Don't Miss the AOL Speedskating Commercial!
A week before the Olympic Trials, Becky Lang, Jamie Grundstrom and I flew out to L.A. to shoot a speedskating commercial for AOL. We were joined by Southern California short track skaters Jade Wheeler and Alice Kim. Last night, the commercial was seen on TV by one of my friends.
Getting a role in a speedskating commercial is probably the luckiest break any skater can imagine. For a day's work, you can easily make $15,000 or more, once all of the residuals come in, if you have a principal role.
You never know when an opportunity like this will present itself. Not long after I returned from the Fall World Cup trip, I was skating my warmup on a morning training session at the Utah Olympic Oval when I saw a lady posting a sign to the inside of one of the crash pads in the corner. The sign said, "Make $15,000 for skating!" I couldn't pass that up, so I turned around and skated over to find out what was going on.
As it turned out, the crew from "Bad Girls Casting" was choosing speedskater girls for this commercial. They made videos of a few of us and called us back later that evening. Jamie, Becky and I were chosen and agreed to go do the commercial. We were all glad we did, even though it involved a 14-hour day on the ice at Valencia Ice Station.
The story line behind the commercial is basically that AOL high speed internet can "bring a recreational skater up to the speed of a pack of competitive speedskaters." So, what happens is that this lady dressed in jeans and a sweater, wearing hockey skates, squeezes in between us on the starting line and enters the race! We got to see bits and pieces of the footage, and it's really funny.
When you do something like this, you never know exactly when you're going to get paid for it. The checks come in at unexpected times, after the commercial runs on TV. Last night, the commercial ran during C.S.I. Miami.
So, it appears that I will have something to show for my speedskating career after all. I may even be one of those rare athletes who "breaks even" on their sports career! (Maybe not..it would take a lot of money to get to that point..) Still, it makes me feel secure having some money coming in while I'm applying for new jobs.
While I was competing on the Fall World Cup circuit a few months ago, an athlete representative to the US Speedskating board shared something that one of the administrators said about athlete funding. This administrator (who will remain unnamed) had said, "The reason why the skaters aren't given more access to direct funding from the sponsors is because they'd just go spend it all on video games and stereo systems."
Well, now that I've done the AOL commercial, I'd probably be able to go out and buy myself a Play Station. Normally, that sort of thing doesn't interest me, and when I was competing I was actually much more concerned with buying food and paying rent. But now that I'm done competing, I may just go get myself some video games. I'm really good at that one where you shoot the terrorists at the airport. And every time I splatter someone's brains out on my TV screen, I'll think of the guy who made a career for himself out of stepping on the backs of amateur athletes.
A week before the Olympic Trials, Becky Lang, Jamie Grundstrom and I flew out to L.A. to shoot a speedskating commercial for AOL. We were joined by Southern California short track skaters Jade Wheeler and Alice Kim. Last night, the commercial was seen on TV by one of my friends.
Getting a role in a speedskating commercial is probably the luckiest break any skater can imagine. For a day's work, you can easily make $15,000 or more, once all of the residuals come in, if you have a principal role.
You never know when an opportunity like this will present itself. Not long after I returned from the Fall World Cup trip, I was skating my warmup on a morning training session at the Utah Olympic Oval when I saw a lady posting a sign to the inside of one of the crash pads in the corner. The sign said, "Make $15,000 for skating!" I couldn't pass that up, so I turned around and skated over to find out what was going on.
As it turned out, the crew from "Bad Girls Casting" was choosing speedskater girls for this commercial. They made videos of a few of us and called us back later that evening. Jamie, Becky and I were chosen and agreed to go do the commercial. We were all glad we did, even though it involved a 14-hour day on the ice at Valencia Ice Station.
The story line behind the commercial is basically that AOL high speed internet can "bring a recreational skater up to the speed of a pack of competitive speedskaters." So, what happens is that this lady dressed in jeans and a sweater, wearing hockey skates, squeezes in between us on the starting line and enters the race! We got to see bits and pieces of the footage, and it's really funny.
When you do something like this, you never know exactly when you're going to get paid for it. The checks come in at unexpected times, after the commercial runs on TV. Last night, the commercial ran during C.S.I. Miami.
So, it appears that I will have something to show for my speedskating career after all. I may even be one of those rare athletes who "breaks even" on their sports career! (Maybe not..it would take a lot of money to get to that point..) Still, it makes me feel secure having some money coming in while I'm applying for new jobs.
While I was competing on the Fall World Cup circuit a few months ago, an athlete representative to the US Speedskating board shared something that one of the administrators said about athlete funding. This administrator (who will remain unnamed) had said, "The reason why the skaters aren't given more access to direct funding from the sponsors is because they'd just go spend it all on video games and stereo systems."
Well, now that I've done the AOL commercial, I'd probably be able to go out and buy myself a Play Station. Normally, that sort of thing doesn't interest me, and when I was competing I was actually much more concerned with buying food and paying rent. But now that I'm done competing, I may just go get myself some video games. I'm really good at that one where you shoot the terrorists at the airport. And every time I splatter someone's brains out on my TV screen, I'll think of the guy who made a career for himself out of stepping on the backs of amateur athletes.
posted by Eva at 12:22 PM
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