She would have to sell more than shoes. Makeup, clothing, backpacks, campbells soup, etc. She should go pro this summer.
She would have to sell more than shoes. Makeup, clothing, backpacks, campbells soup, etc. She should go pro this summer.
well uhhhhh wrote:
Jenny Barringer was offered 7 figures...
why didn't she take it then?
asker of things wrote:
well uhhhhh wrote:Jenny Barringer was offered 7 figures...
why didn't she take it then?
__
JBS is not your average person - I think she didn't want to be sucked into the giant sports marketing machine.
At the time she said that when she visited the New Balance it felt like home - they knew who she was, what she was like, etc.
In other words, NB was a better match. And listen to what she says about her current arrangement in Boulder - she talks about the relationships between her, the coaches, the other CU athletes - she ain't in it for just the money. Although I am sure NB treated her fine after her gold medal.
Allyson Felix has a contract worth $1 million plus incentives. She also had the world Junior WR at 17 (Mary's age) and ran the fastest time in the world at that age, an Olympic silver at 18, and a WC gold at 19 (not counting relays).
Walter Dix reportedly has a contract that pays $1M per year. He also has multiple medals.
Sponsors generally pay for potential, but Mary Cain has done NONE of what you see above. I don't know how anyone can talk about 7 figures, or even 6 figures, for someone who has never actually won anything in international/pro competition.
Just another case of letsrun.com not knowing what the hell they're talking about, I think.
I do think Mary should "strike while the iron is hot." Unless she can go out and beat Aregawi (Mary is the number 10 in the world, not the number 1), Mary's value may never be higher than it is right now.
oatmeal + water wrote:
Remember when Sharapova won Wimbledon when she was 17? Mary Cain is the Sharapova of track.
Here's a list of Sharapova's sponsors:http://www.mariasharapova.com/sponsors.aspx
if you go to
www.mariasharapova.comand look at the very bottom right, there's an ad that says, "Maria joins the Head team". well, that makes my day.
someone had to do it wrote:
Webb's first contract when he was 19 after he left Michigan was for 250,000 per year for 6 years.
Webb's first contract was about 1/6th of what was offered to him in HS. Webb was HUGE in HS, Letterman, etc. If you don't remember, ESPN cut out of SportsCenter to show Webb run the USATF 1500M Live.
Webb was offered 3 yr/~5-6M initial contract. He turned it down. At this time -- he was unbelievably hot. A year later, he had lost the NCAA 1500m and hadn't bettered his times.
He essentially settled for 6years @250k per.
Still waiting for the first SFH short term contract paradigm comment.
Can Mary actually go out and beat Aregawi in Moscow?
Championships finals are usually slow events with a scorching finish. We just saw Mary run a Morceli-type 100m finish in a Morceli-type time (that appeared somewhere around 12 seconds flat for a girl).
If the Africans are stupid enough to give Mary in a 1500 what they gave El Guerrouj in a 5000, maybe she can. And they might actually be that stupid.....ONCE.
coach d wrote:
Can Mary actually go out and beat Aregawi in Moscow?
Championships finals are usually slow events with a scorching finish. We just saw Mary run a Morceli-type 100m finish in a Morceli-type time (that appeared somewhere around 12 seconds flat for a girl).
If the Africans are stupid enough to give Mary in a 1500 what they gave El Guerrouj in a 5000, maybe she can. And they might actually be that stupid.....ONCE.
seriously good point - if I am a coach and I see a 17 year old kicking past a pro field like they aren't even kicking, I start seeing visions of gold.
That kick was probably the most impressive and positive thing she has ever done.
What are the top American women making right now? She's not quite as fast the very best of them, but she would be very marketable to the high school and below crowd, and she seems to have a fine personality so I'd imagine she'd make about the same money as the top American pros.
workout double wrote:
Webb's first contract was about 1/6th of what was offered to him in HS. Webb was HUGE in HS, Letterman, etc. If you don't remember, ESPN cut out of SportsCenter to show Webb run the USATF 1500M Live.
Webb was offered 3 yr/~5-6M initial contract. He turned it down. At this time -- he was unbelievably hot. A year later, he had lost the NCAA 1500m and hadn't bettered his times.
He essentially settled for 6years @250k per.
Bingo. Webb settled for 250k a year after the year at Michigan. The initial offering was insane for him in HS.
