which is based on Emma saying at the start of her instagram post, "Since my fueling company dropped me after telling them I was pregnant" https://www.instagram.com/p/DW...
UCAN told Front Office Sports, "The partnership decisions for 2026 were made in September 2025 as a part of regular business planning and before any knowledge of her pregnancy. We made an effort to continue working with Emma under a new agreement, but she ultimately chose not to move forward with that option."
LetsRun.com changed the tile from "UCAN drops Emma Bates due to pregnancy"
The ONLY reason I know UCAN exists is because of their sponsorship of Meb. Don't even know whether that sponsorship is ongoing, though if it isn't he didn't torch that bridge as a public spectacle.
I had never heard of UCAN until the outrage army started losing their mind based on Emma Bates' claim. Made me look into them and saw that it was developed primarily as a nutritional solution for a young boy named Jonah with Glycogen Storage Disease and to help those with similar issues. Very cool and to be applauded.
Obviously the company has expanded to include endurance sports in its targeted marketing. It's not like they are a financial juggernaut like Nike or Adidas that make multi-billion dollar profits annually from extorting cheap foreign labor or desperate athletes trying to chase their dreams and support their families. As others have mentioned, Emma's sponsorship deal was likely a small chunk for x amount of online engagement views/clicks and an affiliation cut per box sold - I doubt this accounted for much of her actual annual income. The outrage vs actual negative financial impact on Emma's livelihood feels like a massive imbalance. Especially when all we have right now is hearsay and no written dialogue or contract renewal conditions have been leaked. At this point, it is she said vs they said
This is a Joke, they dropped her way before she was pregnant and that the facts. She chose not to continue. Emma looks like the cry baby here
You can not like Emma’s personality and you can also point to her potentially underperforming lately, but neither of these is an indictment of her honesty. What exactly has she ever done to indicate she is dishonest or would outright lie about something like this?
So Emma's contract with UCAN was set to expire Dec 31. Conversations were had thru the fall about renewing it. No deal was in place on Dec 18, when UCAN learned of Emma's pregnancy, though supposedly there was an offer on the table waiting for her acceptance.
According to UCAN, they never pulled this offer (they even offered it again, in January, after Bates' side let the original contract expire). There are no explicit claims from Bates' side that an offer was pulled from the table.
So, WTF is UCAN supposed to do here?!? Offering her the same terms they had been offering (despite the expectation of zero ROI the next 18mo) seems *more* than fair. Do people expect them to *increase* their offer until she takes it (despite the impending period of no ROI) because she's pregnant? That's ludicrous.
UCAN is getting done dirty here.
i read the timeline differently to you
November - Offer 1 (significant reduction, probably tantamount to being dropped), which Bates rejected
December - discussions continue, and potentially another better Offer 2 is discussed but not made officially
December - everyone finds out she is pregnant
Jan - Offer 1 is made but Offer 2 is officially off the table
I think there is scope for both parties to be being shady
Bates being shady - got basically got cut in November (Offer 1 significant reduction), but they were still trying to make it work. Then she misrepresents Offer 2 as being pulled after pregnancy
UCAN being shady - the timeline in that longrunlabs blog is NOT what they originally responded with. They tried to say 'we cut her in September end of' but that's not a full picture
Basically, it all boils down to the Offer 2 discussions, how firm they were, what level the discussions were had at. If they were totally informal and two low-level people shooting the breeze - Bates is being worse. If they were quite significant and all but ink on page - UCAN is worse.
I doubt we'll never know if Offer 2 was ever going to become official even if she wasn't pregnant, so I'll never know who to feel righteous about.
It's impossible to know who (if anyone) behaved poorly without more info about the December/January discussion.
If a company is trying in good faith to retain an employee, it is certainly unusual to make a better offer, even unofficially, and then reverse course to a worse offer.
They likely have an out due to her being a sponsored athlete under a contract with them. As that likely has 1) performance clauses, and/or 2) status as a contractor and not a payroll employee (though this murky), but this is false or at best very misleading given the complexities of employment law.
Businesses broadly speaking cannot "do whatever they want" when it comes to terminating employees and contract who have protected classes (which pregnancy can include).
Well it sounds like her contract expired and they were negotiating renewing it. So yes, they can do whatever what.
Awful move by Bates though. Who is ever going to want to sponsor her again? Especially when it seems like at the very best, Bates is exaggerating a little. At worst completely lying. The fact she has continually disappointed doesn’t make it a great move either. Does sponsoring someone that doesn’t perform well and is going to air dirty laundry on the way out sound like someone you’d want to employ?
100%
A couple of things at play here, I find it hard to believe that in today's culture of women's rights, and notably, becoming pregnant while employed, why would any reputable company "terminate" and or "drop" an athlete because she's pregnant. That being said, who's responsible for Emma's contract, who negotiated it? As a female athlete, a pregnancy clause is the No#2 most important component in a contract behind compensation. Whomever forgot to cross their t's and dot their i's, whether it was her agent or Emma, it was a major screw up. To throw a sponsor under the bus on social media is both irresponsible and not smart.
