This article is from WeChat public account:Rilakkuma Sports (ID:lanxiongsports) OF: Xinxiao Tong, from the east FIG head IC
For the Hungarian swimming star Katingka Hoszu
“There are nearly 30 million regular swimmers in the United States, and their enthusiasm for swimming is extraordinary,” said Grieglisin. In fact, not only Americans, according to the statistics of statistics, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, track and field and swimming are the two most concerned projects of the world audience.
In order to be able to enter the US market faster, Griglisin chose the same franchise as the North American Professional Sports League (Compared with the US Grand Alliance MLS franchise has been sold to 200 million US dollars, followed by an increase) , giving the club a bigger space to play.
On the other hand, the treatment of swimmers needs to be improved.
In fact, swimmers generally face a situation that is notorious but has little commercial value. An important reason is that there are too few international events in the swimming competition. Only the four-year Olympic Games and the biennial World Championships, the athletes are not exposed enough. The IAAF has also faced this dilemma. Later, the IAAF began to organize the Golden League and the Diamond League. The exposure of track and field athletes has improved, and sponsorship has also come.
In Europe and the United States, most of the swimmers are responsible for their own profits and losses. They can only rely on the competition bonus and sponsorship fees to maintain their livelihood. The FINA bonus is really a “cup of water”. In the 2019 Gwangju Swimming World Championships, according to the athletes’ competition prize income list published by the well-known swimming website SwimSwam, the top ranked Drexel won four individual championships and broke the men’s 100m butterfly world record, with a total prize of 110,000. US dollar; second place Reagan Smith (Regan Smith) bonus 8Ten thousand dollars, this is just a year of tuition for his Stanford University.
The bonus for the short pool swimming World Cup race is even less pitiful. The prize for the individual project champion is only $1,500, and in order to prevent the athletes from replicating the feat of the 10 champions, the FINA announced that each of them will limit 4 items per session, that is, 4 items will be won. The total prize money is only $6,000, not to mention other rankings.
For example, with the tennis project with a higher degree of professional development, the 2019 US Open, the men’s and women’s singles champions, which ended not long ago, can receive a reward of $3.85 million. Even in the first round, the player can get $58,000 and the prize far exceeds a single swimming champion.
A swimmer said in an interview that his income could not even be paid for his rent. Drexel also posted crowdfunding information on personal social accounts, calling on his fans and Americans to provide financial support for the US swimming team.
But the most dissatisfied athletes are bonus income distribution. According to the sports industry independent commentary, at present, the athletes’ competition bonus only accounts for 12.5% of the total FINA income.
In contrast, ISL is much more generous. The budget for this year’s event is about $15 million, and Grieglisin said that with logistical and unpredictable costs, the budget could rise to $20 million. Each entrant will sign two contracts, one with the alliance and one with their own club. In addition to the basic salary of $150,000 equal pay (), athletes will also receive sponsorship fees, broadcast fees and exclusive merchandise sales. Of course, the league and clubs will also issue bonuses based on athlete performance. In addition to high income, ISL also promises personal benefits such as bonuses, medical insurance and pension insurance.
In addition, Grigglisin organized a swimmer meeting in Luxembourg on January 25th this year, and many famous players such as Horszu and Sternstrom attended the meeting. The main goal of the meeting was to establish the possibility of swimming athletes to form a sports association spontaneously. Grigglishin said that he would provide initial management and organization work, and if necessary, will also negotiate with the FINA for income distribution.
However, in the face of the above problems, FINA is not without it.
This year, the FINA launched a new event – the 2019 Champion Swimming Series (Champion Swim Series), with a total prize money of $3.9 million, a prize of $10,000 per project, and a runner-up of $8,000. This is the highest prize in addition to the Kazan and Budapest Swimming World Championships. Set up three stations, April 27-28, Guangzhou Station is the opening game, the second station will be held in Budapest, Hungary from May 11th to 12th, and the third station will be in Indianapolis, USA from May 31st to June 1st. Liss held the competition in Guangzhou Station, Chinese famous Sun Yang, Fu Yuanhui, Xu Jiayu and so on.
▲Guangzhou Station, Sun Yang harvested the men’s 400m freestyle gold medal with 3 minutes 42 seconds 75.
But the FINA recently announced that the 2020 Champion Swimming Series will be reduced from three stops to two wars, and both are held in China (January 14 ~15 in Shenzhen, January 18~19 in Beijing). Foreign media analysis, this arrangement is to seize the Asian resources, because ISL is held in Europe and the United States, and attracted many Australian players to participate, but Asian players are less involved.
Despite the twists and turns before the start of the game, ISL earned enough attention, which is a blessing in disguise. Many foreign media like to describe the ISL with the image of a “resistor” who is not afraid of power. At present, ISL is starting to take a good start. Although the sponsors are still only one of the standard energy companies controlled by Grieglisin, many companies have shown interest in them. US sports and entertainment giant Wasserman (Wasserman Media Group) has signed a cooperation agreement with it, the content of the specific agreement has not been disclosed.
In terms of game broadcast, in August of this year, Eurosport, a broadcaster with Discovery Discovery Channel, signed a two-year rights agreement with ISL to win the Eurasian region.Exclusive broadcast rights for the 2019 and 2020 seasons. In North America, ESPN won the exclusive rights to broadcast. In addition, Canadian public broadcaster CBC Sports will also broadcast and report on the event through multiple platforms.
▲Napoli Station.
Compared with the sponsor, winning the broadcaster is the focus of Gregory Xin’s work some time ago. “In those mature games in Europe and America, the number of visitors is basically fixed, and the increase is small, but the price of the broadcasting rights is indeed rising, and the profit is shrinking for the broadcasters.” Grieglisin said, “This should go. Looking for some new content, swimming is certainly the best option. This is not an emerging project. There are about 300 million viewers in the world.
ISL is cheaper than traditional large leagues such as the NBA, but the content quality is high. We will provide broadcasters with 50-60 games a year and 300-400 hours of broadcast.
In addition, ISL has also caught up with the time – athletes are paying more and more attention to and pursuing their right to speak. As the digitalization of the Internet continues to develop and the media landscape is increasingly out of the traditional power control era, athletes are trying to improve their influence in new ways. Many athletes have publicly expressed their views in areas such as politics, society and anti-doping issues. The recent report of the Summer Olympic International Federation (ASOIF) points to this trend, which states that athletes are beginning to “be more independent and autonomous.” Mode of action, this approach may have a “significant chain reaction” to the entire movement.
This article is from WeChat public account:Rilakkuma Sports (ID:lanxiongsports) author: Xin Xiaotong