I enjoyed Shirty's article giving an inside view of the recent contract moves at WTC level. Taking his comment that the top 5 are on good money, and the rest aren't, is anyone prepared to say what the ball-park figures might be these days? Trials obviously involves as much commitment and risk as any other sport, and the period of maximum earning potential is probably about the same as many others (around ten years at the most for the majority of competitors?) so it would be interesting to see how the rewards compare. I suspect trials riders are relatively under-paid, simply because the sport isn't awash with money like some others.

I know I stand to be shot down as, like in any line of business, income is rightly seen as confidential - just asking out of interest.

Simple answer - no bloody idea

Your right though the sport isn't particularly rich.

I know the top boys earn a large chunk of their money from ITWC (now X-Trial) where they get good appearance fee and I expect finish position bonuses. This ties up with what Shirty says about top 5 earning decent money

I would expect that they factories only pay them a fairly low wage but with bonuses etc. The rest of their money would come from sponsorship (Red Bull, Monster etc) and display and publicity events.

Outside of this its easy to see why the rest of the riders cant earn big (or any) money from trials. I expect that

X-trials will help generate more spectators and revenue if they are linked with other events like enduro was in Italy. However the problem is that again this will only benefit the best of the best.

Simple answer - no bloody idea

Your right though the sport isn't particularly rich.

I know the top boys earn a large chunk of their money from ITWC (now X-Trial) where they get good appearance fee and I expect finish position bonuses. This ties up with what Shirty says about top 5 earning decent money

I would expect that they factories only pay them a fairly low wage but with bonuses etc. The rest of their money would come from sponsorship (Red Bull, Monster etc) and display and publicity events.

Outside of this its easy to see why the rest of the riders cant earn big (or any) money from trials. I expect that

X-trials will help generate more spectators and revenue if they are linked with other events like enduro was in Italy. However the problem is that again this will only benefit the best of the best.

i don't think the itwc is any good unless you podium.

something that should be said here is that we all want the sport to continue and our top riders to be able to earn $$$$

therefore keep in mind that we all should be hitting the websites, youtube videos, buying the dvds etc

now a days that is how companies choose who to sponsor etc by who has the most youtube hits