It is no secret that for most sports fans, track and field might as well only exist whenever the Olympics come around. Noah Lyles has clearly had enough of it. He owned 2023 as the fastest man in the world, and he’s the first man to definitively wear that title since Usain Bolt. But he also got himself into some controversy because he made controversial statements about the NBA. Many of its players and fans weren’t too thrilled about it. However, Noah Lyles is the biggest name in men’s track and field, and he has a legitimate reason to be frustrated. The pay in pro track and field is awful, and his bank account is proof of it.

Noah went on the Paper Route podcast with Brandon Marshall to make it very clear how he felt. What he said is what we all know to be true, that track and field athletes aren’t paid attention to in America. The most important word in that sentence is the word “paid”. The amount of money in track and field that an athlete can actually make, not including endorsements, is so low in fact, that many of them might as well just get a regular job working at Home Depot. That was not a joke because years ago that is exactly what Lolo Jones did while still competing as a pro. She later became an Olympian and a World Champion, alongside a social media influencer The last of which has significantly increased her bank account. So the question that remains is how much money do pro track athletes actually make? It's easy to say they get what they deserve, until you know just how little the money actually is for them to go out and get. That is for the athletes at the bottom all the way to the top, where Noah Lyles sits right now all by himself.

How do pro track athletes make money?

Right now the only ways to make money from actually competing in the sport come from the Diamond League, the Continental Tour, and the World Championships themselves. It is most helpful to consider the money for athletes who win their event, because if you don’t, whatever they give you is not even worth mentioning. 

How much money do you get for winning the Diamond League?

In the Diamond League there are 15 meetings on the calendar, but they don’t have every event at each meet. So it’s hard to compete in more than 1 event, regardless of who you are. The individual winner only gets $10,000 for pulling it off. I’m not making this up, that’s all Sha’carri Richardson got for winning the 100 meter dash in Zurich! But If you finish in eight and last place, you are only looking at a $500 payout! That’s barely enough to buy yourself an XBOX or something. The Diamond League Final is worth 3 times as much, but that’s only for the winner. So in that final race you can make a cool 30 thousand bucks. If Noah Lyles somehow attended every single event, and went undefeated in either a 100 or 200 meter dash in each. He would rack up $170,000 for all of his efforts. That’s less money than he would make if he were on the practice squad for a team in the NFL!

How much money do you get for winning the Continental Tour? 

The Continental Tour has 10 Gold level events, which is basically as good as it gets on prize money. If you won every single one in your event, that’s just $50,000. If you’re good at math you figured out, that’s just 5,000 bucks for the victory, so you’d be better off competing on the Diamond League! Keep in mind a track athlete can’t be in two place at once, but let’s just pretend that the world’s fastest man could. If he literally ran in every high level track meet available to him, he’d still be at only $220,000. 

How much money do you get for winning the World Championships? 

The World Championship event is the biggest competition of them all, and they pay the winners in each event. Noah Lyles did win all of his events in 2023 and that was worth $160,000 which is a nice pay out for a week of successful work. So if he maxed out every dollar that a champion could ever make in a season right now he’s looking at $380,000. That is barely half of the minimum salary in the NFL and the MLB, and way less than it is the NBA.

If you weren’t Noah Lyles, and finished third in every single race that he attended, on this crazy run everywhere all at once schedule. You would only make $125,000. That includes finishing third in the 100 and the 200 behind Noah Lyles. Only Letsile Tebogo made the podium at the World Championship in both events with Noah Lyles, so every other man who sprints in the world, couldn’t even make that amount.

How much money can a track athlete really make?

The truth is the fastest man in the world is paid way less than anyone in any major pro sports league, unless you count up his endorsements and appearance fees. You might think all that endorsement money makes up for what Noah Lyles isn’t getting on the track. But it really depends on how you look at it. Firstsportz reports his net worth at $2 million dollars. That may not be accurate. But if it is anywhere close to true for the fastest man in the world, what do you think the 10th fastest man in the world is actually worth? The first and fourth place finishers at the USA championships in the 100 meter dash were Cravont Charleston and Brandon Carnes. One competes for a small company named Tracksmith which sells no retail products in stores. The second is entirely unattached, which means he has no endorsements at all, or at least not any that pay him to wear athletic gear.

Track and field is famous all around the world, and it can sell out a stadium of 25 thousand fans to prove it. Noah Lyles, lives in a nation that spends more money on sports than anywhere else in the world, but unfortunately track and field is one of the only exceptions to this rule. NBA players make way more money than any other pro basketball league that exists. As a result international players come to play in it primarily for that reason. So Noah Lyles has a point and we hear him loud and clear. Anybody with access to YouTube knows that he’s worth way more than the minimum contract in pro basketball, even if his bank account does not reflect that.

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