Ryan Hill leaves BTC. Update. He's signed with HOKA NAZ Elite.

Reading all this training talk about different groups reminds me of Justin Knyght. When Coach Fox had him at Syracuse he was running no more than 50mpw? What's his training like now? Initially he had a few bad races for Reebok but this time last year was dominating indoor.

The Puma rumour mill may be true as their training HQ is nearby...

marathoninmind wrote:

No reason the US couldn't have more 2:06 type marathoners and no reason he couldn't be one of them. Things look a lot less crowded for 2024 in the marathon than they do in the 5k/10k too.

You think there is "no reason" why an NCAA miler will be a 2:06 marathoner? I mean the new shoes may make a 2:06 high a 2:10 from back in the day but not everyone is Rod Dixon.

10 years a Pro wrote:

He didn’t leave. He was dropped.

Alistair is picking up the scraps. This will be a disaster. And Puma sucks.

Nike said the same bullish!t with Meb. Then he crushed.

10 years a Pro wrote:

He didn’t leave. He was dropped.

Alistair is picking up the scraps. This will be a disaster. And Puma sucks.

gotta love these know it alls

flagv.everybody wrote:

10 years a Pro wrote:

He didn’t leave. He was dropped.

Alistair is picking up the scraps. This will be a disaster. And Puma sucks.

gotta love these know it alls

Thank you. It is good to be loved. I find it humorous how people without contracts pretend to know what is going on.

Many will be dropped.

Nike has a built in clause that allows them to match another companies offer within 6 months of a contract ending.

This means that if an athlete signs with someone else it is because Nike no longer wanted them.

if an athlete receives a contract offer from another brand and Nike chooses not to match, it's not the same thing as getting dropped. Do we know if Hill was offered a renewal contract?

This isn't that surprising, especially at Nike. The current CEO, John Donahoe, is not a sports guy. He came to Nike from the tech world and was tasked with two things: make Nike a digital first company (read: be far less dependent on traditional retail channels, sell direct to consumer, achieve bigger margins) and to cut dramatically cut costs by eliminating waste and redundant operations. The company just completed a big round of layoffs as they consolidate product lines and functions. They will be performing more layoffs in January.

Capriotti is out. Masback is in and has less money to work with. You will see many athletes getting released, non-tendered, or leaving for deals elsewhere. This will likely hit domestic athletes harder as Nike owns the US market and is seeking more international growth. In addition, being a good runner is no longer enough to keep your job. You also have to have great social media presence and the ability to use it to bring fans to the brand. Like it or not, working diligently and quietly is not what the marketing wing of the company is looking for. If your are not an Olympic, World, or US champion, then you better have a ton of passionate Instagram and Twitter followers to stay on board. Athletes, especially men, need to learn this quickly. The truth is that Colleen Quigley moves more Nike product via her social media efforts that all of the BTC men combined. That is more important to corporate sponsors that being the #5 American man at 5,000 meters or making Canada's Olympic team.

10 years a Pro wrote:

flagv.everybody wrote:

gotta love these know it alls

Thank you. It is good to be loved. I find it humorous how people without contracts pretend to know what is going on.

Many will be dropped.

Nike has a built in clause that allows them to match another companies offer within 6 months of a contract ending.

This means that if an athlete signs with someone else it is because Nike no longer wanted them.

Weird, I thought I was the only one who read Letsrun's coverage of Boris Berian's contract

He will be joining a marathon group with Molly Seidel.

I was rooting hard for a younger Ryan hill at the indoor world championships in Portland. He was tough and talented and that made him fun to watch. However, anyone who has seen him run will have noticed that his form doesn’t quite cut the mustard for high quality marathoning. Not to say he couldn’t be a 212 guy. If running still fulfills him that is great, he should continue in whatever vain he sees fit. But their are an innumerable set of endeavors he can lose himself in, and probably more than a few he would find equally fulfilling. The running dream eventually ends for everyone. Get what you need from it and move on

I agree that Puma currently sucks and has sucked for a very long time but you shouldn't discount a company that has as much money as Puma does. Puma has also been growing rapidly in sales since 2019 apparently which is a shock to me but the numbers are there. If they want to turn towards running they can do it without a problem and right now is the best time to do that in regards to securing athletes. On Running picked up a bunch of athletes that they likely wouldn't have in normal times because the bigger companies don't want to take on contracts. You can see this by the fact that they secured two well established US training groups but were not able to sign significant track athletes in the US until this year. Not gonna say 100% but I'm sure they were trying to make moves in years past.

True. Not every shoe company wants to put money into a High Performance Running Team. If Puma wants a good team they have the ability to financially back one.

Best of luck to Ryan Hill and his wife.

renewal? wrote:

if an athlete receives a contract offer from another brand and Nike chooses not to match, it's not the same thing as getting dropped. Do we know if Hill was offered a renewal contract?

But it actually is! If you're good enough, Nike wants you and would keep you unless you don't like Nike and are willing to take less.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:

renewal? wrote:

if an athlete receives a contract offer from another brand and Nike chooses not to match, it's not the same thing as getting dropped. Do we know if Hill was offered a renewal contract?

But it actually is! If you're good enough, Nike wants you and would keep you unless you don't like Nike and are willing to take less.

No it isn’t. I know someone who left Nike cause they got an offer 3-4 times more with another shoe company. Good riddance to Nike.

good riddance. wrote:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot wrote:

But it actually is! If you're good enough, Nike wants you and would keep you unless you don't like Nike and are willing to take less.

No it isn’t. I know someone who left Nike cause they got an offer 3-4 times more with another shoe company. Good riddance to Nike.

You didn't refute the point, Nike quite obviously didn't really want the person you know. They put it out there so they don't have to make the public decision of severing the relationship.

Lowball offers = "you can't help us but you can stay on with a huge salary cut, otherwise good luck on the market"

That doesn't mean that Nike's been wrong about many athletes, such as Meb, but that they have their sights set on the next hot commodity (for performance, visibility, and marketability) and can get who they want so don't have to think long about someone in a plateau or a rut. They're probably not going to overpay, that's for foolish companies like Puma, ON, UnderArmour, and Reebok.

free shipping with purchase wrote:

For those envisioning future improvements in a different environment, different event, etc. ... I'm not seeing it. Schumacher trains the living piss out of his athletes - some make it, some get destroyed. There's usually not much left. Bayer and Hughes have both stagnated to been a bit worse. Who am I missing?

What’re you missing? PR’s for Hughes this last season for starters.

Is there a LIMIT to the amount of ELITE athletes that BTC will take on?

Now that NOP is defunct, BTC is clearly the best club. Why would Hill leave unless he was forced out?

I heard a rumor Hill is moving to Boulder to join the Tinmen! With the superior guidance of Tinman, I think Hill will be a lock for the Olympic Team ?

Perhaps if he joins Tinman he can learn how to throw down a vicious kick like Drew Hunter has!