The biggest challenges were costs and financial insecurity, with elite athletes spending more each year on travel and accommodation for competitions than they did on food.
Athletes living below the poverty line have to pay for their travel and accommodation, while our politicians earning up to $600,000 a year get everything for free. Then they piggyback off the success of these athletes and use them to boost their own public image, whilst also failing to provide adequate funding to support the future success of these athletes and the generations to follow. Good shit.
I don’t agree with people here not caring about this. Why should anyone earn below the poverty line?
If producing value is what gives you the right to live, then why do managers and manager’s managers get so highly paid? Does that also mean that artists shouldn’t get to live either unless they’re doing graphic art for a company?
Why don’t I get paid for professionally posting on Lemmy? Why don’t I get paid for professionally sitting on my couch?
Just because you’re doing something doesn’t mean you should be paid for it.
Athletes aren’t paid very little because of being oppressed. They are paid very little because of their work being of very little (if any) worth.
That can be extended to anything that isn’t practical or useful, what I’m saying isn’t that you should be paid for sitting on your couch specifically, what I’m saying is that you should have enough money to cover your needs even if your job is creating very abstract art, being a professional swimmer, or an artificial one like managing a manager.
Who is responsible for providing for people who choose not to contribute?
I’m not working away all day when I could be persuing a hobby and still getting paid just so someone else can persue a hobby and get paid
Thats the same in india except make it like 80pc ! If they win a medal they are given a better paying job !
Champion swimmer Bronte Campbell said the biggest costs she racked up through her career were injury-related, and while injury support was brilliant when it was there, costs soon started to outweigh the support she received.
How is swimming or any other athletic activity a career?
I don’t want my taxes paying for frivolous non-careers. The cleaner and the secretary in my office earn similar amounts, and they’re actually contributing to society. The bloke down the road with his model trains also finds that the costs outweigh the support he receives. I don’t understand how they can seriously complain that they’re not being paid enough to pursue their hobby.
He also encouraged athletes to look for other revenue streams.
Yeah, no shit. I need another job to pay for my hobby too, where’s the problem?
TBH I don’t really care. I don’t think “elite athletes” should be getting any government funded pay. Playing sport is a privilege, not a right, and just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you should be rich.
If your sport can’t afford to pay you lots of money there’s a reason for that - the sport doesn’t generate a lot of money. It’s the same argument with women’s sports - they want equal pay but they don’t bring in equal revenue, so where exactly is that equal pay supposed to come from? You can’t play a female soccer player $30 million a year when the entire league only brings in $10 million revenue in total.
There is a difference between being rich and being above the poverty line.
Your argument is either disingenuous or in bad faith.
Their point is very clear and you have not presented a good counter-argument.
Excuse me? I stated a fact. The person I was replying to started by implying that elite sports people want to be rich. The article is about elite sports people being below the poverty line. These are two separate things.
If someone is an elite sports person they sacrifice a huge amount to get where they are. They are paraded around by TV networks, media, their government, their team/association. I’m pretty sure all those people benefiting from the personal sacrifices and hard work of the athletes aren’t living below the poverty line.
