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I doubt 40k would cover much more than rent in a place like San Francisco.
Average rent per person according to whatever fucking study (not me so I don't care about your anecdotal experiences) in San Francisco in early 2017 is $3089. 40k would cover nothing.
This makes the assumption that these guys are trying to live alone or that incomes in America allow normal people to live in single earner families. In Oakland the median household income is 52K per year. So if you had two pros sharing an apartment in Oakland they would be making roughly
double the median household income for the area. Two guys getting paid double the median household income for playing with skateboards sounds pretty good. Moreover, the base income doesn't include the free trips around the world, free clothing, etc. Compared to most of the population (who make less than they do) they are doing fairly well, especially considering that they aren't working some shit ass retail job or some hard ass construction job.
The only way someone could convince me that the pros were being underpaid is if the company owners/executives were making tons of money, while paying the pros shit. When the Chief remodels his house on the beach while paying some of his pros $300 a month that is some serious bullshit. However, if the Chief was paying his riders $50 a month while only taking home x% more for himself that would be totally fine. If skateboarding can't pay the company's bills, why should it pay the skaters' bills?
Professional skaters do not have a lot of longetivity, for the most part. And I would imagine that the time spent pursuing a career in skating might distance one even further from the culture of education and the idea of a "normal job". So the "economic value" of being a professional skater should be estimated not only from the perspective of how much money you make while being a pro, but also from the viewpoint of what other possible opportunities you block out when being a professional skater. Time also has a value and the time you spend being a pro can work against you (might be harder to move into other careers/education when you are a 40-year old ex professional with little experience outside of skating). It might be really fun being a pro while it lasts, though.
1) The idea of someone "pursuing a career in skating" sounds a little to close to the way Jagger/Nyjah view skateboarding. Also, there are some pros putting in less "work" than the average local skater. 2) Going to university might not be cool in skateboarding, but considering a full-time student goes to class 12-15 hours a week 9 months out of the year, yea, it doesn't seem that a degree would be out of the question for a pro who has super flexible schedule. Not to mention, real universities offer online degrees, so the pro wouldn't even need to be anywhere near a university. 3) How many pros just fall into being sales reps after their "career" is over?
Some ams/pros are certainly getting ripped off (probably the guys who skate in Street League in terms of what % of income/profit go to the skaters opposed to Dyrdek and his corporate investor partners; NBA
players get 51% of basketball related income), but to say someone making 50K a year for skateboarding isn't getting paid enough compared to the rest of America is a bit much. The median household income is below 60K, if one individual is making the median household income for jumping around on a skateboarding, that is pretty damn good compared to the rest of the people who actually work for a living.
Topic: Skaters That Make Serious Money (Read 10886 times)