Everyone can speculate all they want but only Meb, his agent (brother) and Nike knows what happened. They may have wanted to restructure his contract to an incentive based contract (with a reduced annual payment) since he is getting older and racing less. Meb may have refused to take a pay cut. There are numerous possibilities. Nike dropped Steve Scott after the 84 Olympics as part of a "change in marketing strategy". I guess 10th at the Olympics wasn't good enough. They severely cut what they had been paying him and he walked if I remember correctly. At some point what is going on with Meb will come out. Sometimes athletes and sponsors go their seperate ways for other then monetray issues. Maybe Meb is asking for more than he is worth. The point is, outside of a select few WE don't know! Let's not drag Meb or Nike through the mud without knowing the whole story.