The Standard for Professionalism is Flawed

Ryan Heisler

Really interesting article.

I'm curious if he's talking about my coach (John Hirsch) in his post. FWIW, Mr. Hirsch is a public defender as his "second job."

I think the article goes a little off the rails when there is a comparison for professionalism with baseball. We need to remember how young of a sport triathlon is. Heck, up through the mid-70s, most "professional" baseball players needed second jobs to support themselves during the off-season. Most minor leaguers lead a less than stellar lifestyle. That's a hundred years of "professionalism" in context.

I don't disagree with adopting the ITU Continental/World Cup system and applying it to long-course triathlon; that being said, it will take either a group coming in and setting up the World Triathlon Majors (similar to how running has created an alliance between Berlin, Boston, NYC, London, Chicago et al) or Challenge and WTC battling to the death.

I don't think the answer is changing the definition of being an elite athlete; I do think that there are issues with the industry, race producers, and athletes alike.

Aaron Webstey

http://trstriathlon.com/the-standard/

Brent_R

@rrheisler beat me to it, but I think this article exaggerates just how "professional" the minor league ranks of most sports are.

This article says that the minimum pay in the minor leagues is $1,100 per month during the season, or $8,800 per year. If those guys are living off of $8,800 per year, good on them but I am certain there a good number of them doing something else in the off-season and probably in season as well. And that's baseball, where the top 640 players end up making a minimum $500,000 per year and an average in the $3 million range.

In golf, the local guy giving lessons at the clubhouse has a professional golfer designation. It's not a Tour card, but he still calls himself a golf professional. The same thing goes for tennis. I'm sure if we went through the professional ranks of table tennis, track and field and a host of other rarely televised aside from the Olympic sports the picture would be the same as triathlon.

I don't think focussing on this part of the discussion is helpful. If you're a fan of triathlon, what you need to focus on is how the presentation of elite level triathlon can drive revenue which can be leveraged to compensate athletes and fund more and better coverage of those competitions. Whether to call any particular athlete a "professional" is immaterial to irrelevant to that discussion. I want to watch entertaining and engaging competitions amongst those at the highest level in an endeavour I have an immense amount of respect and admiration for. If that involves "professionals" or "elites" doesn't matter.

Jason Lentzke

Upon reading the article I sense a bit of resentment from the author along with a bit of Uncle Rico-syndrome, but I digress.

If an athlete has had success in the sport, continually wins their AG regionally, nationally and at champ events why wouldn't they give it a crack at racing professionally? It's their prerogative. In order to develop as an athlete you need to train and race against better athletes.

As a spouse of a "fringe" pro, I get a first hand perspective of the grind. Balancing a full time job and training like a "pro" isn't going to last forever. It's a struggle-- financially, physically and we know it's not going to last forever. But she's going to bust her ass day in and day out until she has her break through race. Make money? Maybe. But if that’s a priority for any aspiring pro, they're delusional.

Finally, I don't think the author is aware that professional bumblefuck ironman and 70.3's are disappearing. This is a good thing. As a result the pro field should get stronger, become higher profile and become more marketable. Now we just need someone like Google to notice...

WadeCutter

What I do agree is coming up with something along the lines of cycling cat system. I would much rather be competing with people of similar abilities rather than an arbitrary age range. I think age groups are an incredibly stupid (and lazy) way to categorize people.

ScottMKoch

I wonder if the author remembers this? http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/05/news/working-guy-eric-marcotte-wins-u-s-pro-road-championship_329661 Maybe cycling isn't the best sport to model triathlon after or maybe we should by judging pro athletes by how well they compete(and not their sources of income).