I hear people freak out when they see a runner/thrower/jumper not sponsored yet. However, just because you made the Olympics doesn't mean a ton. Why would a company sponsor you when they probably have little return on their investment. Unless you have a million Instagram followers, it probably makes little sense. I love the sport and want to see runners get more money, but it's important to be realistic.
NFL players make so much because the sport brings in the money. There is a return on investment to pay an NFL player $20M/year or sign them to a sponsorship deal. An NFL player is insanely popular. We are not. A kid will go out and buy that product when they see him on TV.
People in our sport think we should wag our finger at these big companies when they haven't sponsored someone yet. Give me a break...they are not in the business of charity.
You sound like someone who:
1. Has never been and never will be sponsored so you're angry that others are.
2. Doesn't understand how it all works
They do not receive more than they pay for any athlete- it's not like- we give Joe NFLer 20 million a year and he brought is 21 million.
Let them make their money doing something they love and, if it so pleases you, enjoy.
I have bought shoes because they signed a runner I knew personally and I emailed the companies to tell them that's why I was buying their shoes.
For every one person like you there are thousands who buy products because of their favorite NBA player. You think a runner should be paid the same as Embiid?
1. Has never been and never will be sponsored so you're angry that others are.
2. Doesn't understand how it all works
They do not receive more than they pay for any athlete- it's not like- we give Joe NFLer 20 million a year and he brought is 21 million.
Let them make their money doing something they love and, if it so pleases you, enjoy.
I have bought shoes because they signed a runner I knew personally and I emailed the companies to tell them that's why I was buying their shoes.
For every one person like you there are thousands who buy products because of their favorite NBA player. You think a runner should be paid the same as Embiid?
I think you have issues with reading comprehension and critical thinking- which is ok, I'm not being critical of you. Just have someone explain what I actually said.
I’m just pointing out that there aren’t enough people buying shoes because a pro runners sponsor. Hence why it’s tough to get paid well in our sport for the mid pack elite.
Short answer is that the kind of money most T&F athletes get is just chicken change for big companies. Gatorade, Nike, Adidas, etc. probably spend more on their Christmas party for their global marketing team than they do for all the US distance runner sponsorships combined. Long answer is that sponsorship is really about playing odds. The vast majority of T&F athletes are not at all marketable. They will never win a medal and will never have any broad appeal beyond track nerds. But every now and then you get a Usain Bolt, Alyson Felix or Sydney McLaughlin. These athletes are valuable. Not as valuable as Tiger Woods, LeBron or Tom Brady. But in a world where print advertising has been taken over by the internet and network advertising does not reach a fraction of the number of eyes that it did before cable and the internet, having multiple irons in the sponsorship fire is important. T&F does give sponsors access to eyes that normally might not be watching other pro sports but are still interested in running shoes, sports drinks, etc.
I'd agree with a few people on this thread that most (if not all) sponsored runners are not really a profitable asset for shoe companies. Having them is an investment to legitimize their product, not to directly profit off of them.
Having athletes like Kipchoge signed to your brand is great. He stirs up interest in the shoes he wears (for him especially with the first appearance of the Vaporflys), but it is basically impossible to actually calculate how profitable he is. How can you determine how many shoes Kipchoge has sold? More likely sponsoring elite athletes is more about showing your product is legit and used by the best of the best. Sorry to say, but in the grand scheme of things, these companies are not investing in the sport, they're investing in their products--and sometimes will throw their pocket change to sponsor meets and other things.
Signing a random athlete in the middle of their career because they popped off at a random race is a big risk compared to picking up a collegiate grad. How do you know investing in them is going to legitimize your brand and more than it already is? They're companies, not charities. That's just the honest (and tough) truth.
For that reason it does make me a little sad when I see someone post "someone sign him/her" after a random athlete pops off in some race. I admire their performance, but the odds really are stacked against him/her.
It's advertising and PR for them. Before Meb. no one considered Sketchers as a company that made serious running shoes. Now everyone does. Avia made serious running shoes for many years. Maybe they still do. But they never put any top level runners in their shoes. How many people buy them now? I know people who have worked at Nike and I'll tell you that Nike does not want people seeing top placers at significant runners wearing shoes from competitiors.
Good point about Sketchers and Meb. I still consider Sketchers a cheap brand I would never buy, but their credibility in the running community has definitely gone up because of Meb.
Actually, making the Olympics is a huge deal if you're from a small country. Nike sponsors a ton of athletes because every athlete wearing their kit is an advertisement for their brand. It's not about one mega-popular athlete because Usain Bolts are few and far between. Why do you think brands sponsor entire college programs when nearly every athlete is unknown to the general public? Also, track is different from a teams sport because it is a bunch of different disciplines -- sprints, distances, throws, jump, multis. Putting all your money into one athletes leaves all the other disciplines to your competitors
We don’t sponsor athletes usually, we sponsor teams. When you hear a big club with a name sponsor (think on running team) it’s a ploy. Big athletes eventually break off for their own deals such as Molly Seidel and Des Linden in the US did, but usually it’s team sponsored hoping to find a diamond in The rough. I’m an Ex-regional marketing surveyor, literally got paid to figure out how much they should pay teams based on location and numbers. Running was one of our sports. This is the reasoning, no other unless you are sport specific (Brooks for example)
I really don't think brands are *that* worried about a direct ROI on individual athlete sponsorships. Instead they view sponsoring, etc as a way to verify their brand's legitimacy. It is not really "Be Like Mike," but "look, these are legitimate products used by legitimate athletes."
