By winning a silver medal in the men’s 200 meter butterfly event at the 2012 Summer Olympics on July 31, swimmer Michael Phelps earned another place in the history books, becoming the winningest Olympian ever with 19 medals.
That comes on the heels of his 2008 Beijing Games record eight gold medals, surpassing the record set by Mark Spitz in 1972.
Both achievements will give Phelps a long career on the speakers circuit, which he has already hit pretty hard between the two games, says John Truran, Senior Vice President of Keppler Speakers. Phelps is absolutely the hottest athlete around at the moment. But for right now, you’re probably more interested in hiring Spitz to speak at your corporate event than Phelps.
“You look at some of the recent Olympics and there have been very few standouts who hit the speaking circuit hard,” Truran says. “Michael Phelps, obviously, but his fee [listed as $75,000 to $100,000] is outside the budgets of 98 percent of the planners or the events he’d be appropriate for.”
Besides, Phelps has been compared to Spitz so often over the years that the two are fairly well linked in the public’s mind: USA Today ran an article on July 27 titled, “If anyone understands Michael Phelps, it’s Mark Spitz.”
And the companies that book Olympians after the Olympics “tend to be the smaller companies, the INC 500 companies,” says Evan Morgenstein, president and CEO of PMG Sports, the Olympic athlete management firm that represents Spitz. “Those companies have long-term strategies and plans, and book far in advance.” They want a proven commodity to excite audiences still worked up by Olympic memories.
Spitz has had 40 years to hone his speaking skills and his message. A corporate speaker who’s been to the Olympics “has got to be somebody with a great story, who can bring that feeling to a meeting or event,” says Truran.
“I think the highest decorated female Olympian, at least in the winter games, is Bonnie Blair, who won more than 10 medals. But she never had a real compelling story. There wasn’t that, grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, or had a debilitating injury and was told they couldn’t walk again and wound up becoming an Olympic skater – that drama always helps.”
So does availability. Phelps will be focused on lucrative product endorsements and sponsor companies for months after the London Games are over.
While Spitz’s audiences are mainly interested in his in-pool achievements, his Olympic story is replete with drama beyond the medals. A few hours after winning his last event at the 1972 Munich Games, Palestinian terrorists kidnaped a group of Israeli athletes. Spitz, who is Jewish, was immediately taken out of Germany under heavy guard, and missed the closing ceremonies.