I'll be continuing with UCAN gels, because even as a 'hobby jogger', they work for me as well as they can and out of a lot of gels I've tried, I like them the best.
The drama, Bates being dropped because she was under-performing and/or pregnant, nor her being bitter and lying on a company about her contract make no difference and I'll be damned if I throw out my UCAN gels because I'm mad for Bates..
One other thing the masses are ignoring: Emma was set to become a free agent in terms of nutrition sponsorship on Jan 1. She & her team were free to sign with any nutrition sponsor they wanted. Didn't like the UCAN offer? Try to get a better one somewhere else. Can't get a better one? Accept whatever UCAN is offering. Or bet on yourself to increase your value and pick one up later.
Pregnancy or not, her team severely misplayed their hand here. They had to know that UCAN wouldn't *increase* their offer after a pregnancy disclosure. So why not accept the best offer they had on the table at that point? To accept no offers from any company, and then claim to have been "dropped" by someone they were no longer under contact with... that's some disingenuous $#!+
Anyway, Emma Bates is hugely popular among hobby joggers. People running 4-hour marathons don't care if Bates ran 2:18 or 2:25. UCAN shot themselves in the foot by losing her at the same time she was announcing pregnancy.
You can not like Emma’s personality and you can also point to her potentially underperforming lately, but neither of these is an indictment of her honesty. What exactly has she ever done to indicate she is dishonest or would outright lie about something like this?
She has repeatedly pre-race what amazing shape she's in and then run poorly, magically picked up an injury between then and race day, etc.
Anyway, Emma Bates is hugely popular among hobby joggers. People running 4-hour marathons don't care if Bates ran 2:18 or 2:25. UCAN shot themselves in the foot by losing her at the same time she was announcing pregnancy.
- She will be 34 this summer. Can't imagine her return the roads will happen prior to turning 36. Hard to believe she will be competitive at that point. From a sponsorship standpoint, you'd have to think that there are more competitive runners you can work with. At the very least, they can find runfluencers who would give them far larger reach for less money.
- Emma has been known make some odd or societally unconventional decisions(remember when she lived in a remote, off the grid cabin for years?). Perhaps this instagram reel is a continuation of historical unhinged behavior from Emma.
- Hasn't finished Top 10 in a marathon in 3 years. Career has been declining.
- The majority of people running 4-hour marathons barely have any idea who Eliud Kipchoge or Kelvin Kiptum is, nevermind Emma Bates. They also likely have no idea what UCAN is.
- Emma's instagram follow count vs comment engagement is suspiciously low. One might assume that a large number of follows might have been bought in order to "boost" their value for potential sponsorships..... Social Media platforms do this all the time by adding lots of bot accounts, mimicking real users, to artificially inflate their shareholder values and then get sued for fraud.
- The truth of the UCAN vs Emma Bates might not be as she is framing it to be. Emma has routinely made public statements time and time again over the years that are not actually rooted in reality. ie. "I'm in 2:18 shape" and then proceeds to run 2:25/2:27 in ideal conditions.
- There are lots of pubmed studies published about observed neuroanatomical changes made in the brain during pregnancy - Emma's public statements about UCAN may have been influenced by said changes. Odd that the contract expired De.31 but she waits until March 24 to go public and throw them under the bus
when she posted this IG reel, I almost wrote UCAN for gels in the comments (she was asking for favorite gel brands). I had no idea her previous sponsor so I'm glad I didn't. However, I didn't respond at all because I thought it was a snarky post. Why are some runners so salty about dropped sponsorships? and then to go blame it on pregnancy for sympathy and comments. They clearly chose to go a different direction, give other runners (maybe multiple) the budget they paid her. Plenty of reasons but it came of ungrateful imo.
I'll be continuing with UCAN gels, because even as a 'hobby jogger', they work for me as well as they can and out of a lot of gels I've tried, I like them the best.
The drama, Bates being dropped because she was under-performing and/or pregnant, nor her being bitter and lying on a company about her contract make no difference and I'll be damned if I throw out my UCAN gels because I'm mad for Bates..
it's all I can tolerate that doesn't make me want to throw up the second half. Ive tried many gels and always go back to UCAN
You can not like Emma’s personality and you can also point to her potentially underperforming lately, but neither of these is an indictment of her honesty. What exactly has she ever done to indicate she is dishonest or would outright lie about something like this?
when she posted this IG reel, I almost wrote UCAN for gels in the comments (she was asking for favorite gel brands). I had no idea her previous sponsor so I'm glad I didn't. However, I didn't respond at all because I thought it was a snarky post. Why are some runners so salty about dropped sponsorships? and then to go blame it on pregnancy for sympathy and comments. They clearly chose to go a different direction, give other runners (maybe multiple) the budget they paid her. Plenty of reasons but it came of ungrateful imo.
FR had no idea until today that she had any sponsor other than asics
This may surprise you, but Instagram/Reddit etc are not good indicators of what most people think or believe in the real world or even online. Letsrun is many things, but you do get plenty of opposing views here.