K. Goucher has signed with Skechers as her new sponsor

Anecdotal evidence is no substitute for science. I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Perhaps you'd like to exchange the shoes for a gift card?

errrryep wrote:

ohhh goodness skechers are such shitty shoes. they belong in walmart not on elite runners' feet.

To summarize what some others have already said: Athletes get their shoes custom made often, there is nothing new about this. However, the commercial Go Run prototypes have been getting GOOD reviews from some of the more established shoe-blogs, and I am going to reserve judgement until I try a pair on. It is GREAT that another brand is coming into the serious running market with more money to put towards athletic endorsements and the sport... give them a chance to build their product. More brands and product = a more competitive market which can be nothing but good for us as consumers.

Skechers is going about this differently than Underarmour by putting $$$ into Olympic Team members who are also at the top of the sport in our country. I would assume is there will be a massive advertising push during the OT year that looms just a few months away.

If you are a fan of the sport and elites being sponsored, what exactly is there not to like?

cheap shoes produce fewer injuries. I just got 1500 miles out of a pair of 40 dollar shoes. Earlier in the year, I got 600 or more out of 18 dollar shoes. (The usual for a pair of shoes is 600 miles for me; nike lunar trainers got me 1200 or 1300 a few years ago).

I've been running in Skechers for years, and posted this years ago.

Or2CoMoFo wrote:

Kara will sign with Skechers. It is a better situation for all involved. Nike did not want to increase her contract and Skechers was willing to pay big bucks for someone on the down slope of their career. Kara and Meb are big names to Skechers and will help their marketing but not so much to Nike. Nike will use they money they saved from Meb and Kara to sign more up and coming runners that reach their target market better(high school kids). As far as Kara goes, she gets the pay day she wants which will help their real estate situation, they can move back to Colorado to be closer to family(important for the kid), and now has more freedom to train when, where, and how she wants to.

Excellent analyis! It's also self-evident that she now has 7 years of Running Logs to utilize in order to develop an appropriate training plans for desired goals.

No one with half a brain believed that she would be changing sponsors in the last quarter of the calendar year.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

No one with half a brain believed that she would be changing sponsors in the last quarter of the calendar year.

Do you have any information saying that she didn't? Because it looks very, very likely that she did.

If she's not being coached by Salazar, what other Nike coach is she going to be able to work with? Who else coaches marathon runners that is under the Nike umbrella? Is Nike going to allow one of their athletes to be self-coached, or choose their own coach and maintain a Nike contract? Examples?

Do we have confirmation that Alan Webb is still under contract with Nike after his split with Salazar?

Don't be so quick to dismiss the idea that an athlete could change horses late in the Olympic cycle.

common wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

No one with half a brain believed that she would be changing sponsors in the last quarter of the calendar year.

Do you have any information saying that she didn't? Because it looks very, very likely that she did.

If she's not being coached by Salazar, what other Nike coach is she going to be able to work with? Who else coaches marathon runners that is under the Nike umbrella? Is Nike going to allow one of their athletes to be self-coached, or choose their own coach and maintain a Nike contract? Examples?

Do we have confirmation that Alan Webb is still under contract with Nike after his split with Salazar?

Don't be so quick to dismiss the idea that an athlete could change horses late in the Olympic cycle.

You're suggesting that, rather than finishing out her surely lucrative Nike deal for the remainder of the year, she would reject that payment, break her contract, and start with someone new? Allyson Felix didn't do that, Mo Farah didn't do that. They finished out their last contract year with adidas, and after the obligatory negotiating period was up, they signed new deals early in the calendar year. Who breaks their contract in October?

Secondly, Nike athletes don't need to work with Nike coaches. Nike coaches need to work with Nike athletes, but not vice versa. How else could Terrence Mahon coach Anna Pierce?

Finally, to put an end to the idiotic premise of this thread, follow this link and you'll see that Dan Lilot, who works for Kara's agent, Peter Stubbs, confirms that Kara Goucher is still a Nike athlete.

Come on, Jeff! What the hell. You're going to make me go through all that hand wringing and speculation, and then drop pocket aces on me? That's cold, dude.

Thanks for the link. If DL is who you say he is, I think that puts an emphatic end to the fun here.

Mr Wigand , slight correction on your assumption about contract dates at shoe companies. Most run the term of when signed not fiscal year.

I dont see anything in the blog link that refutes her leaving nike. They haven't said anything yet...

And yes, contracts are not usually on calendar years and really just depend when they were finally negotiated.

Another question. If there is a major change in your contract terms, such as you and your coach mutually agree to split, would there not be release terms written in?

Also, could a competing sponsor not buy out the penalties or the remainder of the contract on behalf of the athlete? These aren't multi-million dollar LeBron type deals we're looking at here, after all.