Alysia Montano lying about pregnancy timeline and departure from Nike

Montaño was sponsored by Asics in 2013. But nowhere in the article does she state that Nike terminated their sponsorship of her due to pregnancy. She says that she had to “fight with her sponsor” in 2014, which was Asics.

SHANIQUE S wrote:

YOU RACIST SCUMBAGS!!!!!!! IS THIS A KKK WEBSITE OR WHAT!!!

SO the person who posted the racist post and then this next post was the same person. They are posting from Quebec.

Fairly common behavior, claim to be every bit an equal to men in every regard except when stuff gets real, then they turn femme fatale, "what do I know about that mean ol' business world full of big scary men. I'm just a simple women who's ignorant of the way of the world."

I would hope that she at least had an agent, if she's upset about the contract talk to him/her.

rojo wrote:

SHANIQUE S wrote:

YOU RACIST SCUMBAGS!!!!!!! IS THIS A KKK WEBSITE OR WHAT!!!

SO the person who posted the racist post and then this next post was the same person. They are posting from Quebec.

Ha, thanks for calling him out. And here I was thinking all Canadians are nice!

I think there's two discussions here. The first is whether sponsorship should have some type of maternity benefits. I think that's a difficult discussion. Here's why. On the one hand, women should be given maternity leave and benefits to help raise their children. On the other hand, this is athletics. A contract can easily be taken advantage of by signing a HUGE long term contract and then just having kids the duration of the contract. From Nike's perspective they could launch a maternity line of clothing. Every time one of their athletes gets pregnant, boom they can extract some revenue by marketing the pregnant athlete in their maternity line of exercise clothes. I think that would be a hit. They recently launch a burqa line so why not maternity?

The second discussion is when Montano's contract was terminated. I don't know her, but the OP is implying Nike wanted to restructure Montano's contract and she walked away with no mention of pregnancy. The OP didn't provide any details but it's interesting. Nike won't fight it because it's bad publicity to be fighting a black female about the exact date her contract was terminated. It's literally a lose-lose. Even if Nike shows she walked away, the fact still remains they wanted to pay her less money. The public frowns upon that kind of thing.

Even if Montano is half-truthing it, the end result is positive because Nike is adding pregnancy to the contracts.

If Nike adds maternity leave, are they going to add paternity and family leave also?

Whatever the timeline, it's stupid to think that Nike should be obligated to pay a contractor when said contractor makes a personal choice that affects what they are being paid to do. What if a pro athlete with a 5 year contract decides to have multiple babies so that the athlete never actually does anything over that 5 year contract? Where should the line be drawn? It's like if an athlete decided to go sail around the world for 2 seasons instead of competing. Should a company be obligated to pay them. Getting pregnant and having a kid(s) is a personal choice. It's not a right.

OP you claim to know Alysia but you clearly don’t know how to watch and comprehend a video. Nowhere does she say Nike fired her for being pregnant or that she quit for being pregnant and not getting paid. She says told Nike she wanted to have a baby during her career and that when she learned they wouldn’t pay her during the pregnancy. So she left for ASICS. Seriously people, read/watch before you post.

Nike probably set this up themselves

PersonalChoice wrote:

Whatever the timeline, it's stupid to think that Nike should be obligated to pay a contractor when said contractor makes a personal choice that affects what they are being paid to do. What if a pro athlete with a 5 year contract decides to have multiple babies so that the athlete never actually does anything over that 5 year contract? Where should the line be drawn? It's like if an athlete decided to go sail around the world for 2 seasons instead of competing. Should a company be obligated to pay them. Getting pregnant and having a kid(s) is a personal choice. It's not a right.

Sure, but the same goes for all employees -- there's usually (always, that I know of) a max amount of time for maternity/paternity leave. This is no different. If a woman exceeds her maternity leave, she would be in breach of contract and the company could terminate contract. Right?

If companies really wanted to support their female athletes, they would allow maternity leave without a pay freeze, so the woman can afford to work with doctors, physical therapists, etc to help her rebound most effectively from pregnancy. The leave length would be limited but substantial, since the company is allowing the woman time to adapt her body from competing, to baby, and back to competing. That is an investment in athletes that you believe in and think can help your brand in the long-term.

