I pulled some of the brass tack from an older article that piqued my interest back in the day... Some guys are making money. I bet they made a lot of money with the surge in promotional dollars the last few years. My money is actually still on Dumont. (Target wrote him some big checks.)
IT'S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET RICH SKIING. BUT FOR THOSE WHO CAN, IS IT EVEN WORTH IT?
"There's a little club that's making really good money," explains Douglas, "and a really big club that's not." By really good money, Douglas means an annual salary north of $200,000 paid from contracts combined from ski companies, eyewear, clothing, and for the lucky few an energy drink or some other non-endemic sponsor like Target or Nike.
While no one was willing to talk specifics for this article, educated generalizations can be made: Top-tier competition skiers with a stranglehold on the X Games podium and a good agent--or multitaskers like Douglas--can command upwards of $200,000 a year. Established veterans with several years of competition results followed by several years of good coverage in magazines and movies are more likely in the $80,000 to $100,000 range. Everyone else, the aforementioned "big club," is making anywhere from $50,000 down to absolutely nothing.
There are a few ways you can climb to the top tier. The obvious method is to recalibrate the height-o-meter of the X Games superpipe, like Simon Dumont. Last winter, he claimed nearly $150,000 in contest winnings alone. That's on top of his retainers with Salomon, Oakley, Red Bull, and Target. Or you could parlay your status as the symbol of Swedish freeskiing into a gig as the face of an international fashion brand, as Jon Olsson did with Stockholm's J. Lindeberg. Olsson now owns a Lamborghini and lives in Monaco for tax purposes. "I'm number two," Dumont admits when asked who he thinks is the best paid freeskier in the world. "Jon's number one."
