WELL, it was good to hear that the Athletics Association of Barbados supports their professional athletes.
Someone here must see the need to, after all.
You can put this latest rant (and most of my other columns) under the file “Bajans don’t understand pro sports” because so many of us read the word professional and immediately feel an athlete needs to fend for himself.
But the world of sports just doesn’t work that way.
Whether we want to accept it or not, hardly any international sportsmen in individual disciplines survive without assistance in some form or fashion, yet we expect our athletes to come from a Third World country and do otherwise.
Just ask boxing promoter Sam “The Man” Layne, who feels our public wrath any time he dares to ask for corporate sponsorship to put on cards and assist professional fighters.
Only last June the issue reared its ugly head again when people couldn’t understand why pro physique competitors Maurice Stallone Arthur and Antoinette Downie were asking for financial assistance.
But what they truly can’t comprehend is that their foreign counterparts are initially supported by huge money-making federations at the start of the careers.
And in some cases a lot still are.
Let’s use the example of Frances Tiafoe in a sport like tennis.
Now the United States Tennis Association would’ve poured a lot of money into him as a junior because of his promise, and the USTA still pays for his coach and trainer even though the world No.101 turned pro two years ago.
Furthermore, Tiafoe is under sport’s and entertainment’s greatest management agency CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in spite of that funding.
And it’s a lot easier for him to travel to major tournaments considering he’s based in the United States and they stage a Grand Slam, two ATP Masters events, an ATP 500 tournament, four ATP 250 events and countless other Challenger tournaments.
On the other hand, Bajan ace Darian King can’t rely on such financial aid simply because the Barbados Tennis Association is a non-profit organisation run solely by amateurs.
So Darian needs every cent he gets from sponsors and partners Lotto, Flow, JetBlue and the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. to deal with huge travel expenses and bills we really can’t begin to imagine.
Don’t think for a second he isn’t looking for more sponsors either.
That’s what all major sportsmen do anyway.
As Darian’s older brother Chris once told me, endorsement is just a fancy word for sponsorship when you look at it, as that is basically what corporate companies provide elite athletes like LeBron James, Usain Bolt and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Sure, Roger Federer’s “sponsors” Nike, Rolex and Mercedes-Benz make back way more money off the Swiss Masters than they give him but it’s still sponsorship all the same.
I mean LeBron has a guaranteed contract from being in a team sport but his US$1 billion Nike contract alone easily surpasses his career salary earnings of nearly US$200 000 000.
Usain Bolt (US$33 million a year) makes ten times more than any other track star not because of winnings and appearance fees, but because Gatorade, Virgin Media, Hublot, Puma and Digicel just so happen to “sponsor” him.
Again you can argue that those companies can afford to do such because they get back billions in those massive sporting cultures and international markets they appeal to.
But many of these local businesses make money off of our athletes too.
And don’t even pay them.
Take a look in the media every time an athlete wins a major competition or medal and you’ll see how many advertorials Bajan companies take out to “congratulate” the victorious sportsman.
Several of them don’t actually sponsor the athlete but they’ll be getting undeserving mileage and potential business by trying to attach their brand to that sportsman’s fame and accomplishment.
So why shouldn’t a Bajan athlete try to recoup those profits?
I mean, that’s why there is something called image rights to protect people from such exploitation.
Of course we wouldn’t understand that, but that’s just how the world of sports works – whether we want to accept it or not.