So you’ve been training for a few years and you’ve built yourself into an incredible athlete with a lot of potential, but now you’re wondering where to focus your attention.
You’ve got a solid base of raw and technical strength so you have the option to be an olympic weightlifter, but you also excel at gymnastics and have a good engine so Crossfit is also a possibility.
You could try to succeed at both but in order to truly reach the pinnacle of the sport you know you must choose one.
So which is better?
Below we will point out the opportunities for fame and fortune for both the sports of olympic weightlifting and Crossfit.
FAME
When we think of fame we think of TV & media appearances, face and name recognition, social followings, strength of brand, etc. and when it comes to these things Crossfit has a large edge over weightlifting.
Media
Starting with media appearances Crossfit athletes have had their fair share of publicity such as:
Multiple documentaries on Netflix (Fittest on Earth, A Decade of Fitness, Every Second Counts). Netflix is the largest streaming service in the world right now and these 3+ documentaries provide massive exposure to the best Crossfit athletes featured in these films.
Some of the top Crossfit athletes have also been featured on USA Today, CNN, ESPN, etc. For the full list you can check it out below.
FULL LIST: Top Crossfit Athletes in Big Media
In comparison there are practically no films on olympic weightlifting on Netflix or related streaming services.
Olympic weightlifters admittedly do have massive audience potential when it comes to competing at the Olympics but that opportunity comes only once every 4 years and it is not one of the more popular sports to watch.
Crossfit HQ has stopped allowing the Crossfit Games to be shown on national television, but with the 2020 season comes 28 different Sanctioned events that can be streamed and watched online.
Social Followings
When it comes to social followings Crossfit dominates once again, and it’s not even close.
There are currently 10 professional Crossfit athletes that boast over 1.1 million followers on Instagram with many others not far behind.
They also have massive fan bases on Facebook:
- Mat Fraser – 247k fans
- Sara Sigmundsdottir – 260k fans
- Rich Froning – 321k fans
FULL LIST: Which Brand Sponsors The Best Crossfit Athletes?
In comparison 4 of the best olympic weightlifters in the world only combine for 837k followers on Instagram.
- Mattie Rogers – 630k
- Rebeka Koha – 88.1k
- Katherine Nye – 96.5k
- Lasha Talakhadze – 22.3k
Lasha Talakhadze is the 2016 Olympic champion, the world champion for 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019, the European champion for 2016-2018 and holds the heaviest weightlifting total of all time.
There is no one at a higher level than Lasha and even with all of those accomplishments he has only 22.3k instagram followers and 5.9k facebook fans.
One last thing we want to throw in is the Google search volume for both terms, Crossfit and Weightlifting.
That chart shows the massive difference in search volume between Crossfit and weightlifting throughout the past 12 months.
FORTUNE
When it comes to prize money Crossfit once again has an advantage.
For example, at the Olympics the USA rewards athletes with:
- $37,500 for gold
- $22,500 for silver
- $15,000 for bronze
- Same prize money split evenly among teams
While the Crossfit Games awards athletes with:
- $300,000 for 1st
- $115,000 for 2nd
- $75,000 for 3rd
- $50,000 for 4th
- $35,000 for 5th
- $30,000 for 6th
- $27,000 for 7th
- $25,000 for 8th
- $23,000 for 9th
- $21,000 for 10th
- ($3,000 for each event win, $2,000 for event 2nd, $1,000 for event 3rd)
The 5th place finisher at the Crossfit Games will make almost as much as the gold medal winner at the Olympics and will actually make more if they win just 1 event.
The 13th place finisher at the Crossfit Games will win just as much as the bronze medalist at the Olympics, $15,000.
And it doesn’t stop there, that’s just one competition for one year. As we said earlier the 2020 Crossfit season has 28 sanctioned events around the world, not including the Crossfit Games.
And some of these sanctioned events have large prize pools of their own:
Dubai Crossfit Championship
- First place: $50,000 USD
- Second place: $30,000 USD
- Third place: $20,000 USD
- PRIZE PURSE PER WORKOUT BREAKDOWN (M&W)
- First: $3,000 USD
- Second: $2,000 USD
- Third: $1,000 USD
- ONLINE QUALIFIER CASH BREAKDOWN (M&W)
- First: $9,000 USD
- Second: $6,000 USD
- Third: $3,000 USD
Rogue Invitational
- First: $50,000 USD
- Second: $40,000 USD
- Third: $30,000 USD
- Event win: $5,000 USD
Brand Sponsorship
The most popular olympic weightlifter right now is Mattie Rogers, and thus she is also the most desired by brands, with sponsorships from Rogue Fitness, RP Strength, Romwod, and 2pood among others.
Besides her however there are not many other athletes that receive profitable sponsorships.
Meanwhile there are many Crossfit athletes, both professional and amateur making a great deal of money from brands and a lot of this has to do with their social followings.
The more followers you have the more money you can charge, and with over 1.1 million followers you can charge quite a bit.
For example lets look at Katrin Davidsdottir (2X Crossfit Games champ):
- 1.7m instagram followers
- 94.6k average likes per post
- 5.81% engagement rate
- $16,000 estimated sponsored post value
Overall if you are looking to become a career athlete in the strength and conditioning world of sports Crossfit likely holds many more of the opportunities that could come your way.
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