We recently conducted a survey aimed to collect data from numerous professional runners from around the globe. This anonymous survey was filled out by nearly 200 athletes and was designed to gain insight into some key issues regarding professional athletic careers and elite competition as the sport of trail and ultrarunning continues to grow.
Demographics
Those who completed the survey included a nearly even split response with 48.7% females and 51.3% males. When it came to location, 59.2% of the athletes responding were from North America, 30.3% were from Europe, 3.9% were from Australia and surrounding territories, 3.3% were from South America and 2% were from Africa. We were unable to get any responses from athletes in Asia despite our efforts to distribute the survey as widely as possible through multiple channels. The ages of responding athletes included 42.8% reportedly being between 30-35 years old, 24.3% were 26-29, 15.8% were 36-39, 8.6% were 40-45, 7.9% were 20-25 and 0.7% were 50-plus.
We received responses from athletes sponsored by 19 different brands, including a large percentage of athletes who preferred not to answer, and 2% indicating they had a sponsor of an anonymous brand.
Salary Statistics
The first part of the survey aimed to understand how much money professional trail runners earn from things like guaranteed salary, performance bonuses and race prize purses.
Over a third of respondents (34.2%) indicated that they make less than $5,000 in total per year from being a professional trail and/or ultrarunner. According to a 2023 SmartAsset study that analyzed the income needed to live in the 25 largest metro areas in the United States, our survey results indicate that less than 10% of professional trail and ultrarunners make enough to meet the average living wage requirement.
Nearly 70% of respondents indicated that less than 20% of their income comes in the form of prize money and a similar amount, nearly 60%, said that less than 20% comes from sponsor bonuses. In 2022, Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) paid winners of their three marquee races a purported $10,000 each, with approximately $5,000 going to the runner-up of each race and $3,000 to the third-place finishers, while many smaller races do not offer any prize money. Incentives for performing well currently appear to be marginal at best for most of the professional field at the vast majority of major races around the globe.
Over 70% of those who responded felt that prize purses are unfair and inadequate.
Logistics and Healthcare Support
One-third of the professionals surveyed responded that the travel and logistics support is actually quite good, with 80-100% covered each year by sponsors.
While travel support seems to be adequate, when it comes to injuries, recovery, physiotherapy and healthcare, the data from the survey paints a different picture. Since most athletes are not considered full-time employees, a health insurance program is not required by the sponsor. On top of that, nearly one-third of the respondents have felt pressure to come back early from an injury.
Furthermore, nearly 50% disagreed with the statement “I would be adequately financially supported in case of a serious injury.” In our survey, 81% of the nearly 200 athletes that responded said they did not receive healthcare benefits from their sponsors.
The results of the survey indicate that in its current state, the majority of professional trail and ultrarunners around the world need other income in order to make a living. From coaching other athletes to jobs outside the industry or working in other roles for the brands that sponsor them, being a professional trail or ultrarunner does not produce enough to sustain the average cost of living. The final question of our survey concludes that 50% of the professional athletes surveyed responded that what concerns them most about the growth of the sport is enough compensation to make a living.
Athlete incentives and compensation don’t appear to be growing as rapidly as the major profits of outdoor brands, however, given the continued growth of the sport, there is an opportunity to begin advocating for increased compensation in the future. The recently formed Pro Trail Runners Association is already pushing for more change to protect runners from being pushed into racing too much, asking events to adhere to stricter environmental standards and increasing support in the form of performance incentives.
The inevitable professionalization of trail and ultrarunning drives the support of amateurs to well-known brands. Results of this survey indicate that more recognition and a better balance between brands and athletes would promote an upward trajectory for the future of professional trail and ultrarunning athletes.
8 comments
Man, pie charts for each of these graphs makes the data very hard to parse. It works for the “do you receive health care benefits” question where there are only a few categories that are unordered, but is very hard to look at for the salary info, percent of income from prizes, etc. Because the categories in those charts have a natural order (0-5k, 5k-10k, etc. for salary), arranging those categories in order on the x-axis of a bar graph would make this much easier to digest at a glance.
Thanks for the feedback, Tim. It’s not perfect, but the data is out there now — and a start is better than nothing at all.
Glad for this article but it’s as if the charts were intentionally made as confusing as possible.
Thank you for producing actual data! Since over a third of pro runners are in the lowest income category, it would be helpful if future surveys offered more divisions under $5k.
This was surprising: “Athlete incentives and compensation don’t appear to be growing as rapidly as the major profits of outdoor brands…” Since no data was offered for that statement nor was that topic mentioned in the article, I guess it was a personal opinion.
Thanks, this is interesting. You say ~200 people responded, but I’m curious how many runners you sent the survey out to.
Only in the USA is health insurance connected to employment, so non-American respondents would not expect healthcare benefits….
Would really be interested to see what the average salary is for women and average salary for men, since this data would be available from the information you gathered.
It would be helpful to provide an overall average salary (mean) for all ultra athletes – without this the data make very little sense.
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