ProLyfe

As promised yesterday, I thought that today I might try and write a slightly more interesting post.

I think one of the things that intrigues people the most about professional triathletes is the idea of sponsorship. Imagine being paid and given gear to do these races that everybody else has to pay quite a lot of money for, what a life.

I think most people realise that the reality of being pro is very different, that the majority of pros aren't making much money, but what are they really getting?

I can only really talk about what I see in Australia, the US and Europe may well be different.

Like most things there is a very broad spectrum. Of course there are actually a number of pros that make a decent living out of the sport through prize money and sponsorship money. Not golf or tennis decent, but enough to live comfortably. There are still more pros who scrape by on what they earn through the sport. There are far more though who make no money at all and any sponsorship they get is in the form of endorsement, ie use of gear.

In Australia, you often see pros do things like set up training camps somewhere in South East Asia, like Thailand or the Philippines. This allows them to live relatively cheaply and survive on less. Also makes for very good training for races in the region.

If you are talking about athletes that receive money from sponsors, in the form of performance bonuses etc, then you are looking at the elite few, the real pointy end. It is a similar idea (although a bigger number) for athletes that receive direct sponsorship from a brand, ie a bike brand or a wheel brand etc. For your average pro, these sorts of gear deals are more likely to come through a local shop who are an agent for the brand. Certainly my advice for anyone looking to chase sponsorship would be to try and do so through the local shops. You are more likely to get support that way.

Often deals like the above won't actually be for free gear either, more likely just significant discounts. In the end if a local shop is providing sponsorship, then they are absorbing the cost of that and most can't afford to be giving away $10000 worth of bike and wheels. So the reality is that for your average pro, whilst they may have a big list of sponsors on their tri suit, they may not actually be getting much from them. Some free stuff here, a discount there. It certainly all adds up and saves money that can be spent on other things like airfares etc. The high life it is not though.

For your average pro, the cycle of sponsorship is made up of writing lots of enquiring e-mails and getting lots of knock-backs, or more commonly getting nothing back at all. Rinse and repeat. You learn quickly to not take it personally. The process takes up a lot of time though.

So, if it is so bleak for most of them, what else do pros get to sweeten the deal. Well races for the major brands of Ironman and Challenge are free, so that saves a good amount of money. Of course for a brand like Ironman you have to have first pay for your professional license ($800US) but once you do it covers all your entries. Really you only have to do a couple of races and you have got that back. Sometimes you get incentives to go to a race, like accommodation paid for, although that often depends on just how much money the organiser has. Sometimes the paid for accommodation is just for the seeded pros. The higher end athletes may also get an appearance fee, but once again that tends to be just for the point end. The combination of free entry and sometimes free accommodation does make travelling to a race a bit cheaper though and so means you can race more often. So that is handy.

So there you go. Hopefully that has been interesting for you.

Oh yeah there has also been some training today, will likely be more tomorrow.