Ryan Hall, appearance money, and estimating
There was a lot of discussion this week about the John Hancock announcement that Ryan Hall would be running the B.A.A. Boston Marathon in 2009.
Hopefully not lost in the shuffle was a short but very interesting piece Amby Burfoot put together for Runner’s World. Amby knew neither John Hancock nor Hall’s agent, Ray Flynn, would tell him what Ryan was getting as an “appearance fee” to run in Boston. Instead, he contacted a dozen or so people with knowledge of the market and asked them to guess.
By getting educated (or perhaps “experienced”) guesses about the figure, Amby was able to home in on a real number. He didn’t talk to scattershot observers of the sport like myself; the list of people he asked is populated with agents, elite athlete coordinators (the people who put together professional fields for the big races), and a few athletes of Hall’s stature. In other words, people with recent and relevant experience in the market. The composite of their replies suggests with a pretty high degree of certainty that Hall is earning more than $100,000, but less than $200,000, to run Boston in 2009.
There’s a lot to be written about why Hall should get that much merely for showing up, whether he’s worth it, and why Flynn, Hancock, and Hall can’t or won’t discuss the figure. With any luck I’ll get to that someday soon.
The interesting thing about that price tag isn’t even whether it’s precisely accurate (especially considering that Flynn will take a cut as well). Nobody really cares about the exact figure, unless they’re Hall, Flynn, or someone hoping to get Hall to run their marathon. Different runners would command different figures, based on their PRs, their championship history, and (let’s face it) their appearance. What’s interesting is that because Amby’s sources were in such close agreement, there’s confidence behind the guess. Now we know with some certainty that in today’s market, blond mid-twenties California kids can ask between $0.1 and $0.2 million to run Boston if they have a sub-2:07 PR. It sounds silly when I write it like that, but even that degree of knowledge is missing from current public awareness of professional running.