Pro track athletes make as little as $5,000

Is track and field really a professional sport?

For Usain Bolt, it is. A Forbes magazine survey released this month estimated the Jamaican sprinter's annual earnings at $23.2 million, ranking 45th on a list of the world's richest athletes.

What about Kind Butler III?

He is a world record-holder, too, albeit in a relay. The Indianapolis sprinter estimated his 2013 earnings from track: $6,000, or about 4,000 times less than Bolt. That underscores a challenge facing American athletes and their Indianapolis-based governing body, USA Track & Field.

"There's a big gap between the haves and have-nots in track and field," said Merhawi Keflezghi, a Fishers agent who represents his brother, Meb Keflezghi, a 2004 Olympic silver medalist and winner of April's Boston Marathon.

To increase earnings, the sport must be elevated in popularity and presentation. That's what motivated Georgia agent Paul Doyle to introduce the American Track League, a series of meets that made their debut May 2 in Bloomington. The meet featured a compressed program, live music and athlete interaction with fans.

"It's so hard to be a track fan in America because there's so little exposure," Doyle said. "You have to be passionate to be a true fan of track. All those other sports, you're slapped in the face with it every day."

In an era with 24-hour sports channels and a need for live programming, track can supply that. The USA Championships open Wednesday in Sacramento, Calif., and TV coverage will be shared by NBC, NBC Sports Network and Universal Sports. NBC is close to a deal with USATF for exclusive rights to its events.

That won't cover all major meets because ESPN retains rights to the NCAA championships. But it might help viewers if they don't have to channel surf and instead know track will be on NBC or NBCSN.

Track never will be a spectator attraction like football, basketball or baseball. But the world's oldest sport hasn't modernized much, either.

It is difficult to identify track incomes because most of it is derived from shoe sponsorships, the amounts of which athletes generally don't divulge. Contracts also include bonus incentives.

But separate surveys taken by the Track & Field Athletes Association, a labor union, and the USATF Foundation came to the same conclusions: More than 50 percent of those ranked in the world's top 10 earn less than $15,000 from their sport, and there are wide variations between events.

There probably aren't 10 American track athletes who earn more than the NBA minimum: $490,000. It is a surprise to some that track is a pro sport at all. Yet it has been openly so since the 1980s.

"I get that question all the time, 'How can you get that and be in the Olympics?' " said Amber Campbell, a Pike High School graduate and two-time Olympic hammer thrower.

Until recently, she had a contract with Nike, a rarity for a female thrower. She supplements that with income as a personal trainer.

Nike bankrolls the sport

However, those winning medals or competing on the international Diamond League circuit are full-time athletes. Andrew Poore, 25, an Indiana University and Bishop Chatard graduate, retired from track because of insufficient financial support. He finished fourth in the steeplechase at last year's nationals — one spot from the World Championships — but had 2013 earnings of $5,000.

"If I'm not a professional athlete, I'm not going to waste my time trying to pretend like I'm something I'm not," said Poore, who recently was promoted to full-time assistant at IU after serving as a volunteer coach.

Because many athletes can't afford to devote the time, Poore said, "most of the people in my position are not doing it to the best of their abilities. They're doing it because they're not comfortable giving it up. But what they don't realize is they're not going to get better."

Among shoe companies, Nike is unquestionably the sport's biggest benefactor, creating both gratitude and resentment. Former shot putter Adam Nelson, president of the athletes' union, once said that without Nike, "I'm not sure there's a sport."

USATF recently announced a landmark 23-year deal with Nike reportedly worth $500 million, extending sponsorship of the governing body through 2040. That essentially doubles what had been paid to USATF, which already gets about half of its $19 million budget from the shoe giant. The entities are so closely linked that letsrun.com published an April Fool's Day spoof announcing USATF had become a subdivision of Nike.

Max Siegel, CEO of USATF for two years, is a former president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc. He said he is "perplexed that there is this angst toward the shoe companies" that he didn't find toward automakers in NASCAR.

