Can you make money doing extreme sports?

“Extreme sports? They’re just for Adrenaline junkies, they’re not real sports” I have heard this all to often, and I’m here to tell you that’s not the case!

After many years of doing extreme sports, I have come to learn the various ways of making money, which often differs from traditional sports.

Let’s get to it!

Long story short, yes you can make money with extreme sports. However, the main ways of doing this differ from traditional sports with competitions or getting signed to a club.

How do athletes make their money?

A huge aspect of professional extreme sports athletes is content creation. As the culture behind these sports is largely non-competitive athletes often get recruited by huge brands such as GoPro and Red Bull to create jaw dropping videos.

Due to these sports being relatively new, they are still building up infrastructure with competition. A good example of one sport that has a competitive side is mountain biking where a large part of the sport is about community but still have competitions like Red Bull Rampage (the most death-defying event in mountain biking) where athletes competing are all great friends and helping each other.

Are competitions worth it?

While extreme sports are mostly non-competitive, the individuals that compete take the sport to a very high level. However, they also rely on content and brands to help them as prize money isn’t great. Red Bull Rampage as we talked about before is one of the biggest events of the year with prize money of $100k. This compared to a traditional sport of tennis where a grand slam win pays $3m… there is a clear difference.

Can I make money with it?

Yes! All you need is a camera and you’re set. It may take time to build an audience, but if what your showing is cool or crazy enough then a lot of traction can be achieved quickly.

The question is… would you watch what you’re making?