What does being 12 in 1972 have to do with cost of living then vs now?
Shorter would literally lose the ability to compete if he took even a penny for his running. How did he get by before becoming a household name and starting his business?
Before he realized he was being abused Shorter’s father paid the bills, plus he did get under the table money, and lived pretty cheaply
Parsons does come from a wealthy family. I think he has a Tesla…not something you’re driving on a low-level adidas contract. For a while, a lot of the Tinman guys all lived in Drew’s house. Not sure if that’s still the case as he gets older. Reed had a real job for a while before he signed with adidas.
2022 Tesla Model 3 is only 46k new.
Used Tesla Model 3's are only going to run 30-35k.
Tesla's are no longer only crazy expensive cars. At this point it's an affordable status symbol.
Alan
We are talking about a 13:30 5k runner. It's 2022 not 1998. You think adidas is paying a 13:30 guy enough to go buy a used Tesla and live in Boulder?
Running and posting on instagram do not suggest he is jobless and getting money from parents. It doesn't suggest that at all. A full time job is typically 8 hours. Your speculation makes it sound like there is no way for him to time manage these things lol.
It would make sense that a professional runner would not want their posts to be random office photos and other things like that. In fact, many companies have a social media policy. I also don't know of any friends or coworkers that post about their jobs on instagram, so it appears that isn't even a normal thing?
I think if anyone is on even a 40k contract then it makes sense how they can run full time (and obviously more money makes it even easier, considering some ppl work a full time job to make say 50k - generalizing) It really just seems like more of a lifestyle choice to me. I take it parsons and fisher are able to cover their yearly expenses and living from their adidas and other money, my concern if that was me would just be that I can’t imagine they are putting away extra money for retirement or looking down the road to save money and invest in the market. And maybe that doesn’t matter to them. But it does just seem to come down to sacrificing financial security as an older adult versus “chasing the dream” now. Clearly they won’t be poor and will get a normal job some day when they’re down competing at their prime, but obviously they will have less $$ for the future (family/kids/other choices and higher expenses) which is a decision each individual needs to weigh for themselves.
thatscmy take. Part of me envies these 20 some year olds going after it while the rest of us are working blue collar or corp America, but then I also think about how I’m making a nice wage and saving a good amount of $ for retirement which will only grow and compound
If you are not spending money you do not have to make money.
It does not take much money to buy food. Housing is a big cost but I am sure those in the group who can afford housing are helping others out by letting them stay in spare rooms free of minimal rent.
More power to these guys since they are somehow able to make this work and chase their running dreams. They may be sacrificing some things now and in their future some but its their life.
D Hunter deserves much more credit than he gets for unselfishly setting up TME, and providing the opportunity to all these other runners to train. TME would not exist without him and we can only speculate how he has used his own money, status and influence to make TME a reality. He could have easily just lived and trained alone and banked his adidas money. Yes TME provides him with a training group and college team like atmosphere, but it collectively benefits others more than himself.
I can't think of any other pro runner who has publicly used their status and influence to set up and assist a large visible running group/team like D Hunter has.
I bought a brand new truck, worth around $40k, when I was 24 and although the decision did not break me, it still makes me mad when I think about it. Spent way too much money on cars when I was young. Don’t believe what you see on social media, it is not always reflective of true life. Easy to make it look like you are balling when that may just be debt, money from family, etc. Or, maybe they are making a lot of money and laughing all the way to the bank. Don’t really care as I stopped paying attention after the coaching split.
Let's say on average he makes $500-1000 in prize money for 3-4 road races per year. Add in maybe a few hundred bucks appearance money for each of those. Then on the track, prize money maybe a bit less, around $500 (assuming he's competing mostly in silver and bronze level meetings), with roughly the same amount in appearance money 4-5 times per year. All up, it's not enough to live on, but I think it could realistically be around $5000 per year in a good year which contributes to his other ways of making money.
Another revenue stream would also be YouTube - I don't know how many views they get or how it's shared amongst the group, but that could also add a few thousand per year? Plus merch sales. I can start to see how he gets by without a job, even if it's not the highlife
I know a guy who was no where as good as most of these guys (he was the last OT Steeple qualifier one time).
He got $4000.00 and free gear from Nike.
His appearance fees at road races was generally $1000.00 to $2000.00 plus expenses.
He told all of this after his very short pro career ended.
Add in the prize money and he said he COULD have survived for a while but he had to pay his agent a %.
He told me that his coach got a % of his winnings only- if he didn't get prize money or appearance fees his coach didn't get paid and his coach also coached college.
I think some of these guys make more than it seems they make but I DO think that the lack of racing hurts them.
oops I meant to quote this. Don't mind me I'm just an idiot
Some of them have sponsorships from adidas. They sell gear. I'm sure some of the lesser guys have part time jobs.
If 4 guys want to live in a house together and train and have no families to support, it's not that expensive.
At one point I think we had 5 guys living in a 1 bedroom in Flagstaff. (our 4 bedroom place wasn't ready yet). Those were the glory days. You all won't believe but 20 years ago this was 5/6 of the running population in Flag.
You're right. athletes have never made an increased amount of money from a sports apparel company for creating more product sales. MJ, Lebron, Tiger, Rory, Dustin Johnson, Usain Bolt all got paid the exact same as they promoted nike, adidas, puma.
Hundreds to maybe a few thousand people around the country wearing TME clothing and shoes has never impacted the revenue of a TME team runner. The branding, online store, product releases, selling out of products has only benefited adidas with $0 coming back to TME.
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