Robby Andrews Turns Pro

Robby Andrew's is doomed. Looks like he will sign with New Balance or Saucony. Nike or Adidas won't go anywhere near Ray Flynn athletes. Poor kid was misguided by Webb.

Michelle1s wrote:

Robby Andrew's is doomed. Looks like he will sign with New Balance or Saucony. Nike or Adidas won't go anywhere near Ray Flynn athletes. Poor kid was misguided by Webb.

You mean like Abdi and Lauren Fleshman are Nike athletes with Flynn? Or Ryan and Sara Hall with Flynn sponsored by Asics?

And since when is Adidas the measure of success for a shoe contract?

bluemt95 wrote:And since when is Adidas the measure of success for a shoe contract?

Since Tyson Gay won two world championships.

Rene the Cart wrote:

bluemt95 wrote:And since when is Adidas the measure of success for a shoe contract?

Since Tyson Gay won two world championships.

Oh, then I guess everyone should cancel their other sponsorships and sign with Adidas. You are so right.

Let's hope he gets a good deal. He has the potential to be a fantastic international runner if he can stay close enough to the pack. I see him as a 1500 guy as pro ? what does everybody else think

I just watched the video chat on flotrack with Andrews and the most interesting comment I found was in the last 30 seconds.

Andrews said this, "Coach Vig and I we have been talking a lot now that I'm allowed to talk him."

The phrase "allowed to talk to him" stood out to me.

Could Andrews really not talk to Vig? Perhaps Andrews meant he didn't want talk to Vig about training while he was still at UVa.

Or was he really not allowed to talk to Vig? The only way I could see that happen was that in Vig's severance UVA said, "you can't talk to current athletes on the team if you want your severance." The other scenario is the new coaches at UVa didn't want mixed allegiances and told current members of the team, "You can't talk to Vig."

Maybe some lawyers can comment whether UVa could put that in the severance.

Well, I'm pretty sure NCAA rules say that you can't discuss transfering with a coach at a different school. But I don't see how they'd apply to this situation.

Another possibilitity -- you aren't supposed to talk to agents while competing in college, so I assume you can't talk to potential coaches either? It would be pretty suspicious if a college QB was in talks with an NFL coach about potentially turning pro.

Michelle1s wrote:

Robby Andrew's is doomed. Looks like he will sign with New Balance or Saucony. Nike or Adidas won't go anywhere near Ray Flynn athletes. Poor kid was misguided by Webb.

This is ridiculous on a couple of fronts.

1) How was Webb misguided by Ray Flynn? As far as I can tell Ray got Webb a lot of money out of college when Webb needed the most guidance. Webb resigned with Nike recently. As a 29 year old adult I'm sure Webb had a lot more ability to decide what was best for him.

2) The other way this is ridiculous is the premise that shoe companies will stay away from certain athletes because of their agents. Nike, adidas, New Balance, Saucony are in the business of making money. Endorsement contracts are supposed to help them do this by helping increase value of the brand. If Nike and Adidas are still in the business of making money they will compete for Andrews.

Someone at the Marathon Trials tried to convince me Nike was upset with Ray Flynn because Jenny Barringer singed with New Balance. Good for him and good for her. An agent is supposed to get their athlete the most money possible. If they don't do that they're not upholding their fiduciary duty to their athletes.

This person tried to convince me the New Balance thing would hurt Ray's athletes in the future with Nike. If endorsement contracts are some sort of charity and our sport is full of pettiness between agents and agents yes. But Nike is in the business of making money. If they want to let all of Ray's athletes get picked up by other shoe companies because he took one to New Balance they can do that. However, I don't think they'll do that because they've shown in the past they think it's important to try and sign the top athletes.

There aren't too many shoe companies and there aren't too many top agents. If I was an athlete I would want to make sure my agents was throwing me in as part of a package deal.

So agent X takes 5 athletes to shoe company Y for $500,000. The agent could easily not care too much how much each individual athlete gets. He wants the most money total for the athletes and the shoe company wants to spend as little as possible. So it's pretty important each deal is done individually.

As an athlete my concern would not be, "Ray Flynn got Jenny Barringer too much money from New Balance so Nike is upset with him." I would be thinking "Great. I hope he gets me too much money as well."

The other area of concern I'd have as an athlete is when agents also serve as meet promoters. A lot of the top agents do this including Ray Flynn, Mark Wetmore, and Jos Hermens but it creates a conflict of interest.

