Runnerville

Toni brings up a great debate about appearance money versus prize money in his most recent feature article. He cites the recent decision by 9 of the world’s top 25 golfers to play in Qatar for guaranteed (i.e., appearance) money over the prize-money-only Buick Invitational. I want to take a slight tangent from that argument to talk about something perhaps even more troubling as it relates to prize money: the Tiger Woods effect.

A recent Slate.com article investigates the motivating effects of financial incentives as they pertain to golf. The article cites a study by Jennifer Brown that investigates whether golfers actually play worse when Tiger Woods is in the tournament. The first paragraph starts:

In one of the most memorable scenes in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross—a classic among salespeople on commission—the sales manager played by Alec Baldwin announces a new motivational plan: “As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. … Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.” Reward structures like this exist in reality as well as fiction. Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch famously used a “20-70-10″ system, promoting the top 20 percent of GE employees, keeping the middle 70, and firing the bottom 10 percent.

Running has a similar winner-take-all incentive structure. The most extreme case is the World Marathon Majors. The winner takes home $500,000. Second place? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Not even a set of steak knives.

Of course, most races employ a tiered structure for prize money. The Boston Marathon pays $100,000 to its winner, $40,000 for 2nd place, and $22,500 for 3rd place. But if you finish 15th, you’ll be lucky to cover your costs. In fact, after taxes that $1,500 prize would hardly cover travel, lodging, and food in Beantown (unless you arrived on the T, slept on the Common, and ate every meal at Ana’s Taqueria). So can we stretch the Tiger Woods Effect argument to running? I’m not sure, but I’ll try.

One thing is certainly clear: we lose too many athletes too early in their careers over financial hardship. If you’re a 28:30 male 10,000-meter runner or 2:45 female marathoner, you’re barely staying above the poverty line. In fact, at last year’s Boston Marathon, the 15th place female finisher ran 2:43:25. So 2:43:26 would have netted you zero dollars for six months of solid effort and hard work. Where’s the incentive to continue?

Is it possible that our “developmental” athletes are underperforming because the incentives are too low? Would more athletes stay in the sport if prize money ran deeper? For example, if you were in 19th place in the Boston Marathon with one mile to go, and there was an athlete 100 meters in front of you, would you try harder to catch that athlete if $10,000 was on the line, instead of zero? Some athletes would insist, “No, I give 100% effort every time I toe the line.” I can live with that argument, but here’s my counter: giving 100% effort in running is not limited to the physical expenditure given between the start and finish lines. Giving 100% effort in running means doing everything you can on and off the course - nutrition, sleep, mental preparation, etc.

So let’s look at the argument one more time: would that 19th place runner have done just a little bit more in practice - taken the extra 15 minutes to ice or paid $50 for one more massage - to ensure that she could get 18th place and $10,000 richer? I think so.

The very top echelon of American runners are well paid. Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb, and Matt Tegenkamp are not living on food stamps. But because there’s so little money to go around, are the performances of those athletes discouraging the efforts of others? As the article states:

…the effects of incentives appear to be muted when the incentives are based on relative performance and the competition is tough. We’re taught that quitters never win, but if the evidence from golf is any indication, it might be more accurate, if less pithy, to say that expected losers are more likely to quit, or at least not perform as well.

In recent years it seems the financial structure of the sport has created a very small upper class, almost no middle class, and a growing lower class. Perhaps this is a necessary evil needed for growth - the top athletes get taken care of first. Then, as those salaries level off, more athletes will enter the middle class. As the middle class expands, more and more athletes will rise out of poverty.

I don’t know, perhaps I’m stretching this a little too far. What do you think?

“The Tiger Woods Effect: When he’s in the field, everyone else plays worse. How Tiger Woods throws off golf’s incentive structure” by Joel Waldfogel

• The Toni & Matt Show #17 - Vin Lananna - July 9th, 2008
• LetsRun.com Eugene '08 - June 30th, 2008
• The Toni & Matt Show #16 - June 17th, 2008
• USOC to USATF: Change Now! - June 14th, 2008
• The Toni & Matt Show #15 - June 11th, 2008