Twitter spat between Christian Taylor, Will Claye, Rome meet director and Carl Lewis is getting interesting

For the record, i was paid 1000

Bucks plus travel to some overseas meets during my career and I never sniffed WC or OG let alone a medal.

+1

No use, really? Have you ever watched an NBA game? Those mofos can’t doing anything w/out a hop, skip, and a jump.

This sort of sh$t is so comical it defies belief. If you truly understood the economics of Track and Field in the year 2019 you would understand exactly why this is. The only sane person in this twitter "war" is Luigi D'Onofrio - the meet director, and that is saying something.

I mean we all know how money is evaporating from the sport in general right? Especially meets like Rome that don't really attract big $$$ from sponsors because the 60'000 seat stadium they run it in is at best 1/3 full - not exactly enticing for sponsors right? Just so we are clear the IAAF doesn't fund meets like the Golden Gala at all - it merely associates itself and gives status to a meet like Rome so those sponsors hopefully choose to invest. Therefore we can mute that absolute clown Carl Lewis from this conversation right now.

At the end of the day it's a business - and the business doesn't continue unless it's profitable - just ask the directors of all the great meets that Europe has lost in the last 25 years (Koblenz, Cologne, Helsinki, Athens - I can go on) . When you run business sometimes you need to make certain decisions to support profitability - in this case is Christian Taylor worth $X to be a genuine return on investment. Apparently not, but Christian Taylor needs to understand all of the above before he gets upset about this. In fact he is very lucky to be getting anything - my guess would be that there are athletes getting basically nothing to show up that would be more profitable to Mr D'Onofrio (such as an up and coming Italian athlete who the Italian home crowd actually gives a f%$k about). If you don't like these simple economics don't do the meet - but you might just find yourself working a day job instead of living the bright lights of the European professional athletics circuit if you want to take this attitude. The only money left in this sport goes to the truly big fish and I mean 1-2 guys per marque event max. Christian Taylor despite being a wonderful athlete competes in a mediocre event that doesn't really captivate the imagination of spectators and is not a big fish in that respect.

As for Will Claye I have to truly laugh out loud. 10k alone for just getting on the ground is comical. This legitimately represents an appearance fee that maybe only a handful of the athletes in the meet may hope to attain. My guess is that the athlete budget for the entire meeting (travel, accommodation and appearance) is around 500k euros. Will Claye sitting in business class is not worth 2% of your budget - especially for an 8hr30 flight - get real mate. Noah Lyles? Yes. Will Claye? Dream on kimosabe. I can't even believe Luigi would even contemplate that amount for him.

Track and Field is a hard sport. It's become and even harder business.

I’m on Christian and Will’s side here, which is that they are operating a business and have expectations for their worth that they are attempting to maintain.

A meet director, or the IAAF, for a meet of this caliber should have an airline sponsor that covers flights expenses for athletes, or makes a disputes like this a non-factor. Accomplished athletes shouldn’t be flying coach internationally.

It may be that the money for appearance fees and other compensation / perks are declining in the sport, and that this is the head of that battle boiling to the surface. But the athletes are the talent, and it’s fair for them to put a stake in the ground to set expectations for maintaining their comp.

Maybe the sport can’t maintain these expectations, and maybe what constitutes a professional track and field athlete will become more easily clarified with a ranking system and clear cutoff criteria, but these athletes should not be making sacrifices to compete, at least, not if their needs are being met elsewhere.

B-dubs 2.0 wrote:

SlowFatMaster wrote:

"...I've never heard of him." Claye has Olympic medals in both the triple jump and the long jump. He has 3 outdoor World Championship medals in the triple jump. He is 2x World Indoor champ in the triple jump.

Great, take the topic to LetsJump.com.

Presumably, you'd post on the topic there, too.

I feel for Will Claye. Isnt He married to Q.Harrison. Shes probably got hes checking account in negative...... Her mistake is that she should of stayed in the 400IH. She would of made multiple teams and helped her own checking account. But I guess training in the 100m hurdles is less damanding . Good luck Will. I feel for you.....

sprcoach 19.99 wrote:

I feel for Will Claye. Isnt He married to Q.Harrison. Shes probably got hes checking account in negative...... Her mistake is that she should of stayed in the 400IH. She would of made multiple teams and helped her own checking account. But I guess training in the 100m hurdles is less damanding . Good luck Will. I feel for you.....