"I'm careful with it because they'll take my head off because people feel a certain way about it," Siegel said. "But it's interesting that the very bedrock and the foundation of the sport is supported by those shoe companies, who get a bad rap. So I often ask the question, coming in relatively new, ... has anyone ever sat back and asked what this industry would like if the shoe companies divested?"

It's often suggested Nike has too much influence. That is manifested in everything from a disproportionate share of championships awarded to Nike's home state, Oregon, to fallout over two disputed disqualifications at February's indoor nationals. (Alberto Salazar, who coaches runners in the Nike Oregon Project, was in the middle of one protest that led to a disqualification that was overturned after Siegel intervened.)

Siegel said he is opposed to creating a separate federation for pro track. The high performance division — i.e., the pros — receives nearly 50 percent of the organization's funding.

Athletes would like to expand sponsorship beyond shoe companies, but there are restrictions on what logos they may wear, especially in weeks before the Olympics. USATF has lifted those restrictions, but the International Olympic Committee has not.

"When we bring up that conversation, it's like Voldemort in 'Harry Potter,' " Nelson said of the IOC. "We can't even mention his name."

Dissatisfaction with USATF led to rumblings of a USA Championships boycott. Athletes interviewed by The Star expressed little interest or knowledge of such a movement, and Nelson conceded a boycott is "a very blunt instrument that is really more telling of failed diplomacy."

Siegel said USATF once offered to help finance the athletes' union and that he wants to build the athletes' brand, allowing them to earn a better living. He said has spoken to union leadership "on a weekly basis" and that USATF's governance needs to be amended.

"Here's the thing for me. We all want the same thing," Siegel said. "We all want the sport healthy."

Laboring in anonymity

It isn't healthy when someone like Ashton Eaton is such an obscure figure. Even in his own sport, Eaton is not as renowned as hurdler Lolo Jones.

Eaton, the Olympic champion in the decathlon, earned a $750,000 bonus from Nike for setting the world record at the 2012 U.S. trials. At the London Olympics, none other than Bolt proclaimed Eaton as the world's greatest athlete.

"For every one that knows Ashton Eaton, there's 100 out there who know Peyton Manning," Doyle said. "It's probably even more skewed than that, being honest. It's something we're hoping to change in the sport in America."

The sport has changed. Tonja Buford-Bailey can testify to that.

Buford-Bailey, 43, associate head coach at Texas, is a three-time Olympian in the 400-meter hurdles. She made $175,000 in her best earnings year, 2001 — which was also her last year. She finished second at the 1995 World Championships, one-hundredth of a second behind Kim Batten, an American teammate. Batten set a world record and won a new Mercedes worth $28,000.

"Kim got the car," Buford-Bailey said, "and I got nothing."

The IAAF, the world governing body, now awards prize money at its championships ($60,000 for first to $4,000 for eighth) and in 14 Diamond League meets across the globe ($10,000 to $1,000). There is also a lesser series, World Challenge.

Most meets are in Europe, and American athletes want an enhanced domestic season. That is especially true for those in their early 20s, like Poore, who might eventually become elite. Such a circuit would become paramount if a proposal to keep noncollegians out of college meets is approved. Pros now often compete in college meets against college athletes.

Merhawi Keflezghi, who contended USATF is "on the right track" with recent actions, proposed what he called a form of revenue sharing. He suggested anyone making an Olympic team be rewarded with $50,000.

"Let's create a bottom floor," he said. "Everyone who is a U.S. Olympian in track and field is getting this amount. And make that work."

Going pro? Do so at own peril

To go pro might sound "glamorous," Buford-Bailey said, but reality is not. She coached Lawrence North graduate Ashley Spencer to two NCAA 400-meter titles at Illinois. The coach advised Spencer, who just finished her junior year at Texas, not to leave school early.

