Trayvon Bromell signs with New Balance

Too Short wrote:

Experts at NB, but not those at Nike, Addidas and Puma.

Or NB had the highest bid.

Deer Park wrote:

Word on the street was that some big brands were offering $1M/yr for Bromell, which makes me wonder what NB paid and what put them over the top. Would you go to NB if they offered $1.25M/yr vs. Nike/Adi at $1M/yr?

Yes I would and I think almost everyone here would.

You're telling me you would turn down $250,000 a year for what reason? You think Nike shoes will make you that much faster than New Balance?

If New Balance is paying $1 million a year to someone they'll figure out how to make him a decent shoe.

And I don't buy that Nike wasn't interested him. He clearly was wearing special Nike shoes at NCAA indoors. Check out these one of a kind Nike shoes he wore at NCAA indoors:

Anyone know what those markings mean?

I can't believe people are saying a guy who just got 3rd in the world at age 20 has limited upside. Then what about everyone else in the world? Besides De Grasse, name anyone you'd rather have than Bromell.

Consider this--Bromell has Ricky Simms, who is Bolt & Mo Farah's agent, so Ricky obviously knows what the market will bear.

I'm guessing NB overpaid, but if they wanna be a playa', they gotta roll with the big boys, something that Brooks isn't ready or willing to do.

NB does have a history in the sprints--Emmitt King won a bronze medal in the 100m at the 1983 world championships, and got a gold in the 4x1 wearing New Balance.

New Balance is making inroads in other sports besides running--they're getting a great reputation in baseball!

It remains to be see if NB "overpaid" - for now we can say they paid a "premium", which which is expected when signing a star. Those contracts have a bunch of incentives, opt-outs and contingency clauses, so such deals don't present huge risk to the companies. The companies may even get tax incentives for such marketing expenses.

Those custom made Nike spikes are impressive. The "9.5" must be the size. The bottom number is likely a tracking number referencing the data Nike collected from Trayvon (probably a collection of data files from foot scans, photo images, etc.); Nike is no doubt making lots of custom shoes for star athletes so they need to keep track of them.

Too Short wrote:

However, if he's the future of US sprinting, we won't be winning global titles. If he really was the the future 100 man to replace Bolt, he wouldn't be running for New Balance. Can you imagine how much Nike would pay someone who really could replace Bolt?

Nike got it wrong again. They never signed Bolt which I never understood. And now they are letting this kid go too. I know Nike win a lot of medals already but wouldn't you want to make sure you have the best US sprinter if you were Nike?

Bj betty wrote:

Too Short wrote:

He's Mike Rogers 2.0. The big companies know it. He's too short to win on the global level. Great sprinter though. Already has perfect form. Not much room for improvement. He will retire with more gold in his bank than on his mantle.

How can people still still think that height is a relevant factor in running? It's 2015.

+1

It would be one thing to be skeptical of somebody who is only say 4-10 or something ridiculously short, but bromell is well within the fairly large height range of elite sprinters we have seen over the last few decades. We've had multiple 5-9 elite sprinters.

Mayrice Greene was obviously doping, but regardless he proves a 5-9 tall sprinter could potentially challenge for gold today.

It wasn't that long ago that everybody thought 5-10 was some ideal height for 100m runners and being over 6 feet was a liability. Suddenly you have the top couple sprinters for a few years over 6 feet and the conventional wisdom reverses. Eventually through random chance the top couple of sprinters in the world for a number of years will happen to be 5-9 or 5-10 and it will go back again.

Just look at 100m finals from the past 40 years. You have guys all the way from 5-5 up to 6-5. Clearly any "normal" height can result in an elite sprinter. Those who make the leap to champion is unrelated to height as long as they're within normal body size.

Deer Park wrote:

Word on the street was that some big brands were offering $1M/yr for Bromell, which makes me wonder what NB paid and what put them over the top. Would you go to NB if they offered $1.25M/yr vs. Nike/Adi at $1M/yr?

I can never figure out why everyone seems to think that any time an athlete doesn't go to Nike, the company that signed them must have over paid. I'll bet you'd be surprised by the number of athletes who don't sign with the highest bidder. There's more to these relationships than just the bottom line and the smartest athletes and agents know that.

It's pretty obvious that NB takes really good care of their athletes, and also genuinely cares about their successes. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that's the kind of company you want to align with.

Bolt rewrote the book on height and sprinting: 9.58!

Bolt's height is his advantage. His height makes up for his less than world class work ethic, crappy diet, average start, sloppy upper body form, back deformity and penchant for showboating. Shorter guys can can 9.79 but the world record is 9.58. Bolt radically changed the height aspect to the event.

The Canadian Andre De Grasse always beats Trayvon.

Andre De Grasse > Trayvon

Bautista > Texas Rangers and KC Royals

Hockey > Football

Interesting the Trayvon will still train at Baylor and the with Baylor coach on Baylor's track since Baylor is a Nike School while Prandini can no longer train at any Oregon facilities or be coached by Oregon coaches after she signed with Puma.

Brommel signed for $550,000. Nike was interested but not at that price. NB won't be so quick to reduce as Nike and Nike deal was bonus-laden.

He's Mike Rogers 2.0. The big companies know it. He's too short to win on the global level. Great sprinter though. Already has perfect form. Not much room for improvement. He will retire with more gold in his bank than on his mantle.[/quote]

Hahaha...Very Funny. You obviously don't remember the time when the gospel truth was that you had to be below a certain height to really be great at sprinting because those long levers were just not ideal for sprinting!! Until off-course Usain Bolt came along and smashed that myth in 9.58 seconds!! Before that there are countless other myths that were truths until proven otherwise like black athletes were only physiologically built for sprinting BUT NOT distance running (something about the hips and bones) until the Kenyans dispatched that one....

So too short did you say, then how is it that Shelly Anne Frasier Pryce been cleaning up sprint titles on the womens side??[quote]Too Short wrote:

Too short wrote:

Bolt's height is his advantage. His height makes up for his less than world class work ethic, crappy diet, average start, sloppy upper body form, back deformity and penchant for showboating. Shorter guys can can 9.79 but the world record is 9.58. Bolt radically changed the height aspect to the event.

You just lost any small amount of credibility you may have had.