HIGH SCHOOLS to the north of Baltimore have produced a Golden Triangle of athletes in the past 17 months - Juan Dixon of Calvert Hall, Carmelo Anthony of Towson Catholic and Michael Phelps of Towson.
All three have found gold, but they measure it in different ways. Dixon made a guaranteed $1 million in his rookie season playing basketball with the Washington Wizards in the National Basketball Association; Anthony will earn $2.7 million in his rookie year with the NBA's Denver Nuggets; Phelps just took away three gold medals from the world swimming championships in Barcelona, Spain.
That's not to say that Phelps has made no money for his efforts. Long gone are the amateur rules that kept Olympic athletes from getting paid. The 18-year-old received $25,000 in prize money for each of his three victories in Barcelona. And he has a contract with swimsuit maker Speedo that could be worth $1 million over three years.
The value of the performance-based contract will depend on what Phelps does at next year's Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. To make it to seven figures, Phelps will have to come close to the performance of swimmer Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics and win seven gold medals.
But if he does that, Phelps will be able to earn much more than the relative chump change usually available to a big-time American swimmer. The winner of today's PGA golf championship will earn $1.1 million for four days of work. Golf clubs and basketball sneakers represent a substantial portion of the $49 billion spent annually on sporting goods. Speedo trunks don't, but Phelps has singular accomplishments and a gargantuan goal that should keep him in the public eye.
"People don't bike through the Pyrenees, yet Lance Armstrong has become an American corporate hero, making anywhere from $3 million to $6 million a year in a sport that occurs once a year in a foreign country," said Rick Horrow, a visiting expert on sports law at the Harvard Law School. "Corporations recognize that athletes do move products. In an era of Kobe Bryant and Ray Lewis, corporate America yearns for a fresh, clean face from an uncluttered sport."
"There should be less marketing opportunity for athletes who aren't in the big four or five sports, but on the other hand, there are unprecedented opportunities for athletes who transcend a sport, to break out of the pack and emerge as an ideal corporate spokesperson," Horrow said.
