Berian & his agent Keflezighi screwed up, Nike is going to win the lawsuit

whorunslikeanLGTEBADSEWRW? wrote:

Well as someone who hates Nike and supports TnF that sucks. I was hoping they were on the right side of this but it appears not. I swear it's like you can't trust any of these athletes anymore.

Well, you can put all your faith with good old honest Nike---your employer--if you like.

Is it good business for NB to offer $125K with no reductions to someone like Berian? Maybe, maybe not. A contract with no reductions is certainly a gamble for a shoe company. Perhaps certain Olympic champions have gotten such contracts, even from Nike, because their marketing value can last for many years after they have retired from competition, e.g. Sebastian Coe, and perhaps some sprinters and decathlon champions.

But someone new on the scene, even if they have a few outstanding marks, is somewhat of a gamble when you're writing a contract of 3 to 5 years. Reductions make sense from the sponsor's standpoint, and if the athlete demands no reductions, then I would think that the base pay offered would be far less. This ain't ball sports! The public's desire to follow T&F athletes is simply not as high as it is for ball sports players.

I don't blame athletes for trying to get the most advantageous deal for themselves, but if they can't get a contract without reductions, then they should understand that this is the way of the world; if your work declines in value, your pay gets reduced. But some people in Boulder and Bend think that they should keep getting paid the big bucks they once got when they were near the top.

Hi, Nike Shill wrote:

Must be tough wrote:

Not every reduction but you think they aren't material. If Hawi & Boris really wanted to avoid this it was painfully easy.

Hawi and Boris approached this like amateur hour and got burned

I've been saying this for weeks.

Hi, Nike shill. Your boss Capriotti is going to lose. Better take cover, the staplers and books will be flying.

Hi idiot. You must be Hawi because you are goung to lose. Are you still begging on the internet?

I wish Nike would pay me but then they'd have to pay everyone with common sense in this case.

Honestly this whole thing seems like it has gotten blown way out of proportion. All of these issues could be settled in negotiation and should be. The ridiculous thing about the whole situation is it being headed from litigation. Doesn't make sense from either Nike or Berian's standpoint. Probably spend more on lawyers than the value of the entire contract. Must be some seriously bad blood there.

LI Runner wrote:

Nike claims reductions are industry standard, but Meb doesn't have one with Skechers and there are one or two others that don't have reductions either(I recall it being mentioned when this came out, but forgot who). So right there it can be argued that reductions are NOT a standard clause.

Also, why does Berian have to prove something that doesn't exist, doesn't exist?

Industry standard doesn't mean their aren't exceptions. If 95% of contracts have reductions, but 5% don't, that still means the standard practice for a contract is to have reductions.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Honestly this whole thing seems like it has gotten blown way out of proportion. All of these issues could be settled in negotiation and should be. The ridiculous thing about the whole situation is it being headed from litigation. Doesn't make sense from either Nike or Berian's standpoint. Probably spend more on lawyers than the value of the entire contract. Must be some seriously bad blood there.

I don't know who is going to win here. I'm not ever sure who is "in the right." But this whole thing has prevented me from being a Berian fan ever again.

Nike can't believe that every other company doesn't screw their athletes over. They just assume that it's good business to use people and throw them away when they either arent productive for them or they get told what they are doing (child labor) is illegal.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Honestly this whole thing seems like it has gotten blown way out of proportion. All of these issues could be settled in negotiation and should be.

Negotiation is not part of the requirement from the old contract. It cannot be a one-sided negotiation where only Nike can make counteroffers. New Balance wouldn't be allowed to increase their offer to Berian because Nike would claim that the first offer made was the only one they needed to try to match. Sorry, but Nike is overreaching here.

Just me wrote:

don't know who is going to win here. I'm not ever sure who is "in the right." But this whole thing has prevented me from being a Berian fan ever again.

But, you still trust in Nike and will buy their stuff, right?

I can't get past corporate lawyers writing in filings like they're on this message board:

"It is telling that when push came to shove and Defendant needed a sworn declaration from New Balance regarding reductions for this litigation, he easily obtained one."

The whole idea behind a letter agreement or offer sheet, like the one presented to Berian by N.B., is that it be brief, but that it have all material terms in it. I believe it is a solid legal argument that, regardless of industry standard, the pertinent terms of a clause that would materially change the level of compensation (and any one of the reductions alone would do that) would have to appear in the offer sheet. Berian's contained no such terms, hence Nike including them is a failure to match.

Unless Nike spells out in the prior contract (which I have not looked at) the specific parameters for matching that includes presenting them with a complete, long form contract or whatever, they pay the price for the vagueness of their own contract.

Berian presented them with a term sheet he was given by N.B. that purported to have all the material terms of the offer in it, including the lack of reduction clauses, and Nike did not match it.

Buy Nikes? wrote:

Just me wrote:

don't know who is going to win here. I'm not ever sure who is "in the right." But this whole thing has prevented me from being a Berian fan ever again.

But, you still trust in Nike and will buy their stuff, right?

Yes, all the time.

Just because Meb and 2 or 3 others listed on this site don't have reductions doesn't mean its standard. If we had more insight into the contracts of athletes under say HOKA, Adidas, Saucony etc then we may be able to make more of an argument that they are or are not standard. But until we get further info we only know a handful of contracts. And a few elites do not make up a standard, especially for people who are the face of certain brands (meb, Symmonds, Kara)... I'm very anti-nike anyway, but you cant assume a standard without knowing a larger amount of the data.

If Berian wanted out if the Nike contract so bad. Why didn't he just wait the 180 days.

1. He probably would have gotten a better offer based on winning indoor worlds.

2. He could have have preliminary negotiations with NB. Just make sure no contract terms were offered.

3. Avoided the legal issues.

Sure it was a risk but he was working at Mcds a few years ago. Plus he could have potentially borrowed based on a new contract b

So can Nike enter a clause that they kick Berian's dog twice for every race over 1:45, because New Balance failed to address dog-kicking in the contract they shared with Nike?

Just checking.

A company like Nike with about $700-900 million in profits per quarter is not taking a significant gamble in offering a 1:43 guy a $125,000 contract without reductions. If its yearly profit is about $3.2 billion, then this contract represents a mere .004% of profits. A rounding error, in other words.

jjjjjj wrote:

A company like Nike with about $700-900 million in profits per quarter is not taking a significant gamble in offering a 1:43 guy a $125,000 contract without reductions. If its yearly profit is about $3.2 billion, then this contract represents a mere .004% of profits. A rounding error, in other words.

No because then every athlete worth $125k base would be able to get the reductions removed. All they need is a competitor of Nike's to agree; stick it to Nike.

Does anyone else ever sit back and wonder what Bowerman and Pre would have thought of all this?

Precious Roy wrote:

Nike coulda shoulda sent the fully integrated contract with a cover letter stating that its offer to match was unconditional and any terms in the contract that contradicted any New Balance terms that were unknown to Nike would be stricken.

Sounds about right. But instead they threw in a bunch of extra stuff that was not on the NB offer sheet and claimed it was "industry standard" for a full contract. That is nowhere close to a good faith attempt to match. Even if most contracts contain reductions, there is no standard set of terms for those reductions. Nike was trying to negotiate the contract down and pass it off as a match.