Severance pay is received as part of a negotiated agreement. Often there is not much, if any, negotiation that really happens but if the former employee does not agree to the terms, they can always refuse to sign and not get money.

If both parties agree to the terms, you can put whatever you want in the severance agreement as long as you are not including something illegal (and not allowing someone to talk to a former athlete is not illegal so does not apply in this situation)

That said, it could have been a coach's thing.

I have heard rumors about the Flynn vs Nike situation and they definatly are not working well together and its causing problems with contract negotiations.

Also interesting in Monti's article that Andrews says UVA's track is not available to them. I guess Vig & UVA definitely didn't part on amicable terms.

This whole situation has a really strange feel . You wish the best for the kid but from watching the flotrack interview he seems so sheltered by Vig and his family.

Will Wheating run the 8 or the 1500 at the trials this year?

It seems like the 8 should make more sense for him as the 1500 is so strong this year.

Ok , your statement here is only your assumption of truth.

The premise of Flynn's contribution to Webb's demise is accurate to all that were around the deal from day one. Webb was a babe in woods with a coach that had no idea whether they were doing the right thing or not. Flynn's "guidance" was to over race Webb , money in the bank for him. We all saw it happen.

Some agents are liked some not , burn a shoe company and yes they will hold back on signing that agents athletes.

Get the most money possible ? Its only one part of the deal not the entire deal , how will the athlete be used , can or will be this a long term relationship ?

Package deals ? What the hell are you talking about ? Its never been a consideration ? Maybe a husband wife deal , or club deal but not elites as a bundle. Yes shoe company programs are a blend of what the marketing strategy is for product roll outs , ie track and field spikes vs marathon racing shoes , companies contract to have presence in the targeted area.

Agents and meet directorship ? This has nothing to do with anything , yes your agent will ask you to run in his meet , this has no influence on other meets. Your agent will not bind you to servitude if you have a conflict with his meet.

The agents/meet directors you mention all have world class events they are involved in.

Bottom line , is that no athlete make or breaks a shoe company. No agent makes or breaks a shoe company. The level of influence for shoe purchases is limited at best.

wejo wrote:

fiduciary duty

Making up words now, huh wejo?

He probably meant it in the manner of "contractual", but as far as "making up" a word - this is a real word.

aguesser wrote:

He probably meant it in the manner of "contractual", but as far as "making up" a word - this is a real word.

Kind of puts the know-it-alls in this thread in perspective. Also on the subject of "overracing", if you look up the results, you'll see that in Webb's best year--2007--Lagat raced more than he did, and all Lagat did that year was win 2 world championship golds.

Raczko got him to 3:46/3:30/1:43. Name ONE person other than Cram who has done that (and, no, Coe didn't, and Ngeny, El Guerrouj, and Lagat didn't either). The only thing Raczko did not seem to get was the concept in a long season of going back, rebuilding the base, building up, and peaking again--he never saw that competing in high school.

Said Aouita- 3:46.76/3:29.46/1:43.86

Not to mention, 7:29/12:58/27:26

I'm not a lawyer but I think fiduciary duty isn't that inaccurate a description.

This is the real world and we're all human so personality conflicts and slights are bound to enter the equation. I will grant that, especially when there aren't that many agents or shoe companies. At the end of the day however it is business. Professionals often put the conflicts aside when they want to get a deal done.

The agent/meet director has conflicts for sure. I don't think they cost athletes a ton of money but be aware there are conflicts. From the meet director side you want the athletes as cheaply as possible. From the athlete side you want them for as much money as possible. These conflicts may more often benefit the athlete but there still is a conflict of interest.

The package deal possibility easily could exist. I don't know exactly how these contracts go down, but the shoe company could say, "You're pressing me too hard on athlete X, but for athlete Y we're doing OK." Ideally each contract would be done separately. Even then the order the agent tried to negotiate the contracts could affect how much they got.

The package deal conflict also exists with getting athletes into meets. I'm assuming most agents don't write the meet director and talk about each athlete individually they write with a list of athletes they want in the meet. "I'll give you what you want for your appearance fee for Asafa Powell but your other athletes aren't getting into the meet".

Michelle1s wrote:

Robby Andrew's is doomed. Looks like he will sign with New Balance or Saucony. Nike or Adidas won't go anywhere near Ray Flynn athletes. Poor kid was misguided by Webb.

Since when is New Balance or Saucony's money not green?

Money is what makes them a pro athlete, so please tell me what great sin would it be to take money from any shoe company.