What can Group GB stars hope to earn after Olympic medals?

Standing on the Olympic podium, medal in hand, is the top of an athlete’s profession. Years of gruelling coaching, willpower and sacrifice have led to this second. Every part has paid off – doubtlessly in additional methods than one.

Within the UK, there’s usually not enormous cash in sport itself, except you are taking part in on the high ranges of soccer. There’s, nevertheless, cash to be made out of promoting and sponsorship.

And this helps to incentivise sports activities participation, particularly in case your chosen self-discipline feels “a bit forgotten”, as one Group GB gold medallist tells the BBC.

So, how a lot cash may an Olympic medal translate into for GB’s stars?

Claire Bowden-Hughes, founder and director of En2End sports activities occasions company, says profitable any Olympic medal “considerably enhances an athlete’s marketability”, making them extra engaging to world manufacturers.

This may result in substantial earnings via sponsorships and endorsements.

Excessive-profile athletes like GB sprinter Dina Asher–Smith, who has received Olympic medals in Rio, Tokyo and Paris, plus a bunch of others at World and European Championships – “can earn something between £1m to £10m yearly from endorsement offers,” Bowden-Hughes says. “As an example, her offers with Nike, Hublot, and Müller are extremely profitable.”

Bicycle owner Emma Finucane seems set to turn into one of many greatest British names to emerge from the Paris Video games. The 21-year-old was a part of the crew that set a brand new world report as they took gold within the girls’s crew dash. She went on to bag herself a bronze within the keirin and on Sunday hopes to go for gold once more.

Finucane “has the potential to earn vital revenue given her current successes and excessive visibility”, says Bowden-Hughes.

One other gold would imply “her marketability will skyrocket” and “she may doubtlessly earn something between £1m to £3m yearly from numerous model offers and endorsements”, she predicts.

And it would not must be a gold. A medal of any metallic will do, the consultants say.

Whereas a bronze medallist who will not be but an enormous family identify could not earn as a lot as a gold medallist, substantial sums of between £10,000 to £50,000 per yr can nonetheless be on the desk, Bowden-Hughes suggests.

She cites the instance of diver Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix – daughter of First Dates star Fred Sirieix – who claimed bronze together with her associate within the girls’s synchronised 10m platform contest.

However in addition to the person, earnings “actually rely upon the game and its profile”, says Nigel Currie, a sponsorship and advertising and marketing guide.

Rower Georgie Brayshaw, whose crew took a nail-biting gold within the girls’s quadruple sculls, tells the BBC she has not but been approached by any manufacturers providing sponsorship offers or endorsements, however “it could be superb” if she did.

Nationwide Lottery funding via British Rowing pays her £28,000 yearly – the very best degree accessible – and British Rowing covers the prices of competitions and camps. However a sponsorship would make all of it a bit extra “possible”, she says.

“Rowers are a bit forgotten in sponsorships, each personally and as a crew as a complete,” the 30-year-old provides.

Whereas the crew are “very motivated” and need to win whatever the monetary rewards, medal bonuses would doubtlessly make the game extra interesting to others, Brayshaw believes.

She’s not speaking about enormous particular person offers both. She suggests grocery store sponsorships that may result in subsidies on groceries for athletes.

The comparatively quick careers {of professional} athletes – who usually retire of their 30s and even youthful – might also immediate them to look elsewhere for sources of revenue. Or for these in sports activities with a smaller following, methods to maintain their profile elevated in between the Video games.

The general public curiosity in athletes within the wake of an Olympics can result in TV appearances and e book deal affords which “will be from something within the vary of £10,000 as much as £500,000 plus, relying on the athlete’s profile and story,” says Bowden-Hughes.

Strictly Come Dancing has seen a bunch of Olympians and Paralympians grace its sprung ground, with gold-medal profitable swimmer Tom Dean one of many newest celebrities introduced to be participating on this yr’s present.

One former Strictly contestant is long-jumper Greg Rutherford, whose gold at London 2012 first propelled his identify into households throughout the UK.

“He did nearly each TV present going,” observes Currie. Rutherford appeared in a few of British TV’s greatest programmes, together with Masterchef and Dancing on Ice.

However the pay pales compared to what’s obtained by superstars like Simone Biles and Usain Bolt, whose sporting prowess has made them world family names. This attraction to manufacturers has, in flip, made these sportspeople multi-millionaires.

Forbes estimates that Biles – who now has 11 Olympic medals – made $7.1m (£5.6m) in 2023, $7m of which got here from endorsements. Bolt has an estimated web value of $90m, in accordance with CelebrityNetWorth. It wasn’t till their appearances on the Olympic stage that they reached the heights of fame that they presently take pleasure in.

However the profitable offers that could possibly be on provide as we speak for the likes of Group GB’s gold-winning 800m runner Keely Hodgkinson are a far cry from what Olympians obtained in a long time previous.

Following her personal 800m victory on the Tokyo 1964 Video games, Ann Packer “did a fast advert for Heinz beans… after which I had a three-year contract with Bovril”.

It left her with “a really modest sum of money”, she informed BBC Radio 4’s Right now programme. However it was sufficient to arrange a house together with her husband, fellow Olympian Robbie Brightwell.

Packer retired at age 22 with a view to revenue from her win, since Olympic guidelines again then prevented skilled athletes from competing.

In contrast to as we speak, prizes was supplied too. “A very talked-about one was a picnic hamper,” Packer stated. “You would possibly get a tea set, a set of Pyrex dishes, cookware… it’s higher than a kick within the tooth isn’t it?”

The 82-year-old stated she had been joyful, and the Nineteen Sixties and 2020s had been non-comparable. However one factor hadn’t modified.

“I imagine that the athletes which can be competing as we speak are nonetheless motivated in precisely the identical means as we had been,” she stated. “Not by the cash, however by proving themselves to be both the perfect they are often – or the perfect on the earth.”