Centro Has Turned Pro

Also, you aren't going to find this data. It's not public information.

Forget times and how many NCAA championships he won. If he can qualify for the olympics next year - he will make bank. Most contracts are laced with spicy incentives which always put olympics and World Championships at the very top. So even if he gets shortchanged for say 60k a year, base - maybe an olympic qualification might lead to that 100k.

The fact that Centro medaled at WCs makes him a medal contender for next year. An olympic medal contender will get a good contract. It makes sense - your face is shown to millions of viewers. They will recognize you and the brand.

I do think he will be undervalued so whoever picks him will get a great deal as I am sure he will be productive, time-wise, for many years to come.

Obviously I don't know for sure, but the numbers I had heard were that Fernandez was offered 200k, Webb signed for 250k (seems low), Wheating 300k and Rupp 500k (seems far too high). These could and probably are incorrect, they were just what I had heard.

It's hard to argue against the move. He is going to finish his degree. That should please the "education focused". He is giving up two college seasons, but may well have skipped / downplayed those to focus on olympic trials prep. There is certainly more risk than reward in running NCAA races at this point.

I don't know what entry level sociologists make, but I imagine it may be less than what he gets here. He would benefit from starting to maximize his atheletic earnings as soon as possible.

Any word on who will be sponsoring him?

asdgfh wrote:

It's not a couple of years, it's 6 months. Centro would be a pro by the Trials regardless. I don't think this is as much about money between now and the end of the college track season, as it is about preparing for the Trials and the Olympics in the optimal way. That doesn't include an NCAA indoor and outdoor season.

Yah, I get that it's not two more years of school but I was thinking in terms of what he'd make in two years as a 33-year-old miler -- probably less than what he'll pull in in half a year now. But those are excellent points. Running both indoors and outdoors at his level is a pain in the ass.

Next years 1500 will be brutal -> Torrence,Leer,Wheating,Manzano,Webb,Lomong,MattC aaaa!!!!

I think it's fair to say German's talent level is closer to Alan Webb's than a lot of people realize. And if there was a direct correlation between contract and talent then German probably was worth that $250k after his freshman season. Nonetheless as much buzz as there was around German on letsrun.com starting with his senior year of high school, I don't think it ever really approached Webb level in the wider world of media.

Webb was a big deal pretty much throughout his high school career. The local buzz started when he finished 2nd at state cross as a high school freshman and grew steadily from there over the next 4 years. He did remarkable things every year, and by the time he was a senior he was nationally known even outside the running community. There was also this almost mythic objective in front of him: the high school 4 minute mile. At that time no one had broken it in decades, and Webb seemed destined to do so. It made for a great narrative and people, including sports writers, latched onto it.

German had an incredibly senior year in high school, and probably was a well known local talent even as an underclassman. However he did not have the same 3 years of growing national popularity, nor did he have the same 4 minute mile story line associated with his name. He built on his senior year with an amazing freshman year of college, but I think incredible running feats in high school actually get more popular attention than amazing running feats in college (outside the hard core running community).

Running is more of a participant sport than a spectator sport, and more people participate in competitive track , or have kids participating in competitive track, in high school than they do in college. Consequently at any given time I think more people are following the sport at that level. Shoe companies don't make their money selling to the small group of hard core fans who follow college running closely; they sell them to hobby joggers who can probably only name a handful of runners. Alan Webb was one of those runners when he signed his contract. I'm not sure German Fernandez was as a college freshman.

Finally I think shoe companies are probably more hesitant to give long term $250k contracts to anyone early in their careers. In running it has proven too difficult to tell which 19-20 year old phenom will turn out to be a big name year in and year out. How many people thought German's college track career would look the way it does now after his freshman year?

All that being said, I think German could have got more than $50k after his freshman year but probably less than $250k x 6 years.

Kevin Liao wrote:

The 3:29 he ran in Europe probably had more to do with it than the NCAA double.

Wheating's best is 3:30.90 and yes that helped if his contract hadn't already been signed.

He ran his 3:30.90 July 22 in a Nike USA singlet.

His contract was announced July 28.

There's a chance the contract had been signed before the race and the announcement came later. If not, I'd love to know how much more cash that race made him.

Wheating's 3:30.90:

OK, comparing runners like Fernandez to Webb in terms of what they may or may not be offered from Nike, Adidas, etc. is being made to sound like its all about what "time" you've run.

Someone said basically "Webb ran 3:53", Fernandez ran 3:55 and was younger, so he should have gotten as much as Webb's contract".

Triple figure contracts are not thrown out hardly at all for runners. Times, marketability, sustainability, and can you help sell the brand.

