USA Wrestling Faces Severe Challenges

U.S.A. Wrestling recently announced that they will begin paying wrestlers $250,000 for an Olympic gold medal. This payout is intended to keep athletes interested and involved in the sport, and it is a move that just might be able to revive a sport facing a very real challenge.

Winning an Olympic gold medal in wrestling is not all it's cracked up to be. There is fame, but it's limited. There is money, but it is limited. And while there is a certain satisfaction you get from essentially being awarded the title of "Baddest Butt Kicker in the World," not many people could pick the most recent champ, Henry Cejudo, out of a lineup.

While the $250,000 gold medal payout, along with the subsequent $50,000 silver medal payout, and the $25,000 bronze medal payout, are going to help the sport in some degree, there are many issues besides monetary compensation that USA Wrestling must begin to "grapple."

Reason #1: Wrestling is not a sport that has been conducive to retaining a mass audience. Blame it on Vince McMahon if you want to, but the excitement of watching two, relatively smallish, athletes battle on the ground without the exchanging of any blows is boring. All you have to do is look at the ratings to see that. While Michael Phelps was winning gold in swimming, the whole country was watching him. While Cejudo was winning gold in wrestling, maybe one or two people I know even know who the guy is. But maybe that can change. Obviously, wrestling will never become the blood-thirst attraction that some other sports are, but maybe there are some ways to tweak it to make it a faster, smoother game.

Reason #2: MMA is on the rise. While MMA has lost some of its momentum from a year ago, it is still a very popular sport that does really well in terms of cable-buys and television ratings. But popularity aside, MMA is also making a lot of money, and as a result, it's fighters make a hell of a lot more money than any amateur wrestler does. Which is why many of the kinds of athletes that would be interested in wrestling are going for the more lucrative MMA lifestyle. Sure, the $250,000 USA Wrestling is offering to Olympic winners will deter some young wrestlers from making the MMA jump, but let's be real. Only 1 person per weight class, every 4 years, is even capable of winning that quarter-million dollars. On the other hand, fighting in the MMA can provide an athlete with a big sum of money in just 1 fight.

Reason #3: Wrestling is leaving the schools. You talk to an adult who spent their adolescence in the 70's, 80's, maybe even the early 90's, and the majority of them remember having a wrestling program at their school. Then you ask someone like me, a 25-year old who went to a very good high school in the suburbs, and I will tell you that I didn't know anyone my age who wrestled in high school (and I went to school in Texas). Wrestling just isn't getting to the youth, and let's face it, that's who sports needs to reach out to if they want to build their leagues. Wrestling is facing what baseball faced with black athletes, only wrestling is having this issue with all of its athletes. It's a problem, that USA Wrestling will have to tackle soon, because if they really want to fix this dilemma, they need to engage in it at the root of the problem.