where was it ever stated that BTC or UTC were a business looking to make a profit? Nike started the full funded groups with athletes making very livable salaries with no need bring in additional funds to keep the groups alive
Tinman only started once Hunter got a nice contract from Adidas and there was a desire to surround him with training partners. Those training partners at best are barley making a livable wage and all the merchandise was created to help fund the group.
These are two totally separate type groups - 2 pro teams and 1 sub elite group scrambling for funding
I guarantee that these clowns have no idea what any of these numbers are.
Does Tinman sell $5 million a year or $100 thousand?
$100 thousand would not come close to paying the bills so that would be a lousy business right? Well I know for a fact that in 2019 they sold less than $40 thousand.
To operate the fully funded programs like Union or OAC or Bowerman or Beasts or Hansons or NAZ or B.A.A. or Puma Elite costs over a Million dollars a year and the top teams are spending closer to 3 Million a year and these clowns are praising the business model of selling t-shirts.
Just ridiculous.
Yeah, the better team never competes on the world stage. The only thing TME is objectively better at is not getting max benefit from PEDs.
If you start with the premise that a pro training group should exist to sell t-shirts to children, then yes TME is better than the BTC.
Nike invested in their Oregon groups because they wanted American athletes on the podium at Olympics/Worlds. Do they make money? Who knows, who cares.
What weird bubble are these guys in?
BTC has almost double the social media following that TME does, heck Karissa Schweizer has a bigger following than the TME official instagram. They run a large, very expensive summer camp, a junior team, a sub elite team, and a masters team. I'd wager BTC pushes more merch these days too. The university team I volunteer at (non USA) has multiple kids with the BTC branded dragonflies.
Yes they spend more on their pro team than TME, and probably spend more on their Utah altitude camps than TME's annual budget, but part of the reason they can do that is their additional revenue streams. Heck do TME even race in unique jerseys anymore? They look like generic Adidas kits now.
"Winning doesn't sell or boost popularity" my dudes, Matt Centrowitz has posted on Instagram once in 2022 and has about the same instagram following as the entire tinman roster combined. People follow him because he's been the best American miler for a decade straight.
Eliud Kipchoge has 1.8mil followers, more than any NHL player, and a fistful of NBA all Stars, not cause of his dope youtube videos but because he's one of the greatest living athletes.