Alan Webb had alot of factors that came into play when he received a 200k type contract. That was the beginning of a huge boom in popularity and media for HS running, to the point that along with Ritz Nike actually came out with Michigan and Colorado styled Nike Kennedy spikes, in recognition of Webb and Ritz. Webb made an international splash in his 3:53 on national television in a race against the world record holder, and it made for a nice media whirlwind fo him.

It came at a time when no HS kid had broken 4 for a very long time, and it was a big deal in newspapers and such.

This is how Webb got a big contract.

Fernandez doesn't have much of a personality presence, and he hasn't made the kind of popular splash like Webb did. And as much as times are great, and Fernandez had a phenomenal freshman year, winning competitive races go even further than running fast times, as Centro's season shows.

Unfortunately track & field doesn't hold enough popularityin general to warrant big 6 figure pay days, unless you are really winning races and helping to market running products successfully for your sponsors.

webb is arguably more the everyman type, because of looks, than gf, who is marketable, and webb beat Jim Ryun's old record and appeared on Letterman. gf is arguably as talented but is too fragile. Centro I had underrated but no more. What he did was unbelievable. He is staying in Eugene, so I hope that he trains with Wheating. It will be hard to keep the USA down next year if a healthy Centro, Wheating, and Webb or Manzano or Lomong or Lagat represent us in the fifteen in London. I mention Lagat because he said after World's that he didn't like the feeling of running just one event. I would not be surprised to see him in the fifteen at Trials once again, like this year, and to see him at London in the five and fifteen this time.

Congrats to Centro. Hopefully he doesn't pull a Wheating and have a sub par 1st year as a pro.

Fernandez, though, is Hispanic, and there's a huge market there to which Nike, etc., would like to appeal.

Mr know it all wrote:

There is certainly more risk than reward in running NCAA races at this point.

See, I disagree entirely. I think Centro should do EXACTLY what he did last year when he won his WC bronze. If that means racing indoors, outdoors, then on the summer circuit, so be it. It worked for him last year.

Look what happened to Wheating when he had a more typical pro schedule last year, he sucked. He would have been better off starting his season indoors as he did in college when he had several fantastic long seasons (2008 Olympics, 2010 season that ended with a 3:30.9).

I think the worst thing you can do in an Olympic year is to make a big change.

However...if he's basically still going to be coached by Vin, train with the same guys, compete in the same meets unattached... then yeah, you might as well get paid for it.

Though rojo has long been infatuated by GF, I don't believe that that young man was the collegiate best when he won the NCAA 1500 during his frosh year. The #1 miler that year was Centro. Anyone who was at that championship and saw the ease with which Centro advanced, knew that he would win the final with GF. Unfortunately, Centro came up with the stress fracture during the competition and the face-off never occured. Centro did vow to come back to fight another day--sucessfully as we all know now.

I find it interesting how many Oregon kids are getting pro contracts these days. It seems that they are getting the proper grooming and direction from the program in Track City. In recent years, Rupp, Wheating, Eaton, and now Centro (Blood, Acosta??)all secured (will secure in Centro's situation)major contracts. The agents make money based on a percentage of the athletes endorsement contracts and prize winnings at races.

How much does someone like Bobby Curtis make?

Reliable sources say that wheating signed at 800 a year after a bidding war that finally ended in Nike blowing it out because they are bent on having an American 1500m medalist at the games. They couldn't let the new Oregon guy get away. That plus the medal plus the family history, no way little Matt signed for less than 3mil over 4 years.

Lukesic went pro because he had the opportunity and the gtown team more or less hated him. It was just as much his way of saying "I told you I was better than you" as it was anything else.

ntfyg wrote:

German Lost Nothing wrote:

...Nobody was going to offer German a pro contract for anything beyond maybe 50k a year. Why would they when Chris Derrick was clearly better than German just in that class year...

Derrick better than Fernandez as HS seniors?

Maybe.

Derrick was "clearly better" than Fernandez?

Don't be ridiculous. Fernandez ran a 4:00.29 for 1600 meters to break Ryan Hall's state meet record of 4:02.62, and 3 hours later, ran the 3200m in 8:34.2. And then finished his career with an 8:34.40 2 mile to break a 29 year-old record.

Derrick was clearly better? Yeah, right.

Derrick crushed German at Footlocker by 15 secs of something, ditto at NCAA XC (7th or 8th vs DNF), and Indoor NCAAs (All American vs DNS), and in 5000m for the AJR. All Fernandez did was time trial some records, broke a 29 year old record, record of whom, how did that Nelson do in college (that tells you what the record was worth)?

You guys missed it. He ran 30:05 at a Mesa AZ turkey trot last week. He got 2nd to Lemoncello

Something else to think about: A WC bronze medalist is eligible for $30,000 in prize money. I assume he has a limited window of opportunity to accept it.