The term pro in any sport is an athlete that gets paid to perform in that sport. Plenty of pro athletes that you never see on a football field, or court or at the US Trials. You’re absolutely wrong
You're kidding, right? If someone doesn't make the cut for an NFL team, then yes, they are not a pro football player.
We have to draw the line somewhere and this seems like the perfect opportunity. Any (healthy) runner who cannot qualify for USAs in their main event can no longer describe themselves as a pro runner and their pro card should be pulled. Does not seem to be a big ask - not even asking them to make the finals or anything.
Yes. YES YES YES YES. Stop putting in your lame IG feed you're a pro runner when you never even made and NCAA championship let alone a USA one. You're not a prod because some shoe store is taking advantage of you and paying you LESS than the warehouse workers to wear free shoes and their store logo
We have to draw the line somewhere and this seems like the perfect opportunity. Any (healthy) runner who cannot qualify for USAs in their main event can no longer describe themselves as a pro runner and their pro card should be pulled. Does not seem to be a big ask - not even asking them to make the finals or anything.
So everyone not in the top 1% of their profession is not really a professional. So a doctor who finished in the middle of their class is just an amateur doctor? Or let's say a journalist who has a Wordpress blog about running isn't a real journalist? Okay, I'll give you that one.
I like the concept the OP is betting at. But a better analogy would be baseball. If you don't make USAs, you aren't in the majors. You are in at best AAA.
The numbers don't add up for your analogy. There are roughly 800 players in the majors at any given time. There are probably 1200+ that play in the majors at some point during the year. We have nowhere close to those numbers at USAs (even if you include the marathon we don't get to those numbers). If you're a top 200 pitcher in baseball a fair amount of fans still know your name and you're certainly a pro. In track as a top 200 runner, you're working another job, paying your own way to races, lucky if your shoes are paid for, and no one knows you or calls you a pro.
Dumb take. If you get paid to run, you're a pro runner.
What's so hard to understand about that?
Because too many nobodies who earn less than minimum wage from running still try to call themselves "pro." Whether it's free or discounted gear from the LRS or some marginal brand (like AG1, Bandit, Gatorade Endurance, Floyd's of Leadville, BRL, Polar, Ciele) or it's gift certificates to Denny's or BJ's for finishing on an age group podium, these folks go around touting themselves as "pro" even though it's actually the work they do outside of their own running that pays all their bills. Let's not even go into the whole "elite vs. sub-elite vs. hobbyist" petty, pedantic semantics. I don't know if running ripped all this artificial status stratification from triathlon or vice versa.
I would go as far as to say that if your main source of income isn’t from running you are NOT a pro.
This makes the most sense to me. If someone runs for a living and just misses USAs, that doesn't they mean they aren't a professional runner, it just means they aren't a good one. The real question is how many people there are who fit this description (running is the primary income source but no USAs). Probably not many.
I agree with this but there are also a lot of good athletes, who do quite well at a meet like USAs, who still need to supplement their incomes. Until prize money & sponsorship goes up, I'd rather draw the line with some sort of time or meet or points based system. & there's gotta be a window where people can improve and have a chance to make a meet like USAs a few years out of college. I think the line doesn't have to be super firm. If you're getting into meets & going after these standards, you're probably some level of pro. Very few are making their living from the sport.
This is barely even a thing in running. I feel like a lot of pros don't even id with the term because it's not really something we use when referring to athletes. If you're fast, you're a pro. But pros don't compete exclusively against other pros. They jump into college meets or whatever. So it's more if you run a certain time, you have a shot at earning enough income to pursue the sport full-time.
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