to constantly win their affection over.”
After retiring, Hurley moved back to San Antonio and began coaching young fencers. She watches the young athletes she tutors, some of whom have Olympic aspirations, and thinks about the obstacles they will have to overcome. She also thinks about the lessons fencing will teach them about perseverance and pressure.
“I would not take it back,” Hurley said. “I would do it again, even though financially it’s very, very difficult, and it definitely has made me think about it these later years, like how unfair it is. But it was still an incredible, incredible, incredible experience. I would definitely do it again.”
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