To Pay Or Not to Pay

A few months before the Olympics, World Athletics President Seb Coe made headlines when he announced that all track & field gold medalists in Paris would receive prize money.  Gold medalists were paid $50,000 each, which came directly from the sport's distribution of IOC revenues.  It marked the first time in history that gold medalists were rewarded for their performance by their governing body (National Olympic Committees have done it for years).  It was controversial to say the least, but World Athletics surged forward anyway, with hopes of expanding it further and paying all medalists in LA.

Some of the initial resistance came from other sports federations.  World Athletics is one of the largest and one of the richest international federations.  They also get a big chunk of money from the IOC every four years.  So, track & field can afford to pay its medalists prize money.  Other sports, however, have much smaller budgets and rely on their IOC distribution to pay their expenses.

Their concerns were mainly financial.  Only a handful of international federations (track & field being among them) are financially able to award prize money at the Olympics.  Most can't.  And they had fears that it would widen the gap between the high-revenue sports (track & field, swimming) and the lower-revenue ones.  Worse, while the IOC would never make it mandatory, they feared that they'd get left behind by not doing it while other sports did.  

Seb Coe is one of the candidates to become the next IOC President, and he's made the idea of prize money for all medalists in all sports a part of his platform.  However, it's not just smaller international federations that aren't keen on the idea.  The topic was discussed at the recently concluded Olympic Summit, and there's a lot of push back from National Olympic Committees, too.

Prior to the Paris Games, the IOC didn't have an official position on prize money.  That's no longer the case.  The IOC Executive Board, after listening to the concerns of international federations and athletes' representatives, was in unanimous agreement about it.  They're opposed, declaring it a matter of fairness.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams noted that, including individuals and teams, there were about 1,000 gold medalists in Paris.  Over 10,000 athletes competed, so it's under 10 percent who'd benefit (some of them multiple times).  More significantly, 65 percent of the medalists came from the top 15 NOCs.  (And, while the 92 countries to win a medal was a record, that's still less than half of all the nations that competed in Paris.)  So, awarding prize money would essentially make the rich get richer.

Adams said that awarding prize money to Olympic medalists would "really overwhelmingly benefit a very, very small group of elite athletes to the detriment of others."  Beyond that, "it would only increase the existing inequalities even further...it was felt by the executive board that this goes against the mission of the International Olympic Committee, and it could very easily downgrade the Olympic Games to an elitist event." 

That's a position the IOC shares with both the international federations and the athlete representatives.  NOCs are still free to provide financial motivation for their athletes, but that's up to their discretion.  No one has an issue with that.  If medalists were to be awarded prize money by their international federation or the IOC itself, however, it would not only be double-dipping, it would also further the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

When World Athletics announced that it would award prize money in Paris, I was all for it.  The IOC and the international federations make a fortune on the athletes' backs every Olympics, and the athletes don't see any of that money despite all the hard work they put in for a moment that only comes around once every four years.  So, it made sense to want to give them a piece of the pie.  Especially since medalists have been receiving prize money at the World Championships for a while.

However, I'm glad that the IOC had this discussion and released this statement.  Because it forced me to look at things from a completely different perspective.  Those points all make a lot of sense.  And the fact that the international federations and athletes are in agreement about it is very telling.  Especially the athletes.  You'd think they'd be all about Olympic prize money.  The fact that they're not and they're more concerned with the issue of fairness speaks volumes.

Now, how much of this is the IOC just coming up with its position and simply attaching the international federations' and athletes' names to the press release?  That's always a possibility when talking about the IOC.  The fact that the reception was lukewarm at best and no other federation followed World Athletics' lead, though, gave an indication where they stood.  And there was certainly never going to be enough support to get every federation on board voluntarily (and there would've been some major pushback if the IOC tried to force it on them).

Getting the athletes on board was probably the harder sell.  Although, I'd imagine the athletes had very similar concerns as the international federations.  The larger, richer nations already have access to better training, facilities, coaching, etc.  Smaller nations can only hope to get to that level, knowing they likely never will.  They need the money they get from the IOC just to fund grassroots programs and basic infrastructure.  An Olympic gold medal would obviously make a huge difference, but that prize money would only go to one athlete...who may already be a member of a training group in one of those larger countries.  Everybody else is left to fend for themselves, while fighting an uphill battle for resources.

As a result, I've changed my position.  I no longer support international federations or the IOC giving prize money to Olympic medalists.  The argument about wealth inequality convinced me.  It's very similar to what's going on in the NCAA.  The Power 5 will be unaffected by all of the new legislation regarding paying student-athletes.  Smaller schools won't be able to afford it, though.  Which will result in the Power 5 gaining even more power.

It's a similar situation here.  Think of the United States and China as the SEC and the Big Ten.  They're already the big dogs.  Their athletes would also stand to benefit the most if Olympic medalists were awarded prize money, too.  It's not exactly a level playing field if American and Chinese athletes, who already have the most resources, get even more while smaller nations who may only send one or two athletes to the Olympics as it is get nothing.

This issue will likely come up again during the next few months leading into the IOC Presidential election.  Seb Coe's position is clear.  He made the call to do it at World Athletics and wants every athlete in every sport to receive the same benefit.  The rank-and-file don't agree with him, though.  Now that he knows that, will he come down from that stance?  Or will he push forward, trying to convince them he's right?  Or is this something that you table until after the election (especially since it could be what costs him said election)?

Either way, one thing that seems fairly certain is that this issue will be revisited in the future.  Awarding prize money to Olympic medalists is a great idea in theory.  Unfortunately, it's also something that wouldn't work logistically right now.  The IOC, the international federations and the athletes themselves are in agreement about that.