The Money Talk Is Missing a Name
Lately I’ve been binging track podcasts. Different episodes, different guests, same pattern.
Any time money comes up, the conversation zooms in on the usual suspects: shoe contracts, meet invites, federations, prize money. All real. All relevant. It makes sense that athletes focus on the places they feel money most directly, because those are the places that can change their lives overnight.
What kept standing out to me was who didn’t get as much airtime.
World Athletics.
They rarely sit at the center of the money conversation, even though they set the rules and the calendar that determine what counts, what’s sanctioned, and what “eligible” even means.
In athletics, the money story lives in two places at once: the checks athletes can see, and the structure that decides who gets access to those checks in the first place. This piece focuses on the latter.
World Athletics Is Already in the Money Conversation
If you want proof that World Athletics (WA) is already shaping the money story, you don’t have to start with prize lists. Start with eligibility.
During Sprint Culture’s “Jumping Ship” episode, the conversation turns to athletes switching national representation. At one point, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake asks whether WA should get involved. Warren Weir’s answer is basically: they already are. He points to “a period,” meaning a required waiting window built into the transfer process, where an athlete can’t immediately switch and compete for a new country until the paperwork and eligibility rules are cleared.
That isn’t abstract governance. That’s athlete mobility in real time.
A system that requires sign-off and imposes a waiting period puts WA directly in the middle of an athlete’s career options. Not as a sponsor. Not as a meet promoter. As the authority that decides what’s allowed, when it’s allowed, and how long it takes to become “official.”
Most money conversations naturally start with the people writing checks. This is the layer that sits above that. World Athletics doesn’t need to pay athletes to shape the market they’re earning inside. When it controls eligibility and mobility, it’s already shaping access, leverage, and timing, which means it’s already shaping the money story too.
Checks Follow the Structure
WA isn’t just a “rules of the race” organization. It’s a commercial and regulatory actor with a budget, partners, and enforceable standards across parts of the competition ecosystem it sanctions.
Shoe brands, meet organizers, broadcasters, agents, and federations decide how they spend money inside track. World Athletics sets the rules, calendar, and eligibility framework that shapes the system those checks live inside.
Here are some examples of what World Athletics says and does in its own documents:
In Pioneering Change 2024–2027, WA describes a “normalised annual income” of US$55m and says 80% of expenditure is athlete focused. That’s WA positioning itself as an economic actor in the sport, not a bystander.
In that same plan, WA lists a commitment to review advertising restrictions to remove barriers and “enable additional earnings opportunities for athletes,” which is a quiet admission that the rule environment can block or unlock athlete money.
In the Council’s published decisions from its 237th meeting (March 2025), WA approved updates to Diamond League and tour regulations that touch athlete costs directly, including improved accommodation standards, a time limit for reimbursing athlete travel expenses, and targeted prize money increases in designated disciplines. Those details aren’t cosmetic. They change cash flow and risk. A reimbursement deadline decides whether an athlete is fronting thousands for weeks. Accommodation standards decide whether athletes can rely on meet-provided housing or have to pay to upgrade just to sleep and recover properly.
Put together, the point is simple:
World Athletics doesn’t have to sign an athlete’s check to shape an athlete’s money. It builds the structure that decides who gets access to opportunity, what “counts,” and what the cost of participation looks like once you’re in.
Why Athletes Keep It Cute
One of the quiet realities in track is that athletes often speak about money like they’re handling something delicate. They choose their words. They avoid certain topics. They keep it polite....not me though.
For most athletes outside the very top tier, the season usually hangs on one main thing: one contract, one federation setup, or one small circle of meet opportunities. When that one thing is shaky, everything is shaky.
Someone training at a world-class level shouldn’t be forced to choose between performance and a second job. Yet plenty are. That fragility doesn’t come out of nowhere. It comes from how the system is built.
Why World Athletics Has to Be in the Frame
WA isn’t the party cutting appearance checks, and it isn’t the brand negotiating bonuses. Its role is different. It’s the governing layer that sets the rules, approves the calendar, and decides what’s officially sanctioned. That’s the framework everyone else is working inside.
“Jumping Ship” surfaced that without even trying. The moment the conversation touched transfers, World Athletics showed up immediately through the waiting period and sign-off process. That’s the sport’s structure showing itself.
When World Athletics sets standards around things like accommodations and reimbursements in certain tours, the obvious follow-up question is what else it could standardize to reduce volatility for the athletes who aren’t at the very top.
Those aren’t “who should pay more” questions. They’re “how is the system designed” questions. If World Athletics isn’t in the conversation, those questions never get asked.
The Takeaway
People aren’t wrong to talk about checks. Checks are the part you can see.
There’s just another layer sitting behind them: the structure that decides who gets access, when, and under what conditions.
That’s why the “period” in the transfer conversation matters. It’s a small example of something bigger: World Athletics shapes opportunity through process, approval, and timing, even when no one’s talking about it as “money.”
I go deeper on that idea in a supporting piece on Sebastian Coe's Enhanced Games ban comments and what they reveal about governance power and economic impact.