Andrew Poore: "If I'm not a pro athlete, I'm not going to waste my time trying to pretend like I'm something I'm not&

DD Debbie wrote:

original message wrote:

I agree. I

The leadership at the National office is unstable, often a "me first, athletes 2nd" priority.

Development of young talents like Efraimson might be better in

Ajee, Alexa, Mary are rare talents. Their development is no "sure thing". As fast as Alan Webb ran most feel he did not maximize his talent "from going pro" early.

I wish our outstanding group of young runners well. It's a tough journey in our sport.

How is Ajee a rare talent? Her PR is what-like 1:59? She is like 6 seconds off WR? That is like a male professional who can run 1:47. Not a rare talent.

Her PR is 1:58.21 and she ran it at age 19. Puts her less than 5 seconds off the WR of 1:53.28 and about 4 seconds off of Pamela Jelimo's 1:54.01, so I'd say it's roughly equivalent to a 19-yr-old guy running 1:45 flat, e.g. Robby Andrews. Seems about right to me.

I am a former D1 runner who qualified for the Olympic Trials after college.

I think pro running is a fvcking joke.

USATF is a circle jerk of morons who are running the sport into the ground.

X-Runner wrote:

Here are a couple of NASCAR cars (notice the sponsors all over):

http://pauldunay.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/nascar_photo.jpg

Here is Nick Symmonds having to cover his sponsored tattoo:

http://www.javelinexperiential.com/wp-content/uploads/nick-symmonds.png

Perfect, I was going to talk about this. You made the point.

The question is- are there companies willing to step it up?

If there are many more people will make money.

Even on a very local level- I'm a high school coach of a very good program, people are always asking my advice. I wear a uniform for a local running store and they tell me that people often "drop my name".

That's just a very small, local example but TONS of people run and see these athletes up close at races.

The athletes can go the NASCAR route. They choose not to.

wringing wrote:

This isn't true. The 1 sponsor exclusivity is not forced by USATF for domestic meets. Rather, this has become the market standard. It continues to be the standard because athletes sign contracts with this stipulation. The Prefontaine Classic and the AGPNYC are the only domestic meets this year that enforce 1 sponsor exclusivity.

Not only that, but who is stopping the athletes from securing other sponsors without representation on their singlets?

Ryan Hall is sponsored by Nissan and Vizio (among others). Meb is sponsored by Ucan and Sony (among others). But those companies are not on Ryan and Meb's singlets. In these days of social media, it's very easy to promote products for sponsorship cash.

Also, the comparisons between logos on a stock car and logos on a singlet are ridiculous. Some of the main differences:

1) A stock car is huge. Logos on a singlet are small. One or two logos would probably work; any more than that and they would be unreadable.

2) Crowds at stock car races (and sitting at home watching on tv) are immense. Running doesn't get anywhere near the same number of eyeballs. Plus you've got things like the haulers, fans in logo shirts, etc. furthering the brand. You won't get that in running.

3) At one point or another during a multi-hour stock car race, just about every car will be on camera. Not so with runners during a two or four minute race. Especially Americans at the larger, more competitive races who will be behind the leaders. Why would someone sponsor a half miler who is going to race all of 30 minutes in an entire season?

4) In the most visible track events (the Olympics and the WCs), athletes are restricted to wearing their countries' uniforms. Why would someone shell out big money for a singlet logo when most of the world won't see it?

wringing wrote:

The athletes can go the NASCAR route. They choose not to.

Thank you for adding NOTHING to the discussion.

Thank you for clearly stating this important point [which is the same point Sally Bergesen was making in her blog post the other day.]

they could set up a system where, if you run such and such a time, you get say $20k for the year.

and perhaps top 10 cross nationals, finals in track nationals. gets you tax free $20k.

that would be enough, with a part time job for journeymen to stay in the sport and enable some of them to develop into elites.

nah, this scheme won't work. it's too simple to set up. too effective. too fair.

I really don't get the "athletes are forced to wear national team uniforms in the most visible events" issue. Lebron James (a Nike athlete) wears an Adidas uniform every game. It doesn't contain the Nike logo or the many other logos of brands James endorses.

If track and track athletes were more marketable, they would get deals with companies beyond footwear brands. The simple fact is that track is not a great marketing vehicle for most companies due to its lack of popularity.

Are the rules stupid, of course. Are they primary issue, no.

Here's a contrarian thought I'm not sure is true but I like to try to get people to think differently.

Nike's sponsorship of USATF, Puma's of Jamaica, etc is primarily all about 1 thing and one thing only - to get that logo on the Olympic uniform.

If runner's were allowed to wear their actual own singlet during Worlds/Olympics competition instead of a Team USA nike jersey, the big stars like a Bolt would be better off as their individual sponsorships would go higher. However, the federation would basically have nothing left.

So the exclusivity on the singlets actually helps the little guy in some ways.

Regardless, I think the idea that the "one logo" thing is hurting atheltes is a joke. For starters, unless you are in the DL, you can have as many logos as you want.

A guy like Andy Poore could have had 10 sponsors. Poore is poor because our sport isn't popular on a regular basis. The Olympics are rare and special. Nothing wrong with that.

To me, it's a shame that Poore didn't want to go for the Olympics on his own dime. He's young. He ran for free all his life. Keep doing, max out, with no regrets.

When they have live free broadcasts of a Foot Locker or NCAAs, less than 10,000 people watch.

+1. Also, With Nike being so dominate in the sport, they seem (perceived or real) to throw their weight around, which creates the animosity among the fans.I don’t blame Nike, they are the ones pouring money into the sport. If Adidas, Brooks, NB, Saucony, etc would start putting more money in T&F, it would level the playing field somewhat.But it is disingenuous for Max to compare NASCAR to USATF.

