TL;DR : Imagine if you had a non-profit soup kitchen but charged the homeless to buy your soup. That is a sports NGO. The salary of the Executive Director of U

TL;DR : Imagine if you had a non-profit soup kitchen but charged the homeless to buy your soup. That is a sports NGO. The salary of the Executive Director of USA Swimming is $1-millon-plus dollars a year from an organization that pulls in about $41-million annually from donations and otherwise. http://www.usaswimming.org/_Rainbow/Documents/37308384-90d5-4ada-a6af-7b4b337fe045/2013%20990%20USA%20Swimming%20Public%20Disclosure%20Copy%20Final.PDF http://www.usaswimming.org/_Rainbow/Documents/37308384-90d5-... The salary for a USA Olympic Swimmer, if they sign on to do fund raising events and make appearances for the organization is about $70,000 — About 55-swimmers are chosen for the Olympic team every four years. They are not paid that salary when they are not on the national team. Though the athletes love the sports they do sport NGOs are making tranches of money of the backs of children and athletic teams who are force to "pay tribute" and competition fees just so they can get a chance to realize a dream that is harder to obtain than becoming an Academy Award winning actor or a CEO of a billion dollar company.