STUDY: Do Kentucky Derby winners earn more per second than other athletes?

When Mystik Dan battled to a narrow victory in the 2024 Kentucky Derby (G1), he claimed a first-prize purse worth $3.1 million. Compared to the nine-figure contracts signed by athletes in some other sports, $3.1 million might seem modest. But the Kentucky Derby takes barely more than two minutes to complete, and what other athlete can earn such a large sum of money in such a short amount of time?

That’s a good question; Which athletes earn as much as, or more than, a Kentucky Derby winner? 

We can answer with research and data-crunching.

Do Kentucky Derby winners earn more per second than other athletes? 

Research Methodology

To begin, we must convert the earnings of a Kentucky Derby winner into a universal metric we can compare across sports. We’ll use earnings per second.

Adding the untimed run-up distance at the start of the Kentucky Derby to the timed 1 1/4-mile portion of the race, a typical Kentucky Derby takes approximately 2 minutes and 4 seconds to complete. This means the winning horse earns approximately $25,000 per second.

We’ll use this $25,000-per-second as our baseline and attempt to calculate the earnings-per-second of star athletes from other sports, comparing how they stack up against Kentucky Derby winners.

These earnings consider only prize money and do not include sponsorships, endorsements, and other forms of earnings athletes might have. We have also excluded from consideration the time spent preparing for competitions and the downtime within competitions, attempting to focus solely on earnings per second of competitive activity.

Do Kentucky Derby winners earn more per second than other athletes? 

Data Analysis

We’ll start by comparing the earnings-per-second of Kentucky Derby winners to the winners of high-profile races in other sports.

In 2024, the Indianapolis 500 awarded a first-prize payout of $4.288 million to the victorious Josef Newgarden. Although the raw amount was larger, Newgarden needed 2 hours, 58 minutes, 49.4079 seconds to earn the prize, which works out to $399.65 per second.

With 14 Olympic medals, including nine golds, swimmer Katie Ledecky is the most decorated female U.S. Olympian in history. At the 2024 Olympics, she won the women’s 800-meter freestyle final for the fourth straight games. She received $37,500 from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, which—divided across her winning time of 8 minutes, 11.04 seconds—came to $76.37 per second.

U.S. swimmer Caeleb Dressel achieved a higher earnings-per-second rate when he won gold in the much shorter (and quicker) men’s 50-meter freestyle final at the 2020 Olympics. Dressel’s winning time of 21.07 seconds earned him a $37,500 prize, which is $1,779.78 per second.

At the 2024 Olympics, U.S. track and field athletes earned not only $37,500 per gold medal from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, but $50,000 from World Athletics. Thus, when Noah Lyles won the men’s 100-meter final in 9.784 seconds, his $87,500 in earnings translated to $8,943.17 per second.

At least for U.S. Olympians, the shorter the competition, the easier it is to rack up a high earnings-per-second rate. Sticking to track and field examples, Grant Halloway earned $87,500 when he won the men’s 110-meter hurdles final at the 2024 Olympics. He required 12.99 seconds to complete the race, earning $6,735.95 per second.

Also at the 2024 Olympics, Masai Russell won the women’s 100-meter hurdles final in 12.33 seconds, earning $7.096.51 per second. And while Gabrielle Thomas needed 21.83 seconds to win the women’s 200-meter final, her earnings per second remained lofty at $4,008.

At the other end of the spectrum, marathons aren’t as lucrative from an earnings-per-second standpoint. Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia won $150,000 for taking first prize in the men’s open division of the 2024 Boston Marathon, held over 26.2 miles. His winning time of 2 hours, 6.17 seconds translated to earnings of $20.82 per second.

Calculating the earnings-per-second of athletes competing in non-racing sports is a tricky challenge fraught with generalities. But we’ll approximate numbers for a few athletes.

Artistic gymnast Simone Biles won the women’s all-around final at the 2024 Olympics. Her four routines took approximately 3 minutes, 21 seconds to complete. Like the other U.S. Olympic gold medalists, Biles earned $37,500, or $186.57 per second.

How about NFL Super Bowl players? In 2025, members of the winning team earned up to $171,000, on top of their salaries. There was 60 minutes of game time, so $171,000 divided into earnings of $47.50 per second.

This is deceptively low, however, since the overall salaries for top NFL football players can climb into the nine-figure range. Two-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes has a 10-year contract worth $450 million. If he were to play all 17 regular-season games and a full 60 minutes in each game, his earnings per second for a football season would be $735.29.

Turning to NBA basketball, Stephen Curry earned $51.9 million playing for the Golden State Warriors during the 2023-24 season. According to StatsMuse, Curry participated in 74 games that season and played an average of 32.7 minutes per game, which works out to earnings of $357.47 per second of gameplay.

Conclusions

In terms of earnings per second, a Kentucky Derby winner out-earns high-profile athletes across a varied swath of sports, and by significant margins.

Winning the Kentucky Derby yields an earnings-per-second rate approximately 6,155% higher than winning the Indianapolis 500, and about 6,894% higher than the earnings per second of basketball great Stephen Curry during the 2023-24 NBA season.

On an earnings-per-second basis, it’s safe to say a Kentucky Derby winner is one of the highest-earning athletes in sports.