NASCAR is a completely different entity than track and field right now, and its troubling Max would make the comparison. Your talking about an event with a fan base that's 80 years in the making and fiercely loyal, so loyal that one section of the country, the south, was enough to get TV contracts to show EVERY RACE across the country. This is not comparable to T&F. They are not bound by exclusivity sponsorship because television gives them exposure to millions of fans meaning, whatever the sponsors can get is worth it. In no popular sport today do the sponsors influence format and funding, the enhance it. You cant trade a 500 million dollar payment for a fan base.

Track and field's first order of business is drumming up a fan base. We show 5 false starts but no field events, and the field events that are shown are very poorly announced. The problem with Nike is track and field is being directed and marketed to increase Nike's profits not to advance the sport, why the hell else would ANY company agree to a 23-year deal on anything??! NO fortune 500 company does things on that long of a term at the risk of falling behind. Track and field's appeal, fan base, and popularity (3 things its short in) should drive its progress not 500 million dollars from the biggest sweatshop in the world.

As athletes and as coaches we cannot be afraid to change the way T&F is presented if we want the sport to survive. Marathons should be marketed as its own separate entity, like NASCAR vs Formula 1, get rid of the 10k on tv, its boring and wastes time. Let teams form on their own then find sponsorship, EXACTLY like NASCAR, and have a team championship every year. Seek some kind of partnership with the NFL owners, these guys could make money in the off season, the player keep training while competing, and bring HIGH visibility and TV contracts to the sport. Let people BET! If it's good enough for horses, why not T&F. This idea has been thrown around for years, and I've heard no logical argument as to why it's a bad idea.

These are examples of the types of things T&F has to try, we have to repackage ourselves to drum up a fan base and make it purchasable by TV stations. If this is not done T&F will continue to be a subdivision of Nike's shoe market.

stop it wrote:

I really don't get the "athletes are forced to wear national team uniforms in the most visible events" issue. Lebron James (a Nike athlete) wears an Adidas uniform every game. It doesn't contain the Nike logo or the many other logos of brands James endorses.

If track and track athletes were more marketable, they would get deals with companies beyond footwear brands. The simple fact is that track is not a great marketing vehicle for most companies due to its lack of popularity.

Are the rules stupid, of course. Are they primary issue, no.

The top 50-100 NBA players are visible to the general public in lots of ways and have lots of name and face recognition. T&F athletes are largely unknown to the general public and only get broad exposure during the Olympics.

In that article, Paul Doyle says he thinks Ashton Eaton has less than 1% of the name recognition of Peyton Manning. If Ashton Eaton's agent thinks Eaton - who is one of the few T&F athletes to appear in mainstream TV advertising - has that little name recognition, the sport of T&F is an even more shrunken state as a commercial vehicle than I thought.

Wasn't the whole point of bringing Max Siegel on board to help make USATF become more like NASCAR with additional sponsor logos and revenues to THE ATHLETES etc.. I honestly don't get this. Thank goodness I have a job to support my running "expenses". Seriously people in USATF, wake up!

usatf member wrote:

Wasn't the whole point of bringing Max Siegel on board to help make USATF become more like NASCAR with additional sponsor logos and revenues to THE ATHLETES etc.. I honestly don't get this. Thank goodness I have a job to support my running "expenses". Seriously people in USATF, wake up!

+1. but much like other big money sports, the money and care for athletes only came after a fan base, a revenue stream not based on contracts with businesses. You cant skip giving people a good product, by accepting what are essentially bribes.

as an aside, there was a similar problem in formula one a few years ago -

almost all teams were sponsored by tobacco companies. then anti-tobacco advertising laws went into play...forcing all the tobacco companies to leave.

many felt that wuold be the end of f1. but they found more sponsors and the sport has carried on without much of a struggle.

to me the key is getting a broader sponsor base. thanks to nike, you're great.

but it would only help Nike if, say, Oracle decided to sponsor USATF also.

more publicity, etc.

but if I were oracle and saw the dingbat usatf drug coddlers I would stay away. The idea of gatlin, merrit, gay etc...representting my company is terrifying indeed.

GreatObserver wrote:

usatf member wrote:

Wasn't the whole point of bringing Max Siegel on board to help make USATF become more like NASCAR with additional sponsor logos and revenues to THE ATHLETES etc.. I honestly don't get this. Thank goodness I have a job to support my running "expenses". Seriously people in USATF, wake up!

+1. but much like other big money sports, the money and care for athletes only came after a fan base, a revenue stream not based on contracts with businesses. You cant skip giving people a good product, by accepting what are essentially bribes.

Well put. You'd think the millions of recreational runners in the US would be a natural fan base for T&F, but so far [40+ years into the running boom in the US] that hasn't proven to be the case.

agip wrote:

as an aside, there was a similar problem in formula one a few years ago -

almost all teams were sponsored by tobacco companies. then anti-tobacco advertising laws went into play...forcing all the tobacco companies to leave.

many felt that wuold be the end of f1. but they found more sponsors and the sport has carried on without much of a struggle.

to me the key is getting a broader sponsor base. thanks to nike, you're great.

but it would only help Nike if, say, Oracle decided to sponsor USATF also.

more publicity, etc.

but if I were oracle and saw the dingbat usatf drug coddlers I would stay away. The idea of gatlin, merrit, gay etc...representting my company is terrifying indeed.

Drugs will NEVER go away. EVER. But with more sponsorship the drug problems would get swept under the rug. This focus on PED's is really handicapping athletics in america right now, its become a way bigger issue than it should be, and a bigger one than it is worldwide.

and where does that logical stream lead you? to what conclusion?