This seems the most likely reason El G would make so much money. He was state-sponsored in every way. Now you see Moroccan athletes are going to the NCAA due to lack of much financial backing and El Bakkali is probably the only prominent guy left.
Have to imagine both Jakob and Kipchoge are now more valuable to Nike than El G ever was, given their social media footprint and Q rating.
I think the social media influencer score is more important these days than the Q, both the familiarity rating and the actual + Q. For USA track athletes only Syd cracks the top 50 in the United States among all athletes, but not sure how she does world-wide. Kipchoge and Jakob must be up there across the globe? Anybody else? Maybe SAFP?
What the heck kind of drug is "Q"? Sounds lucrative.
I was reading some old El G threads from 03/04 and people were saying that he got a $30K appearance fee every time he raced a DL 1,500m.
Probably more IMO. When EL G competed it was the best time to watch T&F. Everyone was doped up on EPO since it was undetectable and the races were great.
I think Jakob is also on 4 000 000 a year and this can even go up with other sponsors and bonus.
In 2020 J.I had a taxable income at 1.7 million Nok (168 882 USD). These things are out in the open in Norway. We dont know for 2021 yet, other than him owning 25% of a company (with his brothers and parents) that made 566 254 USD in revenue. In 2022 he created a company, probably to store some of his earnings, I would say they probably increased a lot.
He is making 1.5million USD a year. Probably more this year.
I remember Renato talking about this years back. He was saying something like the pacers in ElG's races at the golden league were making more money than the winner of diamond league races a few years ago.
Back in ElG's era, they used to have the 1 million dollar jackpot too for winning all(later changed to winning 5 of the 7 events) the golden league races, ElG won that 4 times(twice taking the 100% share of the million). At one point, it was 50kg of gold for the winner which is worth 2.8 million in today's market.
I remember Renato talking about this years back. He was saying something like the pacers in ElG's races at the golden league were making more money than the winner of diamond league races a few years ago.
Back in ElG's era, they used to have the 1 million dollar jackpot too for winning all(later changed to winning 5 of the 7 events) the golden league races, ElG won that 4 times(twice taking the 100% share of the million). At one point, it was 50kg of gold for the winner which is worth 2.8 million in today's market.
In that era of the Golden league the money was considerably higher for everything. Appearance money for the top stars was in the 50-100k range especially in the Golden 4 (Berlin, Brussels, Oslo, Zurich) and the Golden League (those four plus Monaco, Rome and the GP final - later replaced by Paris). As for the pacers? For the best guys (especially the guys who ended up exclusively pacing like David Kiptoo in the 800m) they would be between 10 and 15k a meet which is the same or more as now (10k to win). The prize money is actually shockingly bad - it is half what it was 20 years ago which when you look at how money in other sports has exploded, clearly isn't great.