Thanks for your marvelous contribution, Tom.

Fart in the face training wrote:

For the record, i was paid 1000

Bucks plus travel to some overseas meets during my career and I never sniffed WC or OG let alone a medal.

Nobody knows who you are or what you’ve done, therefore there is no “record”. Plus you’re on letsrun so you probably made this up.

Linter4@8 wrote:

It’s always the sprinters that get caught up in this nonsense. You ever see a distance runner pulling this kind of stuff? False sense of entitlement if you ask me.

“In life the idea is to be simple and happy. Once you get that, you are free”

Eliud Kipchoge

Distance runners can lay down in community class seats.

When you are a sprinter, or jumper and this guy's size, you may as well stay home if you can't get a comfortable flight

I would bet that every single American competing in the DL flies business/first class, non stop.

Their entire livelihood depends on fresh legs. You guys think the shot putters are flying economy? In terms of Claye having to prove fitness I agree with the meet director. I'd pay the money to get the man out there if I know he is going to jump 17.25 but I want to know he is in shape.

Anyways many of the field event folks are worried about the downfall of their events just like the 10,000m folks are( at least the 10k can hit the roads). Look at the hammer throw. They basically have their own series now relegated to a few meets in Asia and then the much smaller meetings in Europe. We know the meets are geared towards the running events. Prefontaine this year only has 4 field events. Two of them are loaded, mPV and mSP, another is the lackluster wHJ. Why even have a wHJ?

They also have a womens 1500 and 3k? Does it seem kind of pointless to have both?

The new ranking system is trying to push out everyone beyond the top top 8-10 athletes and with very few field event competitions around its impossible to even climb the rankings.

Its a negotiation. Athletes thought they were worth X, meet director did not agree. Meet director did not act in bad faith by declining the 10k airfare for appearance. By putting the meet director on blast Taylor burned some bridges but also set his negotiating position clear for other events. I would argue Taylor was unprofessional since the meet director was working in good faith while negotiating strongly. Director still wants to put on a good meet.

Meat Director wrote:

Its a negotiation. Athletes thought they were worth X, meet director did not agree. Meet director did not act in bad faith by declining the 10k airfare for appearance. By putting the meet director on blast Taylor burned some bridges but also set his negotiating position clear for other events. I would argue Taylor was unprofessional since the meet director was working in good faith while negotiating strongly. Director still wants to put on a good meet.

Fair post.

When the agents and athletes finally get smart, appearance fees and contracts will be more transparent, like in "real" sports.

This is what led to athletes in baseball etc finally getting paid a decent share of the huge money involved in showcasing their abilities.

How much would you like to bet? I can GUARANTEE you that business class is huge exception and not even close to the rule.

Who was the down-under runner that reputedly committed to a series of races in Europe in exchange for a refundable ticket from each race director?

Salvatore Stitchmo wrote:

How much would you like to bet? I can GUARANTEE you that business class is huge exception and not even close to the rule.

Correct.

Ask around and let me know what you find out. Diamond league meets

steeplebeast wrote:

Salvatore Stitchmo wrote:

How much would you like to bet? I can GUARANTEE you that business class is huge exception and not even close to the rule.

Ask around and let me know what you find out. Diamond league meets

Brother I don't need to ask around - I'll tell you how it works first hand. No European meet ever pays a one-off fare for an athlete in case of an exceptional circumstance (or athlete such as Bolt). If one of the DL regulars goes to Europe and runs 3-4 meets in a block (before their nationals/trials etc) they may get something like a $2000-$3000 flat travel amount from each meet they run at (at DL level) and from there they can do what they want. So if you are running Paris, Rome, Oslo, Lausanne for example you have $12000 to get yourself to Europe and then travel to those meets. Obviously a business class ticket + a bunch of short flights (or even a train) in Europe is more than possible with that amount.

So Will Claye asking for a single meet to front a $10k fare is laughable. The one meet where this may happen is Doha because of its location and the amount of cash I'm sure this meet has. But for a cash strapped meet like Rome? No way.

Side story - Maurice Greene once skipped the Grand Prix final (he only needed to show up to win the overall title) because the meet wouldn't pay for a business class fare to the meet. Dude passed up $$$ because once again, business class is the massive exception and not even close to the rule.