Why is Adidas paying Drew Hunter so much money?

Because people like you put his name out everywhere.

He has more name recognition than Cole Hocker.

There are young people in every sport making lots of money despite not meeting enormous expectations. No reason that running should be an exception.

I'm really hoping that Drew will turn it around. Not sure what happened with the recent 5k, but he was showing signs of being in good shape during indoor.

Who's Cole Hocker?

Good for Drew

Nike tends to lock up the top guys. Adidas took a risk thinking they could match Nike with Hunter. (Think under armour signing young injured Steph curry) Hunter's agent negotiated smart contract 10 yrs, no cut, college, continued Tin/mom coaching.

Hasn't been a big win for Adidas, but they have to honor contract, and they still can get use from him as part of their 'stable' of sponsored athletes. Meet and greets, pr, shoe testing, motivational speaking, print ads. He's not a diva, he'll reliably handle his responsibilities.

In frame of entire Adidas running shoe budget, he's not a big cost. Win some, lose some - ya gotta stay in the game.

Because they got suckered

This is no different than signings in other sports like baseball. Some team goes nuts for a high school lefty with a 102 MPH heater and ink him to a big deal with an obscene bonus. Pitches half a season of AA ball, gets hurt, has Tommy John surgery, and never regains velocity nor develops any new pitches. Leaves the game at age 21 with the team still paying him millions to satisfy the terms of the contract.

#1 Don't EVER capitalize adidas again. Adolf Dassler would bepassed, Rudolph Dassler would laugh.

adidas /= PUMA

#2 adidas probably threw a bunch of money at Hunter ($3M at time of signing and guaranteed a base salary + performance incentives for 10 years.

4 years remaining on Drew’s contract and then POOF no more Tinman

How Drew could be making so much more money than Klecker or Kincaid, who is actually running world class times, boggles the mind.

Simple, Adidas paid for Drew Hunter's potential. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

Adidas hoped Hunter would be Webb. On hopes Klecker will be Rupp. Which shoe would you buy - adidas 'PR Hunter', or ON 'hI-mileage Klecker'?

This. He was signed out of high school on potential. A lot of contracts for young pros are based on potential.

He was a fast high schooler who seemed to have a lot of potential. If most these types don't live up to the potential, but every now and then there is a Webb or Jakob caliber runner, the company that signs them still makes out.

But at least in Drew Hunter's case he has gotten Adidas publicity in ways other than him running fast, so it's not a total loss for Adidas.

Webb and Jakob were running significantly faster at 18 than Hunter was running at 19. I never did understand the hype around Hunter

There’s nba players that never play minute during the regular season. Hunters salary is a drop in the hat.

I guess I assumed they wanted a poster child for young ultra conservatives wearing their shoes, and that he only needed to be just good enough to get into pro meets.

i dont know who hunter is but i know cole hocker

I know this has been brought up but it seems very obvious if you watch Drew run. He is extremely inefficient with a lot of foot instability. I think he does slightly better at short distances because the inefficiency is less of a factor. He probably has a monster engine VO2 max wise but not a good enough “body” to use it all.