The bottom line is this: according to the tax return, USAT’s expenses exceeded their revenue by just over $2 million, approximately $250,000 more than the gap in 2022. The tax return, however, does not paint the entire picture, as it does not include certain donor restricted contributions and/or non-cash or unrealized assets. Review the financial statement that pairs with the Form 990, and it’s a slightly better picture — a combined (unrestricted and restricted) positive gain of almost $477,000. That’s a huge improvement over 2022, which showed a loss of nearly $3 million.

Let’s pull back a couple of layers on the revenue generation and expense side.

Revenue: Memberships, Sponsorship, Events and Grants

As expected, USA Triathlon memberships make up the largest percentage of revenue for the organization. 2023 membership revenue was $7.3 million. That figure is $173,000 less than reported membership income from 2022. 2023 was the launch of USAT’s Youth and Junior Premier Membership, which saw a one-time $25 fee valid from the date of purchase until the athlete’s 18th birthday. It was also the final year of the prior membership rate structure for adults, as USAT now offers tiered memberships. USAT states their membership base as “over 300,000 unique active members.”

Contributions to USA Triathlon totaled just under $3.4 million in 2023; this is a sizable increase of almost $1.4 million from 2022. The bulk of these contributions fall in the “donor restricted” bucket. These contributions are separate to those from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Contributions from USOPC were down in 2023 by roughly $70,000, totaling $1.4 million.

Sponsorship is also a critical component of USAT’s financial picture. Those sponsorships, which currently list 34 different partners in varying levels, brought in just under $3.3 million. That, again, was a smaller slice than it was in 2022; sponsorships that year raked in just over $4 million.

Then there’s events. USA Triathlon events in 2023 included Multisport Nationals, Age Group Nationals, Youth/Junior Nationals, and the Legacy Triathlon. There was also the sizable industry conference Endurance Exchange, held in January of that year in Austin, TX. Combined, events, camps, and clinics brought a total of $2.56 million. That’s up by about a quarter of a million over the previous year.

All told, these major programming sources of revenue were down compared to 2022. What made up the difference? Investment income. USAT made money on investments in 2023 — just over $1.2 million after expenses. That’s a nearly $3 million turnaround against the sizable loss suffered in 2022.

The grand total of revenue, depending on whether you’re looking at the 990 or the financial statement, comes out to $17.4 million (990) or $20.8 million (financial statement).

Program Service versus Support Service Expenses

There are two buckets that expenses for USA Triathlon are divided into. The first are program expenses. These are the types of expenses that are in service of USAT’s mission statement: “…to grow, inspire and support the triathlon community.” And then there are the so-called “support” services; they are the staffing and other operational expenses that come from, well, having an organization in the first place.

Top-level: USAT’s expenses topped $20 million in 2023. Of them, roughly 64.3% were related to program services (just over $13 million). The remaining $7.26 million is attributable to support services: General & Administrative, Business Development / Strategy, Marketing & Communications, and USAT Foundation General & Administrative. These expenses were slightly down versus what the organization spent in 2022.

Looking at program services, there are two areas that drive the bulk of spending. The most spending occurs in the “high performance” bucket, representing a total of $4.2 million. According to the Form 990, spending in this area represents support for “Olympic and Paralympic athletes, as well as approximately 450 elite athletes across the country, from youth and junior to Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, to continue to pursue their athletic goals.” The financial statement breaks this down further, including: $1.8 million for travel; $877,000 for salaries; $499,000 for professional fees; and $492,000 in a bucket of “other event/athlete.”

The other main bucket of spend is to “constituent services.” What are constituent services? According to USAT, “this division and program is unique to providing infrastructure, support and resources to our entire Multisport ecosystem…” and includes support for membership, race directors, coaches, clubs, and officials. The spend here was just over $4 million. $2.6 million of that was spent on insurance, with another $632,000 on salaries/wages.

There are two other areas of spend under program services. The first of these is events; after all, producing races is not a free endeavor. USAT spent almost $3.3 million in producing events in 2023. As you might recall from the section above, USAT brought in $2.56 million in revenue from those events — so, on paper, a net negative. That said, that’s where things like sponsorship, or in-kind donations, help make these events a net positive. And the last area of spend is in “sport development.” Sport development includes the youth, junior, high school, and collegiate club / NCAA efforts, as well as the DEIB program “Together We Thrive.” Spend here was just under $1.2 million — the two largest line items were salaries and wages ($383K), followed by entry fees of nearly $363,500.

From the support services perspective, the largest single expense are salaries and wages of key staff across the four functions mentioned earlier. Salaries for support function staff total $2.86 million. In total, USAT spends over $5 million on its staff, or roughly a 7.7% increase from 2022, although half of this increase can be attributed to inflationary pressures. The salaries of the top-eight highest paid officials represent over $1.5 million of that budget allotment. Those individuals and salaries (base, bonus/incentive compensation, and “other reportable” compensation) are:

1. Victoria Brumfield, Chief Executive Officer: $346,255
2. Tim Yount, Chief of Sport Development: $213,904
3. Camellia Noriega, Associate General Counsel: $191,406
4. Sheri Trahern, Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer: $170,824
5. Scott Schnitzspahn, High Performance General Manager: $165,134
6. Krista Prescott, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer: $161,208
7. Gabe Cagwin, Chief Advancement Officer: $151,830
8. Brian D’Amico, Director of Events: $115,202

Most other expenses, across the board, were held relatively flat to slightly down against this backdrop. The only other sizable increased expense in 2023 was travel, most of which was attributed to the high performance program. Support services accounted for only $260,000 of the total travel expense, which wound up at just north of $2.9 million — or an increase of nearly $500,000 over 2022.

What Does the Future Hold?

According to the financial statement, USAT has just under $13 million in financial assets that could be used to meet cash obligations within a year, with a total asset availability a shade under $16 million. It means that, barring a total collapse of either the membership or sponsorship revenue generation, USAT is in a decent position to operate. It is perhaps somewhat unsurprising to report that Brumfield has an employment agreement that runs “through 2028” and the home Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

Still, the question of the value USAT provides its members is looming. How sustainable is it for insurance to make up 60% of the spend on constituent services? Or, put another way, for every membership dollar expended, roughly 35 cents of it is spent on insurance. For how long can that cycle continue to last? We’ll look forward to seeing the numbers for 2024, which will provide the data for the high-performance spend from the first “normal” Olympic year since the Games in Rio in 2016.

Images: World Triathlon

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