Calculating how much the games athletes won

[maddy1784]

@dawn16

So you are telling me that Olympic Gold medalists are all in it for the money?
Olympic athletes get paid shit.

Not true. The winners get paid. Bolt might not be the best example, but I know his net worth is readily available: https://www.forbes.com/profile/usain-bolt/

These olympic athletes have incredible drive. I agree they aren't all in it for the money. Olympic athletes are also a small percentage of the world's population. What I am arguing for is that money is a motivator for a lot of the population which you aren't in agreement with. You are factually wrong.

You began this thread by being pissed off that crossfitters aren't being paid as much as other sports. Then went in to how it doesn't matter what they get paid because it's all about passion and doing what they love. Make up your mind. Also to reinstate, just because these people work hard does not mean they should be making millions. I don't even get how that's an argument you can actually try to make.

The big 4 sports athletes make that much because they bring in many times that in revenue. Obviously, this isn't the case for crossfit.

 

[ktw]

@dawn16 Most of the top crossfit athletes have played more lucrative and main stream sports at a high level (college etc). The assumption is based on that they would have carried on with those if able. To some degree it is the same with all strength sports. It wasn't people's first choice, they just weren't good enough to pursue Football, Baseball etc. That does not mean the competitors do not love crossfit. The sport of Crossfit is just too young. I'm excited to see what people can do when the sport matures and if the calibre of athelete that could make the NFL chooses Crossfit instead of Football.

 

[dawn16]

@maddy1784

Which crossfitter do you think could make a roster of any of the 4 big sports?

I dont see why someone like Fitkowski couldnt play in MLB. I mean other than the fact that he may very well suck at baseball

 

[aihi]

@dawn16 Find me a single crossfit athlete that could make an NBA, NFL, or NHL roster. Going forward there will be people who choose to pursue crossfit as a sport from the get go as it grows. The current group of athletes, however, didn't have crossfit as an option in childhood. They grew up playing different sports. When their athletic career in those sports ended, they picked up crossfit. It's not that they could not be good at something else. It's that they weren't in the top 0.5% or whatever it takes in those other sports with talent pools many times the size of crossfit's to go pro.

Thanks for the definition of athlete. Do you understand the difference between denotation and connotation? I think in many people's minds "athlete" includes some measure of coordination. Watching the obstacle course this year, or the paddleboarding or softball throw of years past is funny to me. You have these ridiculously in shape humans who don't have a hint of proprioception or hand-eye coordination.

 

[dawn16]

@aihi Ok NFL & NBA i understand, but NHL? I threw this name out earlier I mostly just picked him because he's bigger than most athletes, but is there a reason Brent Fikowski could never be in the NHL? "He must have poor hand eye coordination because he got 8th on the O course" is kind of a vague claim. You really feel all NHL players would have done top ten on that course?

 

[onelife4him]

@dawn16 Hockey requires an absolutely ridiculous amount of skill and reaction. I mean he is Canadian so he's probably tooled around with hockey. If he was good enough he would be there.

 

[dawn16]

@onelife4him He was a swimmer from what I can tell. So I dont understand how that means he was no good at hockey. I was a wrestler in high school so I must have sucked at football?

 

[onelife4him]

@dawn16 I have no idea what your trying to say, but Brent Fikowski would never make the NHL, AHL, CHL, KHL, and a lot of adult league teams.

 

[dawn16]

@onelife4him

I have no idea what your trying to say

I was using an analogy. You said "If he was any good at hockey he'd be playing hockey". I drew upon my own experience in high school sports, I had no interest in football so I went into wrestling. By your analogy, if I was any good at football I would have played it. But what if Brett never had any interest in hockey? The guy was a swimmer, maybe he liked swimming.

Brent Fikowski would never make the NHL, AHL, CHL, KHL, and a lot of adult league teams

Im asking why? You havent really made a convincing argument. Surely you can understand why "If he was good at hockey he would have played hockey!" hasnt swayed me

 

[dawn16]

@aihi Oh. My. God.

I digress, dude. You win, you are right. All of your points are valid and utterly destroy all of mine.

 

[soupy2209]

@dawn16 I really think you have no idea how the major sports work and get paid.

The NFL is a 13 Billion dollar industry. The TV deal is worth about 3 billion dollars a year, I couldn't find any numbers on how much CBS paid for the rights to broadcast Crossfit but last year the games averages 336k-361k viewers. That is about 1/5th of what a baseball game brought in for CBS.

Thats just in TV money, not to mention other major endoresement deals, and massive amount of money for tickets sales in 8-81+ games a year for the other sports.

Yes we all love CrossFit over here but to think that the #1 CrossFitter in the world should make anywhere close to what a athlete in the big 4 sports makes is silly. You're better off comparing Matt Fraser to an MLS or WNBA star or maybe even an E-Sports start if you are looking at earning potential, its a niche market with a very small ability to make lots of money.

 

[dawn16]

@soupy2209 Yes, I had not taken the age of it into account, CrossFit is just a baby compared to other sports. From that persepective it makes sense they only make a small fraction of other sports.

 

[dawn16]

Honestly I think its the complete opposite. Whats crazy to me is that other professional athletes get paid millions of dollars to essentially throw a ball around. Dont get me wrong I'm in agreement they should be paid whatever fee they can negotiate, im all for the free market. Its just the figures are ludicous.

$300,000 for working out on TV for 4 days seems appropriate.

 

[dawn16]

Okay, fair enough. Put in that context it sounds much more appropriate.

But just FYI,

The 100 highest-paid athletes earned a collective $3.11 billion over the last 12 months.

From Forbes.

I guess my actual gripe is that I do not feel that for what they actually do, they deserve that amount of money. For playing a game.

Especially when there are guys, for instance in the oilfield, who WORK hard as fuck every day, for small fractions of that amount.

 

[dawn16]

I get it man I totally get it. I dont want to get all socialist here, but I would be comfortable with athletes making a collective $2.11 billion & the extra billion going to school teachers or something

 

[dawn16]

Ehhhhhhhh...

I mean they contribute a lot to the market, but waaaaay more of that money should be going other places than is. There are thousands of support staff that it takes to organize those games, and maintain the facilities, and deal with all the social media stuff, the list goes on and on and on.

Even outside of sports though, like you said. That money could be put to good use elsewhere.

Also keep in mind that is only the top 100 highest paid athletes. So that only accounts for about 30% of the NBA, or about 5% of the NFL, etc. It is not representative of the massive sports empire that exists.

 

[oddrob]

@dawn16 It's the market who dictates how much they win. Tbf players of popular sports also don't get THAT much in prize money.

Most of their money comes from salary/sponsors.

 

[dawn16]

@oddrob

The 100 highest-paid athletes earned a collective $3.11 billion over the last 12 months.

Via Forbes. Any way you slice it, any way they got it, that amount of money is absolutely insane.

 

[oddrob]

@dawn16 because of the return they provide.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@dawn16 they dont have any real skills though