International Swimming League athletes will make $1500 a month for a ten-month period, with all athletes earning the same base salary.
ISL officials confirmed that pay structure in a press conference today. That ultimately sets athlete salaries at $15,000 per swimmer for the 2020 season. Athletes will earn $1500 a month starting in September of 2020 and ending in June of 2021.
Last year, each team had a $150,000 salary cap, sources tell SwimSwam, but athletes could earn up to $25,000. That suggests that while the top athletes could be seeing base salaries drop this year, the vast majority of ISL athletes should see major pay increases.
The base salaries also don’t include pay to ISL ambassadors, which went above base salary pay for ambassadors last year.
The base salaries also don’t include prize money, which is where the top-level athletes really earn their livings. Last year, Sarah Sjostrom led all swimmers with $139,700 in prize money alone across the series. She was by far the biggest earner, with Caeleb Dressel sitting second at $98,700.
Five athletes earned more than $50,000 in prize money. 26 athletes earned more than $25,000. And based on last year’s prize money system, 60 athletes earned more in prize money than this year’s base salary total of $15,000.
You can see the full 2019 prize money list here.
The prize money is heavily weighted to the most successful teams. The top 14 earners all came from teams that competed in the league finale in Las Vegas. The top earner on a team that didn’t qualify for the finale was Vladimir Morozov at $34,400.
This a socialist type beat – pay should be rewarded on skill/performance not participation
I think this year presented a unique set of challenges that made this the most workable solution. Originally, there was an open market and competitive bidding for contracts. But, once Covid hit, there was the possibility of, say, your highest-paid athlete backing out, then what’s left on the market isn’t worth the same amount, so you’re not ending up with a “pay for performance” system anyway.
This is also only a piece of the puzzle. There will still be prize money – both team and individual – so the higher-performing athletes will still get paid significantly more. The gap has closed a little based on preliminary prize numbers we’ve seen (ISL has not published the finals), but prize money for… Read more »
A step in the right direction!
Getting closer to Bruce Harper’s 330 million!
Do the teams pay for all the travel to & from meets?
We don’t know for sure if it’s teams or leagues (at this point, it seems like that’s all one pool of money), but yes, travel is paid for.
does the isl pay for food and lodging while in Budapest? Do the athletes have to pay their own travel expense and will they have to pay to get to the season end meet wherever that is
The ISL covers all expenses for participating. I’m not sure if, say, an athlete needs to leave early or come and go if there would be a different arrangement, but aside from any especially unique cases, generally the league covers costs to travel and compete.
Worth acknowledging that travel costs were covered for many top athletes for the FINA World Cup Series and the FINA Champions Series too.
This is progress
All the isl news got me excited for the future of the sport.