I am rooting for Peter Marshall and Jessica Hardy - I am hoping each makes about $200k before the FINA World Cup is over. It's not much but it will support them till 2012.
Unfortunately, the idea of talented swimmers making a living wage "off the backs" of FINA and their sponsors really bothers a particular journalist in the UK whose name must never be mentioned and whose site should never be linked to.
He feels that swimmers setting world records in "shiny suits" are severely hurting the sport due to the numerous $10,000 payouts being awarded to swimmers by FINA and Arena for every WR that is set.
How dare the talent make money!
How dare these swimmers setting times never before seen actually MAKE MONEY as FINA syndicates the event on TV.
How dare the talent make FINA, an organization that makes 25-million dollars a year off the backs of suit manufacturers, parents, national governing bodies and donations be forced to payout 2-million-dollars-and-change over a 2-year period to support these swimmers.
To think that FINA has been forced to payout 5%-or-so of their gross income per year to the greatest achievers of our sport while they syndicate their races on TV and on the internet is summarily "immoral" isn't it? Thus, the suits and the income they are providing to full time swimmers MUST BE STOPPED.
Seriously now and without sarcasm, the scariest thing about this opinion is that FINA actually agrees with it.
9 comments:
it is funny i was taking with a friend 2 days ago how lord voldemord had no decency : it is easy to praise mike not wearing the suit when he does not have to worry about money . the other pro swimmers do not cheat wearing this suit until the end of the year . good on them to win money . not many swimmers have multi millons endorsement. i know alain and hugues dubosc are happy to have a salary every month paid by the french army .
YES, and now that the suits are gone, sponsorship money will go away!
OUI, et maintenant que les costumes sont allés, l'argent de patronage partira ! ;-)
I Like "Lord Voldemord" ... Is he living in 2009, nearly 2010?... Does swimmers have to live of beggary? Does Britney Spears have to live as a poor troubador? .. What makes money? Phelps, is knowed for his 8medals, but maybe also for his "pipe and car crashes", because of a press called people press ( or junk press?). If swimming wants to be a "real sport" as soccer, basket, football... suits, tech and money will be part of the game. Did I say they are allready?
There should be NO line drawn in the record books. The swimmer who set the world records did so LEGALLY!
This idiot in the UK has helped push swimming back almost 2 decadesa and wants to push records back.
The records should stay as they are...they were achieved legally.
Standing 'O" for that comment!
I find it interesting that "Lord Voldemort" lives in the U.K.
The whole notion of the pure, unsullied (by cash) amateur sportsman came from a Victorian class system that wanted to exclude lower class people who might have had the audacity to defeat an upper crust athlete who didn't have to work for a living - a trust fund baby, in effect.
Tony,
You are - seriously - in danger of becoming the flip side of same coin Craig Lord is on. Enough with the suits!
You may well be right in suggesting that the absence of the tech suits will result in lower sponsorship dollars. There's an equal chance, though, that you might be wrong!
Sponsorship in the sport of swimming, right now, is - sorry, folks! - a function of one person and his name is Michael Phelps.
Yes, I agreed that Lord thinks he some rightous person. Sounds to FINA collects tons of money but very little goes to the swimmers. Maybe swimmers need a union and push for revenue sharing like the NFL, NBA, MLB....and so on. They said 1.5 bittion people view World Championship at Rome. Next time, it'll be half that.
He who shall not be named did it again. He's happy that Daniel Gyurta's Jaked was broken and thus he didn't brake the ER in 200 breast.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT GUY? He wants everybody to slower? I wouldn't be suprised if he slept with the Fina board and Mark Schubert.
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