The Toronto 150 was conceived as a creative means to pump life
into the sport. The Goodwill Games, for their part, have
attempted to use prize money (not principally appearance fees) to
stage a world-class meet. A small group of athletes—including
Johnson, O'Brien, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Marion Jones—were paid
promotional fees to work for the meet and compete in it. Almost
everybody else is running for prize money: from $40,000 for first
place in five marquee events (not accidentally, Johnson's,
O'Brien's, Joyner-Kersee's and Jones's, plus the men's 100) to
$6,000 in low-profile events.
Incomes of track and field athletes are generally a mysterious
mix of shoe-contract money and appearance fees, which for top
performers can total far more than $1 million a year. Yet in a
marketplace in which celebrity is often measured by salary, these
invisible riches have no promotional value. Many people know that
Johnson is fast; few appreciate how wealthy his speed has made
him. "Visible prize money is the only way to save the sport,"
says agent Brad Hunt, who represents Johnson, among others. "But
every time the European agents get together, their top priority
is to avoid meets with prize money."
Largely because of the Goodwill Games' reliance on prize money,
the meet lacked three of the sport's hottest names. Sprinter
Frankie Fredericks of Namibia didn't come because, he said, "they
made me an insulting offer." Said David Raith, the Goodwill Games
sports vice president who put the field together: "His offer was
at least as good as the one we made Greene and Boldon."
Translation: Fredericks wanted a big, Johnson-scale appearance
fee. Also missing were miler Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, who
negotiated with Raith until three days before the games, then
elected to stay in Europe (and avoid the windy Mitchel Athletic
Complex track in Uniondale, N.Y.), and distance runner Haile
Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, who never considered veering from his
European schedule.
But runners Noureddine Morceli of Algeria, Daniel Komen of Kenya
and Merlene Ottey of Jamaica (among others) came to New York for
nominal or no appearance money, airfare, lodging, meals and a
chance to win cash. Considering that only 10,000 spectators
rattled around the 80,000-seat Rome Olympic Stadium to watch El
Guerrouj set the 1,500-meter world record on July 14 in an
old-fashioned, prize-money-free meet, the Goodwill Games'
experiment seems to have been worth conducting.
Issue date: July 27, 1998
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