USA Track and Field may revel in its status as home to "The Best Track and Field Team in the World," but it's still got a heck of a lot of work to do.

That was a point  driven home by USATF CEO Max Siegel at the national federation's Annual Meeting in its  four-day run at the J.W. Marriott Hotel.

USATF may lead the medals parade at every Olympic Games but - bottom line - it continues to trail some of its  domestic counterparts in several leading categories.

"This is actually startling to me," said Siegel, who served in an assortment of professional positions with other sports governing bodies before he joined USATF in 2012.

And now he's crunching numbers in the flagship Olympic sport of track and field.

"If you look at USA Swimming, we have a lot more people who participate in our sport than they do, but they have over 366,000 members and they have $45 million in net assets in the bank," he said.

"If you look at USA Gymnastics, they had about $12 million in net assets in the bank and 121,000 members.

"If you look at USA Triathlon, they have over 176,000 members and $5.2 million in the bank."

"If you look at the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, with only 29,000 members, they have $40 million in the bank."

USATF's membership, when these stats were compiled, was about 118,000 with about $4.9 million in the bank.

Siegel smiles at all the promise looming over the USATF horizon, but recognizes the work yet to be done.

USATF membership nationally is up to 120,503 - but retention continues to be a huge problem.

Youth Athletics continues to be one of USATF's growth areas - but too few of them retain membership

once they've outgrown their late-teen years.  

And there's still the huge disconnect with the distance running community.  While millions of

Americans call themselves runners, a small fraction of them call themselves USATF members. There is

no USATF membership requirement at most of the nation's biggest races - as there once was - and far too

few now see a need to join USATF.

   

USATF's most recent financial report on record - dated December 31, 2012 - listed net assets of $4.98 million (but a huge jump over the $3.6 million at the end of 2011.)  Its prime revenue sources in that period were (a) sponsorships of $10.580 million; (b) US Olympic Committeee grants of  $3.107 million; (c) Events and athlete programs of $4.286 million, and (d) merchandise sales of $1.7 million.