PersonalChoice wrote:

Whatever the timeline, it's stupid to think that Nike should be obligated to pay a contractor when said contractor makes a personal choice that affects what they are being paid to do. What if a pro athlete with a 5 year contract decides to have multiple babies so that the athlete never actually does anything over that 5 year contract? Where should the line be drawn? It's like if an athlete decided to go sail around the world for 2 seasons instead of competing. Should a company be obligated to pay them. Getting pregnant and having a kid(s) is a personal choice. It's not a right.

Honestly it is a contractor that is being paid to promote and market product, and I think many women could move as much (more?) gear for Nike with a bunch of maternity shoots with Nike products on social media to active moms as they could getting 5th in a US champs or something along those lines. That is why, if I was Nike, I'd be okay re-writing the contracts.

Won’t this lead to only the very high end athletes getting a contact for over a one year period?

Why risk having to pay 2nd tier athletes missing a season due to pregnancy?

They could have a one year contact and reduce that risk.

For star athletes that will be around a number of years it might be worthwhile to pay a year or two of maturity leave so the athlete comes back and is associated with the same brand.

The solution is to only offer females 6 month contracts , to evaluate the situation . No one in any sport deserves a multi year contract, unless they are proven . I would like to see MLB players taking paternity leave .

Why do they need to pay athletes if they are wanting to promote baby clothes? Just hire models. They sign athletes TO BE ATHLETIC, TO COMPETE.

quickndirty wrote:

walter j wrote:

Honestly it is a contractor that is being paid to promote and market product, and I think many women could move as much (more?) gear for Nike with a bunch of maternity shoots with Nike products on social media to active moms as they could getting 5th in a US champs or something along those lines. That is why, if I was Nike, I'd be okay re-writing the contracts.

Why do they need to pay athletes if they are wanting to promote baby clothes? Just hire models. They sign athletes TO BE ATHLETIC, TO COMPETE.

I'm not saying they NEED to use athletes, but I do think that there is something that would appeal to active moms about a professional ATHLETE taking a break from the sport to start a family that wouldn't have the same appeal from a model. Athletes are pseudo models anyway, by being sponsored to wear certain apparel/shoes.

Do you think New Balance would sell less of their product if Jenny Simpson had taken 2019 off to have a baby and chronicled/promoted NB gear during the pregnancy and comeback, compared to whatever they will sell this year with her status quo running?

Didn't Shannon Rowbury have a baby early last year while sponsored by Nike? What was her experience like?

And what's up with you all ripping her for crying when she got tripped. So many men can't handle women who a) stand up for themselves or b) show emotion.

When Berian stood up to Nike, he was a legend on here. When Montano does it, a bunch of insecure dudes go crazy.

Now, I do get the contractor stuff. Yes, it's not easy for a company. If you sign a woman to a 10 year deal, you probably don't want them to decide to not compete for 8 years as they have 4 kids.[/quote]

Paid maternity leave is just stupid. Why should someone get time off work for a choice they made? What about the people who choose not to have kids or can't? Time off work should be earned via however accumulated at your employer. If you don't have enough to last maternity leave, then you don't get paid for the whole time. Man it sure would be nice to get paid time off work for nothing!

Here is another issue. Kara and Alysia were trying to mix 2 ideas. Most women who work, even with the best maternity leave, work during pregnancy or at least most if it. No one gets all their pregnancy off. Yet kara and Alysia seem to want all their pregnancy off plus maternity leave.

Stop comparing it to other workers.

I think Deena Kastor was throwing shade at these two when she said you have to be mature c

This is how I would expect maternity coverage to work: It will increase the annual cost of Ms. X's contract. Therefore, shoe company Z will offer a lower cash payment to Ms. X, but include maternity coverage. Ms. X won't actually "gain" anything.

If Ms. X is a "must have" athlete, and some are, then company Z will pay what it needs to pay.

But it will then lower its budget for other women athletes.

In this scenario, Ms. X does do better, but only at the expense of other women. The rich get richer; the poor fall farther behind.

I seriously doubt that shoe companies increase their overall athlete-promotion budgets every time some athlete comes up with a good reason--whether pregnancy, other health issues, rent, education, unemployment compensation, retirement funding, etc.

I'm in favor of societal support for all the above. But I'm dubious that we're near a historical point where employers are going to provide them to independent contractors, ie, freelancers.