Rumbles about the future
This year’s TAFWA (Track and Field Writers of America) breakfast was the longest I’ve ever attended, but it included presentations from three top USATF officials, five of the six runners who made the 10,000m team for Berlin last night, and a few words from Alberto Salazar, not to mention the annual awards presentations. I’ll attempt to have a better report on tafwa.org soon, but there were two bits I found particularly interesting.
First, Doug Logan talking about the new Nike deal for USATF described the athlete support section in a way which reminded me strongly of Logan’s old job at MLS. Logan is (justifiably) unhappy with the dominant role of agents and shoe-company sponsors in the sport, and claims to have a long-term plan to change how sponsorship and athlete support work in the sport, at least in this country. This deal provides a clue, as USATF is wading in to bridging the gap between collegiate competition and competent, mature professional athletes.
It’s a great selling point, because post-collegiate support was a major complaint in the Project 30 report, but it’s also likely to disappoint the shoe companies and agents because it begins the process of having all athletes essentially sponsored by the federation. This is the MLS model, where all players are contracted and paid by the league, not the teams. It’s a little like socialism in that it suppresses the open sponsorship market for athletes, and it may undercut how much the top athletes get paid, but it may also spread the available sponsorship money across a broader base of athletes, and if it works in that way it might be worth the trouble.
(As an aside, there is widespread disappointment in Eugene that many of our sport’s stars aren’t running “their” events because they have byes through to Berlin. Bernard Lagat is at least putting on a show in the 800m, but Wariner in the 200m and Tyson Gay running just one round are both wet firecrackers. Those who complain about this largely blame the agents, not the athletes. I think the real problem is that stars like Wariner and Gay aren’t going to be competing inside the live television window.)
Interesting fragment #2 came when Alberto Salazar, usually one who shuns the spotlight, followed two of his athletes to the podium and delivered a brief, apparently unscripted minute of praise for his colleague, Jerry Schumacher, and a number of other coaches around the country (Terrence Mahon was also mentioned by name). As part of this, Salazar mentioned that he thought a coach could only develop and mentor six or seven top-level athletes at once, and that he wanted to continue to attract top-flight coaches like Schumacher to Portland, each coaching a small group of developing athletes under the Oregon Track Club umbrella and support structure, as long as he could persuade Nike to keep funding it. Considering the success he and Schumacher have been having in the last few years, I tend to think this is a good idea. Questions: who’s next?
(Full disclosure: I am a nominee to be Vice President of TAFWA starting next year; the elections are happening later this year, and so far as I know there are no other nominees. Join now if you want to vote against me.)