Rojo and Gault stated "Nike spent millions creating optimal conditions for the greatest female miler of all time in her prime and the result was 4:06.42."
What is this claim of total financial outlay based on?
"Millions" implies more than one million, meaning at the very list 2 million and likely many more.
Is the claim that they spent "millions" of US dollars?
Or are claiming they spent at least 2 million Kenyan Shillings on this? (since Kipyegon is from Kenya...2,000,000 Shillings equals less than 16,000 US dollars.)
Funny you started this thread as when Jon wrote this, I thought to myself, "Did they really spend at least $2 million on it?" Then I thought, "Yes they did." I mean they probalby had to pay Faith a million to do it.
Then unsolicited I got a text from a guy saying he'd heard they spent north of $25 million on it. I was blown away so I immediately texted a bunch of guys and asked them how uch he thought they spent. Weldon immediately texted back and said at least $10 million. I mean their are scientisits, a documentary film crew, 3-d bra people, etc.
Another guy who works in the shoe industry also was unfazed as he said he'd heard they spent tens of millions just on towerss for streaming when Kipchoge did sub-2 in Manzaa.
So I guess it's not the crazy. I mean I did say at one point a few months ago, "Imagine if she pulled it off. How much is that worth in marketing throughout the rest of history - billions?"
Nike is a marketing company. And it worked. I texted two women close to me who do not follow pro track and told them to watch. They both were inspired by the run and one was tearing up as she thought Faith had done it since the announcers were so excited and saying she was with the green lights.
Rojo and Gault stated "Nike spent millions creating optimal conditions for the greatest female miler of all time in her prime and the result was 4:06.42."
What is this claim of total financial outlay based on?
"Millions" implies more than one million, meaning at the very list 2 million and likely many more.
Is the claim that they spent "millions" of US dollars?
Or are claiming they spent at least 2 million Kenyan Shillings on this? (since Kipyegon is from Kenya...2,000,000 Shillings equals less than 16,000 US dollars.)
Funny you started this thread as when Jon wrote this, I thought to myself, "Did they really spend at least $2 million on it?" Then I thought, "Yes they did." I mean they probalby had to pay Faith a million to do it.
Then unsolicited I got a text from a guy saying he'd heard they spent north of $25 million on it. I was blown away so I immediately texted a bunch of guys and asked them how uch he thought they spent. Weldon immediately texted back and said at least $10 million. I mean their are scientisits, a documentary film crew, 3-d bra people, etc.
Another guy who works in the shoe industry also was unfazed as he said he'd heard they spent tens of millions just on towerss for streaming when Kipchoge did sub-2 in Manzaa.
So I guess it's not the crazy. I mean I did say at one point a few months ago, "Imagine if she pulled it off. How much is that worth in marketing throughout the rest of history - billions?"
Nike is a marketing company. And it worked. I texted two women close to me who do not follow pro track and told them to watch. They both were inspired by the run and one was tearing up as she thought Faith had done it since the announcers were so excited and saying she was with the green lights.
Back when I was running for UTEP in 06-07, I ran 3:00.38 for 1200 meters. So I know what 4min pace feels like. I transfered to d2 after those first 2 years because I wanted to place higher at nats. That's said, j know alot about middle distance, especially the 1600 (mile).
My complaint is not with the wavelights. I think the wavelights for faith k were perfectly fair game. What I have a problem with is the drafting off all the men. If I remember correctly, during the kiochoge sub 2 event, he definately had pacers beside him, but the whole thing wasn't a draft party like this mile escapade was. Eliud just used them for pacing and there was no total body shell around him cgeating the wind resistance.
Faith did worst than I thought. I estimated her at 403. She ran 407. The biggest blow for me, and what makes this an unfair joke of a time trial, was the total body shell of men surrounding her blocking the wind. That made it NOT a real mile race.
Does anyone know how much $ nike invested in this whole fiasco? From paying grant fisher and the other pacers, to promoting the race and advertising, to paying the city of Paris a rental fee to use that track facility. How much $ did nike pour into this?
Could the sub 4 attempt have had something to do with that?
Absolutely it did. I said this yesterday, this was never ever about her breaking 4 in reality - because it wasn't ever a reality! They didn't even have the pace lights set on sub 4 pace - that's because if she had gone for that, she would have been walking the final 200m.
This was about Nike saying "we are a running company again" and "we are all about empowering women to break barriers - just like men can" - and this is now our brand marketing narrative for the foreseeable future.
What was the last big campaign they had around running and a barrier? It was the breaking 2 - so that was the blueprint. But it makes sense to not have it be a guy again and anyway, a sub 4 mile for a woman you could argue is the most relevant moonshot barrier there is in the sport right now. What else is there? A sub 1.50 800? A sub 10.5 100m? No - it's this. There isn't really anything on the mens side? Even a sub 3.40 mile or sub 12.30 5000m has far less meaning and impact than a sub 4 mile for a woman.
The timing wasn't a "coincidence" either - that it was a few hours before Nike posted their quarterly earnings yesterday that weren't even that great. But the stock price went up based on sentiment that Nike is showing they are getting back to fundamentals and the things that made them great in the past. Like investing in running. And investing in women. And investing in "stories". All of what this breaking 4 idea was made up of.
Here is another thing too - this cost well into the tens of millions (about 30) but their market cap went up by about 15 billion dollars today alone! Say what you want, it's a smart brand - they know how to pull themselves out of a hole.
The s and p was up big time today, not just Nike. Has more to do with economic sentiment than what Nike is trying to do. Learn how markets work.
It’s not crazy to me that they did it. They’re a shoe company looking to sell shoes. Did it work? I doubt it. When the sub-2 attempt happened, they were launching a new type of shoe, one that revolutionized the sport. Now, they’re launching new products into a more saturated market. It’s highly unlikely that any of the new products will have the impact that the first supershoes had, because that’s true of almost everything. Understandable that they’d want to reproduce that. But easier said than done.
Did they pay the 12ish pacers? Keely and the other commentators? Travel and expense in Paris for all of these people? Renting the stadium? The Amazon doc (producers, editors)? Yes, it's easily over $2M, and probably at least the $10M number Rojo.
Sure maybe the Nike employees didn't get paid any "extra" for this, but they are still on the clock. As a Nike shareholder, I think it was money well spent.
It’s not crazy to me that they did it. They’re a shoe company looking to sell shoes. Did it work? I doubt it. When the sub-2 attempt happened, they were launching a new type of shoe, one that revolutionized the sport. Now, they’re launching new products into a more saturated market. It’s highly unlikely that any of the new products will have the impact that the first supershoes had, because that’s true of almost everything. Understandable that they’d want to reproduce that. But easier said than done.
Yes. And the market for track spikes is small compared to running shoes that can be used in parkruns etc. More likely this was about improving their brand image with women! With some of the recent contraversies and the new womens focussed brands popping up, they wanted to recapture parts of the market they had been losing. Its possible this helped somewaht, but who knows.