^This - Serious shoe companies "have to" sponsor runners, if nike didnt sponsor runners people would be surprised how quickly their legitimacy as brand would be eroded. The trickle down effect to the masses of hobby joggers who couldnt even name one pro runner would be shocking, considering the cost vs market size the ROI is probably better than what they get from the more notable athletes in the revenue sports.
I really don't think brands are *that* worried about a direct ROI on individual athlete sponsorships. Instead they view sponsoring, etc as a way to verify their brand's legitimacy. It is not really "Be Like Mike," but "look, these are legitimate products used by legitimate athletes."
Right, the garden variety LRCMB poster tends to misunderstand the issue as "$X going to Runner Y = Z shoes sold" when it's simply a case of "does this athlete, wearing the brand logo, help to raise the brand's marketing profile among desired demographic(s) in a given space?" They aren't doing this in a vacuum where they're measuring the metrics of shoes sold before and after signing a particular athlete to an endorsement deal.
1. Has never been and never will be sponsored so you're angry that others are.
2. Doesn't understand how it all works
They do not receive more than they pay for any athlete- it's not like- we give Joe NFLer 20 million a year and he brought is 21 million.
Let them make their money doing something they love and, if it so pleases you, enjoy.
I have bought shoes because they signed a runner I knew personally and I emailed the companies to tell them that's why I was buying their shoes.
You realize you're in the VAST minority, right? I don't think OP is angry that athletes are sponsored, just that he noticed people on here are surprised when pretty fast guys are unsponsored. It shouldn't be a surprise that there are unsponsored Americans coming 15-20th at Boston, because no one is gonna be buying shoes based on what the 15th placer at Boston is wearing. A 3:39 guy isn't gonna get signed out of college unless they have something like a large social media following (The Athlete Special for example).
I hear people freak out when they see a runner/thrower/jumper not sponsored yet. However, just because you made the Olympics doesn't mean a ton. Why would a company sponsor you when they probably have little return on their investment. Unless you have a million Instagram followers, it probably makes little sense. I love the sport and want to see runners get more money, but it's important to be realistic.
NFL players make so much because the sport brings in the money. There is a return on investment to pay an NFL player $20M/year or sign them to a sponsorship deal. An NFL player is insanely popular. We are not. A kid will go out and buy that product when they see him on TV.
People in our sport think we should wag our finger at these big companies when they haven't sponsored someone yet. Give me a break...they are not in the business of charity.
Why would a company pay an NFL team to wear its uniforms? Why pay a university to do the same? Do you think people in Wisconsin are going to buy Under Armor gear because the Badgers wear it? Will Notre Dame fans do the same? Will Steeler fans buy Reebok gear because Reebok makes the Steelers' uniforms? Evidently the companies do or they wouldn't spend money on these sponsorships and the same applies to runners.
Well, for one fans of NFL teams buy the replica jerseys and they are usually the same manufacturer as the game jerseys. The fans also buy tons of licensed apparel. I tried to buy a singlet for my favorite college which is no different really than buying a football jersey from my favorite college but I could not find the former.
I don't know if you've ever been to a local fun run and seen the thousands of middle-aged people wearing vaporflys/alphaflys, but I assure you they do. There's absolutely no way that happens without the elites wearing them.
You may think casual runners don't follow the sport, and therefore, they don't know what the elites are wearing - and that may be somewhat true. However, there's a kind of concentric circles dynamic in which the elites/sub-elites wear them -> then running geeks start wearing them (many of whom are quite good runners themselves, performing well, often winning their local fun runs/park runs) -> then the casual runner, who also attends these events, starts wearing them.
Multiply this a million times over, and BAM, you've got a profitable marketing strategy.
I think on track athletes have helped the brand tremendously. They have completely changed the way I view the shoe company and have made them look like a legitimate shoe brand. I think having a team and showing that effort helps sell shoes not just the marketing value of an individual athlete. There are a lot of people who become lifetime fans of a shoe because of a particular professional athlete and to say sponsoring athletes is useless is ignoring a lot of intangible aspects of building a brand.
You could put a random person in a pair of vaporflys in any advertisement and they would still start selling to runners. Just market them as fast shoes and go viral with stories of 25min 5K hobby joggers running 2 mins faster. No one knows our elite track stars. Hobby joggers that run 20 minute 5K's might buy a pair, but not because Rupp wears them. The ROI on Rupp wearing vaporflys vs. my neighbor wearing them in an ad is probably the same.
Some good points on this thread. Also, some other points which specifically point to what I'm talking about. I love the sport, but I just find it funny when people cry how unfair it is that some elite runner is not sponsored. You act like these companies HAVE to sponsor elites because they are so good. It has nothing to do with that.
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