Peanuts! The days of Weider contracts a la Art Atwood et al are long gone - the main stream BB push failed and took with it any hopes of big bucks contracts for all but a select few.
Ronnie was probably the last big earner.
Now a lot of the sad fucks work for free or next to nothing for the 'exposure'. They might get a bit of free shit which they sell...
Even the main stream, pretty, fitness models dont earn enough to support their lifestyle around Europe.
Why do you think so may 'professional' atheltes offer coaching services? 
Dat der cell tech dun pay ma bhills noo moore
What do you think the Art Atwood contracts were? As I understand it, a publishing contract with FLEX magazine paid $80,000. That is what Phil Heath's 2005 contract was, which he kept for many years. I think Flex had 10 or 20 guys under contract. In recent years, FLEX had Frank McGrath and Juan More under contract, but as I understand it, FLEX had had a hard time paying the bills.
At the Mr. Olympia expo in 2013, you would get a free 1-year subscription for two Weider titles with the purchase of a weekend pass to the expo, or a free 1-year subscription for one Weider title with the purchase of a 1-day pass to the expo, on any of the days that it ran. There were people signing up throughout the entire course of the expo, so presumably Weider .brought in possibly as many as 50,000 or more subscriptions to FLEX during that weekend - that said, there were other titles it had to compete with, so it's hard to say which title racked up the most subscriptions. Whether or not FLEX still has anything close to 100,000 subscriptions a month, I don't know. I like seeing mainstream media get displaced though.
Like cable, I am under the impression that advertising pays the bills these days - not subscription services (circulation, in the case of print). But if FLEX is still hitting 75,000+ subscribers, they can probably pull decent ad numbers, but it just isn't like it used to be.
As Evo said, competitors can sell the free product that they are given. They can also become coaches. While this seems pathetic compared to the salaries of football players or pro athletes, it is still possible to make money - especially for pros. Pros can secure a fair amount of money through coaching services. Also, there is a little gay interest in terms of being seen with a pro. Rich Piana's ex-girlfriend Amy Waz told me that people would pay Rich basically just to be seen with him. I strongly suspect that is going on - there are likely still a fair number of gay men in the closet, even though they shouldn't be. No doubt a lot of these men make good salaries and would love to just be seen with a pro bodybuilder, and would be willing to pay $50 an hour to do so.
Lastly, I think becoming a diet coach is basically formulaic. First, actually getting qualified somehow is a good thing. Just take an online program in Nutrition or something like that. Then seek out the best people who will do your job as a coach for you. Keep getting more of these people who don't need a coach but think they do, and then you get a reputation as a good coach based on the results of your clients, who were already succeeding without you.
