Meb says Boston didn't make an offer

Would love to hear Guy Morse's response...

Avocado's Number wrote:

But in this case, it sounds to me that the determining factor is the amount of money that Meb would consider a "reasonable offer." I don't see any shame in acknowledging that, and I'd respect him more if he did.

That was my take-away. Technically they didn't make him an offer. But what have they been talking about since July other than what would constitute a "reasonable" (Meb's word) offer? Whether they'll get Meb good seats at a Red Sox game? Whether he wears a small or medium John Hancock vest at the Friday press conference?

Precious Roy= Infectous Boy

Boston's rewarding athletes for running fast and winning in 2010, what exactly did Ryan Hall win in 2010? If Meb shows up at the starting line he is there to compete and has done so brillantly in all of his marathons. You don't know what your talking about Infectous Boy!

Meb should?

1.) plan to run another spring "lightning fast course" marathon and achieve a fast time to go with all his other accomplishments

2.) do a few road races while preparing for the 10000m U.S World Trials and then resume fall marathon training

3.) do a full road racing campaign until time to train for a fall marathon.

I personally would love to see him do option 1 closely followed by 2 but he probably won't do either!

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner and possible Darwin Award winner.

surprised wrote:

um, racism please.

so antonio vega gets an elite invite to the boston marathon and meb does not, how is that justified? i would bet even vega would admit he does not have close to the credentials meb does.

mike shelly, michael aish, eric gillis are a few of the invited runners to london, but meb does not get invited?

what about rotterdam? or paris? i would think the race directors at those races would like americas top marathoner the last 2 years, why did they not invite him?

i may be looking at this as far more sinister than it is due to my admitted ignorance of the business end of the sport, but it seems meb is being blackballed from races.

Meb should just spray paint himself in white, wear blonde wig and then he might get an offer from Boston year after year despite his recent performances.

douglas burke wrote:

so antonio vega gets an elite invite to the boston marathon and meb does not, how is that justified? i would bet even vega would admit he does not have close to the credentials meb does.

mike shelly, michael aish, eric gillis are a few of the invited runners to london, but meb does not get invited?

what about rotterdam? or paris? i would think the race directors at those races would like americas top marathoner the last 2 years, why did they not invite him?

i may be looking at this as far more sinister than it is due to my admitted ignorance of the business end of the sport, but it seems meb is being blackballed from races.

Antonio Vega, Michael Aish, Mike Shelly, etc. aren't running their spring marathons in exchange for large appearance fees. You would advise him to run without any appearance fee, shooting for the prize money and bonuses. Then all the next marathon has to do is hold out until a few weeks before when he agrees to the same terms and gets himself no guaranteed money and saves race promoters a lot of cash.

Worthy wrote:

What would Meb stand to gain from making up the story. Highly believable if you ask me.

Sorry if that sounded like I thought Meb was lying. What I meant is that it's just his side of the story and there may be more to it. Again, it would be interesting to get a response from BAA or John Hancock, but I don't think that will happen.

"Unfortunately, though John Hancock’s representative indicated there was a lot of interest in having me as part of the field and keeping the conversation alive until late January, no offer was made. It’s not that I’m not getting what I want, it’s that John Hancock did not make me an offer at all. As much as I respect the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon, I would have accepted any reasonable offer."

That might be the cause for his outrage. If they couldn't reasonably make an offer why string along saying we are very interested. I am sure he had an offer elsewhere that he probably let go (London probably) thinking that Boston was seriously interested. London typically gets their field very early so Meb probably took a gamble staying in talks with Boston. Clearly it wasn't about money for him as it was about getting a chance at the shot of winning Boston. He clearly would take a Boston win over any fast time. Hint the reason he ran Boston last year instead of going to say London.

PATRICK LYNCH

If you do not know who he is or have never been in a position to deal with him, then you should not be commenting on this thread. I don't mean to be harsh, but this man is unbelievable.

There will be a response from Hancock this afternoon.

thepinkmonkey wrote:

... Third, it

probably makes it possible for me to run both a full marathon this fall and compete

in the Olympic Marathon trials in Houston on January 14, 2012. Three marathons

within nine months might not have been physically possible. Of course, the thought

of the 2012 Olympics already has me excited – with memories of the Silver Medal

I won in Athens and the fact that I currently own three of the four fastest Olympic

trials qualifying times.

Wait a second... "three marathons within nine months might not have been physically possible", but he's considering running a FALL marathon, the Trials marathon, and hopefully the Olympic marathon? Sounds like a similar time frame to me.

I'm absolutely certain that they fully anticipated it. Publicly admitting that would make them look bad (arrogant, callous, greedy) so they never would. They're not stupid, they've proven adept at growing their brand and making money over the past couple decades.

And everyone is paying more attention than ever as the line at their door continues to grow. They knew the going rate for Meb for a marathon and knew that they'd be just fine with a few unknown Africans for the same amount as they'd pay Meb. Meb winning Boston would do far more for Meb than it would do for the BAA.

Based on what? It has more cache than ever, in reality.

Two things:

One, I still don't think this really clears everything up. If Boston wasn't serious about making an offer, they wouldn't have been in talks with Meb and co. for the last 6 months. Meb is probably telling the truth (i.e. no offer was made), but not the whole truth. If it was clear to Boston/Hancock that Meb was asking for $250k and would not come for less than $150k, then there was no point in making an offer. Once the non-offer was made, Meb could then say that he didn't get one and he would have run for any reasonable offer (which was never defined--whatever Vega got offered, for instance, may not have constituted a reasonable offer in Meb's mind).

Two, any major fall marathon seems a bit risky for Meb, given his age and injury history. New York is out of the question. Chicago is barely over three months out. Berlin is the best option, but still gives less then 4 months to recover and get ready for Houston. So... why not skip the paycheck this time and do the World Champs? Good championship experience for the Games, and good timing.

No point wrote:

How are they rewarding athletes? When did Ryan last break 2:08 and finish first in a major marathon. if you ask me they are racist in the worst kind to headline Ryan after he drops out of Chicago, leaves his coach and hasn't run anywhere within 2 minutes of his PR's in the last 3 years.

Hall was the fastest US male marathoner in 2010 with a performance on that same course. He will be there by merit of his performance.

Meb$$$ wrote:

signing a sub par performance Ryan Hall every year

3rd and 4th place is sub par? Also, I believe he ran faster than any American ever at Boston last year?

To be clear, he is probably more than welcome to run in the elite section of the Boston Marathon but he won't get an appearance fee for it.

If Meb feels slighted why doesn't he enter the race anyway - for no appearance $$ - and prove JH wrong? Of course he won't because he's old and he can give out any moment now. The guy is 36 years old. Why the hell would anyone want to invest 100k or more on a guy who is old and has a checkered injury history?

Can you imagine a football team handing out a multi-million dollar contract to an often-injured aging football player? No thanks.

It's business buddy, nothing personal. $100k doesn't just fall out of thin air and they sure as heck won't spend it on Meb when they can spend it on a promising young talent.

Precious Roy wrote:

I love Meb, but completely understand Boston's approach. They are clearly rewarding people for running very fast and winning in 2010. Meb did neither in 2010. Plus, he has not been training hard since NY due to illness. If Boston can make hobby joggers crank out a sub 3:10 to get in, they can certainly require pros to be at their best to get an invite.

how does hall in 2010 fit within your crackpot theory?

Truth Sayer wrote:

Can you imagine a football team handing out a multi-million dollar contract to an often-injured aging football player? No thanks.

Um, yes. What rock did you just crawl out from?