Kyle Merber’s tweet about unsponsored athletes

Agreed. Which is some of the issue on why pros arent making money.

Below is directly from USATF's website.

"No form of publicity, advertising, branding, or promotion may appear on a person’s body, clothing or equipment used by Participants in the entire venue at the Trials. With the exception of standard manufacturers' equipment identification permitted by the USOPC (or the Manufacturer Identification permitted by the rules of thee NGB’s International Federation (IF), and as approved by the USOPC, , the equipment, uniforms and the bibs/numbers of the competitors and officials at the Trials may not bear any commercial identification or promotional material of any kind (whether commercial or noncommercial).

Competitor uniforms may bear the name of his or her track club, provided the club is a registered member and in good standing with USA Track & Field by no later than December 31, 2020, and has been approved by the USOPC. All USA Track & Field approved clubs must also remain in good standing through the completion date of the applicable event and are compliant pursuant to USA Track & Field’s SafeSport Handbook.

Any violation of the rules may result in disqualification."

What exactly does it take to be considered an official track club? Can anyone just pay USATF a few hundred dollars and register a club?

No, because there aren't millions & millions of 'hobby hammer throwers' out there who need shoes.

But the right hammer thrower with the right personality and the right marketing team can sell cereal.

Comparing field athletes with track athletes is like comparing apples and oranges. Very few field athletes are marketable, less appealing. The only exception I see is Mondo. This has everything to do with SELLING a brand, not charity work.

I think you got the idea here.

I know a guy who was sponsored by Nike about 15 years ago. He wasn't all that fast- he was a decent steepler (Olympic Trials didn't make finals). He would run some 5k/10k road races.

He told me Nike gave him 4K a year plus all the shoes/clothing he needed.

His agent would get him 1k-2k appearance money and he'd win whatever there was in prize money.

He said that after giving his agent his share (20% or something like that) he just couldn't make ends meet so he got out of the sport.

At the other end- I bet Coburn, Brazier, Murphy ..... are making decent enough livings that they can put money aside for the future.

There's a very wide range here.

We have other sports T&F can model the organization after. Better yet, take the best components of those and incorporate them into our world. Just as an example, look how mature the triathlon (USAT) and the international NGO tour is. For starters, they are allowed multiple sponsors on their kit. It doesn't seem to hurt the larger sponsors. (I'm sure there are political issues at USAT, etc, but that is for a different discussion). Even pro team sports are slowly loosening their grip on ads on the uniforms. For a few years, the NBA allows one and the NFL allows them on the practice jerseys. I think the MLB has an ad on the spring training uniforms.

In terms of athlete unions, we should look at the golf/tennis tours and mimic from them the parts that would work.

If we grow the pie, everyone makes more!

But then the cereal company doesn’t get to put their logo out there?? To do so, they have to start a cereal USATF CLUB?!? Look man, this isn’t like yesteryear when only TV was available so that Wheaties commercials were beamed in front of everybody in the frequent stream of commercials on the big 3 networks.

I personally cannot stand Kyle Merber or his pitiful excuse for a newsletter.

There is nothing stopping these athletes from getting other sponsorship and it's absolute garbage to say the fact they can't race in their other sponsors is the reason.

Michael Jordan didn't play with McDonald's on his jersey, LeBron didn't play with Kia on his jersey, Peyton Manning didn't play with Allstate on his jersey, and Cristiano Ronaldo literally plays with one of his main sponsors arch rival on his jersey every week while they pay him millions.

If CR7 can be paid millions of dollars by Nike and play in an Adidas Jersey in front of some of the biggest television audiences in the world surely a track athlete can be paid by Ford and run without Ford on his singlet for 20 minutes.