Contracts are also bigger now than they were then. Even though it was less than the HS offerings that were thrown at him, Webb's contract was massive at the time.
Less than 10 years later Centro and Wheating signed for multiples of what Webb had signed for (Wheating is probably an apt comparison to Mary since he had just teased us with insane runs in his first major competitions- 3:50, 3:30 and 1:44). They gave him 800k annually because he looked like he MIGHT become a Seb Coe guy.
That is the key- it's about POTENTIAL. The same reason Nike was initially offering centro much less than they had signed for Wheating 12 months earlier even though he was ALREADY a WC bronze medalist. The same reason Leo is in a contract dispute despite ALREADY winning a silver medal. You have to sign EARLY and you have to be dripping with potential.
Someone like Mary is worth more to Nike because she MIGHT someday win a medal than Leo is even though he JUST won one just like Wheating was worth more than Centro in hopes that he might someday get to a place that Centro had just landed.
Too bad it's not an Olympic year. If it was she might be able to get the media attention Hasay got in 2008, especially since she has a much better shot at actually making the team. I doubt the same attention will happen around the USA Nationals.
That said, I still don't think a multi-year 7 figure deal is entirely unrealistic for her. She has tons of upside and plenty of marketability to the youth crowd, not to mention a hell of a lot more personality than most of the pros. I think if she makes the team for Worlds, going pro is a now is a no brainer.
Couldn't Nike lowball her? Are there any Al Sal runners not sponsored by Nike? It really her only option. It's not like New Balance is going to pry her from Al Sal. Her future success and earnings are invested in his coaching.
Alternate idea wrote:
Couldn't Nike lowball her? Are there any Al Sal runners not sponsored by Nike? It really her only option. It's not like New Balance is going to pry her from Al Sal. Her future success and earnings are invested in his coaching.
the other way to look at it this: how embarrassing would it be to Nike if their star pupil defected to another shoe company?
That would be all people would talk about - the train (my favorite nickname for mc)would be 'the girl who left nike.'
the boards would no doubt be full of gents saying mc saw ped use, or wanted to keep her thyroid just the way it was, etc.
It would almost be worth it for NB to try to pry her away just to tar nike.
workout double wrote:
someone had to do it wrote:Webb's first contract when he was 19 after he left Michigan was for 250,000 per year for 6 years.
Webb's first contract was about 1/6th of what was offered to him in HS. Webb was HUGE in HS, Letterman, etc. If you don't remember, ESPN cut out of SportsCenter to show Webb run the USATF 1500M Live.
Webb was offered 3 yr/~5-6M initial contract. He turned it down. At this time -- he was unbelievably hot. A year later, he had lost the NCAA 1500m and hadn't bettered his times.
He essentially settled for 6years @250k per.
I actually wonder if Webb could have been 10x better off taking that contract and being coached during the evening by his old HS coach. what that year of College did was stall his development a couple of years.
Mr. Obvious wrote:
Track does not have nearly the sponsorship dollars of tennis. Cain is not as photogenic as Sharapova.
Agreed. If I remember right, at Beijing 2012, of the top 10 highest earning Olypmpians, 7 were NBA players, 2 were tennis players, and 1 was athletics (Bolt). But Bolt is an anomaly when talking about athletics salaries.
I hope all of you guys cleaned these numbers before you posted them here.
workout double wrote:
someone had to do it wrote:Webb's first contract when he was 19 after he left Michigan was for 250,000 per year for 6 years.
Webb's first contract was about 1/6th of what was offered to him in HS. Webb was HUGE in HS, Letterman, etc. If you don't remember, ESPN cut out of SportsCenter to show Webb run the USATF 1500M Live.
Webb was offered 3 yr/~5-6M initial contract. He turned it down. At this time -- he was unbelievably hot. A year later, he had lost the NCAA 1500m and hadn't bettered his times.
He essentially settled for 6years @250k per.
that is almost unbelievable. who the hell was advising him? what parent or coach would tell their HS athlete, "No, don't take the 6 million for 3 years, go to college." maybe that makes sense for an incredible HS basketball, baseball, or football player, maybe, but for a runner? that is ridiculous.
Most of the posts making pro-runner salary claims are utter BS. Hopefully that makes you feel better, domestic pro.