You see them on the TV, and you just think ‘they must be rich’. Well, I’ve got some news for you folks. Olympians are broke.
In fact, a recent survey of 500 professional athletes discovered that a staggering 60% of them did not consider themselves financially stable.
The US is one of the very few countries in the world that doesn’t take care of the finances of its athletes competing in the Olympics, and the competitors are not even paid for taking part. They get a pay out if they win a medal.
US athletes will receive $37,500 for gold, $22,500 for silver and $15,000 for bronze. This is untaxed too.
Athletes can obviously make money from sponsorship deals, but those can be very hard to come by for those who compete in a niche sport.
In fact, back in 2012, Business Insider carried out some research on athletes’ earnings and found that almost half of track and field athletes made $15,000 or less.
Most athletes have part time jobs or use crowdsourcing to fund their dreams.