College provides athletes with coaching, travel and medical services that they must secure on their own if out of school.

Plymouth native Morgan Uceny said she made less than $20,000 a year upon graduating from Cornell University in 2007. She won the Diamond League in the 1,500 meters in 2011, an achievement worth $40,000. She switched shoe companies from Reebook to Adidas, which extended her contract for two years after she made the Olympic team.

Uceny was in medal contention in London but tripped at the start of the final lap, a calamity that not only crushed a lifelong dream but cost her thousands of dollars. If she couldn't make a living in track, she said, it would be "irresponsible" to continue.

"People should think long and hard if they want to do it once they're done with college," Buford-Bailey said.

Derek Drouin did think about going pro early, but only briefly.

The Canadian high jumper could have done so after winning an Olympic bronze medal in 2012 but took his final season at IU in 2013. Besides a desire to perform in a team environment, he said, he wanted to be "more ready" for the international circuit.

He signed a Nike contract after the 2013 NCAAs. He won at April's Drake Relays, earning $25,000 in prize money from the Hy-Vee grocery store chain. But even a star like Drouin has been a volunteer assistant coach, allowing access to IU facilities. It was a risk to stay in college if he had become injured, he said, but a greater risk to leave.

"Since I made the decision, I haven't regretted it once," he said.

Former Warren Central sprinter Candyce McGrone acknowledged some regret over leaving early. She won the NCAA 100 meters for Oklahoma in 2011, her junior year, and then signed with Nike.

She hasn't run as fast as she did in college. Injuries and family tragedies contributed to that, she said.

"Sometimes you have to go when you're hot in track. If you're not hot, they don't sign you," said McGrone, who lives in Sarasota, Fla.

Someone like McGrone can be desirable because, at 25, she is a potential star in a high-profile event like the 100 meters. The accent is on potential. That's why Leo Manzano found himself without a shoe contract for 15 months after he won Olympic silver in the 1,500 — he declined Nike's reduced offer — and why a two-time Olympic medalist like hurdler Terrence Trammell, 35, hasn't had a sponsor for years.

No price tag on a dream

Track and field athletes have more in common with would-be actors and singers than they do with NFL or NBA players. They're chasing a dream as much as they are a paycheck.

Former Indiana State pole vaulter Kylie Hutson was a four-time NCAA champion, and she is No. 3 in U.S. history behind Olympic gold medalists Jenn Suhr and Stacy Dragila. Hutson, a Phoenix resident who has a Nike contract and gets free poles (which can cost up to $800) from Gill Athletics, said she makes enough to be a full-time athlete.

"(It's a) live, eat, sleep, breathe type of thing, and you make enough money in our event to make it on your own," she said.

Another Warren Central graduate, De'Sean Turner, combined training with a $9-an-hour job at a Bloomington running gear store. He made the U.S. team in the steeplechase last year, beating Poore, but had his career stalled last month when he injured his Achilles tendon in a race.

He had a good IU career. But not good enough.

"I wanted to show I belonged," Turner said. "I felt I was better than I showed."

His former IU teammate, Butler, moved back into his parents' home in 2012 and trained under his former Lawrence Central coach, Mike Holman, now at Marian University.

Butler made the U.S. team in the 1,600-meter relay for March's World Indoor Championship, and the Americans won a gold medal in setting a world record. He is trying to secure a shoe sponsor, but he earned $22,500 for what he achieved at Sopot, Poland. It was a "first step," he said.

"There's a select group who are the face of track and field," Butler said. "If you're not in that circle, you're nobody, basically."

So why do they do it?

Many said they love it. Even in the 21st century, making an Olympic team or winning an Olympic medal has an intrinsic value that is priceless. Next up: Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

McGrone said that's what keeps her going. Same for Butler and Hutson and ... well, it's the same for most of them, whether they're making $5,000 or $500,000.

"Rio, making that team," Turner said. "That's what everyone in our sport does it for."

Call Star reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195.