Between her jobs as a babysitter, a caregiver for adults with dementia and Alzheimer's, and clearing tables at an Iowa City restaurant, Olympian Brittany Brown still managed to fit in her day job as an elite track and field athlete — and she wasn't getting paid for it yet.
After graduating from the University of Iowa in 2018, Brown had no plans to retire, but he was unsponsored for about a year and needed to cover living and training costs.
“I know what it means to really push yourself,” Brown said, a reality shared by many other Olympians.
It wasn't until she won a silver medal at the 2019 World Championships that Adidas offered her an endorsement deal.
“It was a huge relief to win that money and to get that recognition,” said Brown, 29, who will compete in the 200 meters at the Paris Olympics in 2024. “Money is respect and it was nice to have that respect and be like, 'OK, wow, she did this amazing thing and she was unknown.'”
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Brown's story as a previously unsponsored athlete is not unique. For many elite athletes, the financial burden of training is a constant, and the Olympians featured in ads for big-name brands like Nike, Gatorade, Visa and Reese's are not representative of the majority, athletes told USA Today Sports.
“The reality is, it's only the top 5 percent and the rest of us are living paycheck to paycheck,” said water polo player Kaylee Gilchrist, who is seeking a third consecutive Olympic gold medal.
So Maggie Steffens, captain of Team USA's water polo team, put out a crowdfunding campaign on Instagram in May, noting that “Most Olympians need a second (or even third) job to pursue their dreams (me too!).” What she didn't expect was rapper Flavor Flav to sponsor the entire team and sign a five-year deal as the official spokesperson for Team USA women's and men's water polo.
Team and individual sponsors help with travel and fundraising costs for training and competitions both at home and abroad, and national governing bodies such as USA Track and Field and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee can also provide stipends to athletes to help cover expenses.
“A lot of Olympians are going out on their own to help,” said Stephens, a three-time Olympic gold medalist and now in his fourth Olympian. “USA Water Polo and the USOPC have been incredibly supportive and I'm grateful for that and I don't mind saying we can do better and we can do more.”
A 2020 survey of nearly 500 elite athletes in 48 countries by athlete advocacy group Global Athlete found that 58% of respondents did not feel financially secure, and the majority of respondents said they had not received “adequate financial compensation” from the International Olympic Committee or their national federations.
Scholarships often don't cover living expenses, especially when the costs of living are high even in some sports' top training locations, such as water polo in Southern California.
“While (the benefits) are a source of financial support for us right now, given the hours and work we're doing, it's less than minimum wage,” Stephens said.
“When you're training for the Olympics, that's your mission. You don't want to worry about how you're going to pay your rent, how you're going to buy groceries this month, how you're going to make your car payment, how you're going to make your cell phone payment. You want to just focus on your mission.”
In addition to living expenses, training costs and travel to competitions, expenses for elite athletes may include physical and massage therapy, nutritional supplements and additional equipment.
Stephens estimates that training for the Olympics as a full-time job in Long Beach would cost about $3,300 a month, but that's only if the training itself is paid for. If not, athletes would have to pay for coaches, trainers and gym memberships or find people who will train them for free.
Brown, who trains at the University of Arkansas, pays her coaches, as well as a nutritionist and a mental-performance coach, and she estimates her annual cost for training resources is between $20,000 and $30,000, not including living expenses.
“Athletics has come a long way,” Brown said, “and we still have a long way to go when it comes to finances and money in the sport, with or without sponsors.”
To make ends meet, athletes across the U.S. and around the world work as lawyers, nurses, Walmart deli counters, doctors and mail carriers. When not playing water polo, Gilchrist surfs professionally and runs a T-shirt company. Stephens is also the co-founder of 6-8 Sports, a data and analytics app for athletes.
Some athletes are teaching camps, clinics and lessons to earn extra income and help the next generation of athletes, while others are turning to GoFundMe and Cameo to help with training costs — Olympic hopefuls have raised more than $1 million on GoFundMe this year, according to the company.
Sunny Choi, who will make her Olympic debut with Breaking, was working as global creative operations director for Estée Lauder before leaving in January 2023 to focus on training. She said she was “really scared” to quit because she'd saved up enough money to get by until the end of the year, but that was it. She was hopeful a potential partnership would come to fruition.
“I've actually been really lucky to have had a lot of opportunities,” Choi said. “To be honest, I've actually turned down quite a few opportunities and, of course, I've tried to pass them on to other people that I know.”
Brown frequently receives direct messages from unsponsored athletes inspired by her story, asking how she managed to do it.
“Be your own biggest fan and your own biggest advocate,” Brown said. “I made a deliberate, intentional choice…
“When you feel like you're not being recognized with financial support, it can be a very crushing feeling. But I also felt that year without a sponsor, I became my own biggest fan and my biggest advocate.”