in sacto wrote:
But the fact of the matter is this: does what you're doing help or hurt the average athlete? Again, most would probably say it helps, but no one really knows.
I agree no one knows what the outcome will be.
At first I startd to write, "I don't see how it can hurt the marginal athlete. But to be honest it probably won't affect them too much."
But then I thought of a few theoretical scenarios but would like to see how you thought the marginal athlete could be hurt.
1) The top athletes get more money at the expense of marginal athletes. This could happen two ways. I'll use concrete examples: a) Usain Bolt gets more money from a second sponsor on his jersey and these secondary sponsors pull money from marginal athletes or b) Puma has to pay Bolt more to be the only sponsor on his jersey (because for the first time he has the option and getting say a million a year from Rolex on his jersey) and they pull back money from the marginal athletes.
a) to me seems only theoretical. The marginal athletes aren't getting $ from secondary sponsors so if big time athletes get these secondary deals it isn't at the expense of marginal athletes. b) in theory could happen
2) Marginal athletes could be hurt if races and meets get less from title sponsors because they have to compete with the athletes new logos. If you make most of your money now from prize money or appearance fees instead of sponsorship then you'll be hurt as more money will shift to individual athlete sponsorship versus prize money/appearance fee.
So ING might pay the NYC Marathon less to sponsor the race. Thus the race has less money to pay athletes. So an athlete like Molly Pritz who this year probably made nearly all her money from her NYC appearance fee would get paid less by NYC in the future. She doesn't have a shoe sponsor so she loses out. (But it seems to me NYC which pays a big appearance fee could put sponsor restrictions on the athletes in return for competing)
I guess there are winners and loser any time the status quo is shaken up but if net there is money in the sport hopefully more athletes benefit. I assume this marginally will bring more money in the sport.
If 2) is a huge deal in theory less money could come in but I doubt it. I see this more as a matter of fairness.