Shoe Sponsors-The Only Game in Town

The National Track & Field Professional Athletes Union (NTFPAU) is a union of professional track and field athletes being united for mutual interest and to achieve the common interest of improving the business management, marketing and professional resources. Every athlete is united for the mutual interest of business development. We are the national governing body for the professional designation of professional track and field athletes.

Our mission is to help professional athletes excel. We are committed to providing quality professional athletic project management services and ensure that the business development of our professional athletes are protected. Everything possible is being supported to help maximize opportunities and goals in and out side of competition.

looking forward to it :-)

Bart,

I like it. I will start to think of some more people to interview. I had a lot of fun interviewing doug and a wetmore, flynn, wittenberg qould be fun as well.

@Mark, so athletes should unite? That's what makes them bigger than the organisers, like ATP en WTA (if I'm correct).

But in fact, most pro's are united within their agents. If the Wetmore's, Hermens', Flynn's decide to boycot a series and start their own... gues what you got.
What I don't understand that never the meet organisers are questioned on their decisions. Why is the international circuit crap, compared to PGA/ATP/WTA or other regular competitiions. The organisers don't want to cooperate and only think about their own meet. Maybe Flotrack could interview Pre and ATC en RbkGP organisers why they don't complement each other.

Some sports let their athletes wear their own jersey. The Olympics basically have to let tennis players wear what they want, bc if they didn't none of the big stars would participate. Nadal does not need the Olympics and prob would not compete if they spanish team made him wear adidas. The athletes have the power and don't make money off the Olympics, so a lot of them don't go. Baseball and soccer are a perfect example. Since they get paid so well to play in their respective leagues they don't need the Olympics. This is also the case in track for certain people..... Think Geb. Geb does not need the Olympics, the IOC is not paying him a but load of money to run the marathon, but Berlin was....... Geb is one of the few athletes that is bigger then the Olympics. What would happen to the Olympics if more athletes were in Geb's situation?

Rkincy, you showed me the light. I agree that a market controlled by one company is never a good idea. That's why the US has anti-monopoly laws. It would be like Ford Motors in the time of the Model T.

on the question (5.00min) of Adidas/Saucony athletes running with Nike apparel during the Olympics: tennis-star Kim Clijsters decided not to go to Athens 2004 because of the endorsement of hte Belgian OC conflicted with her personal sponsordeals...

Imagine Gay, Wariner, Kastor, Hall not going to the Olympics in T&F;!!

-> Brandon
How would your MLTF be any different from USATF? Simply rebranding doesn't solve any problems. MLS is a completely different model for a completely different sport.

I think we can all agree that, however disillusioned we are with the state of USATF, that Doug Logan is a smart guy. He made a sport that NO ONE watched (everyone loves to say that they were a "huge" soccer fan before MLS even existed - riiiiiiight. How many jerseys did you buy?) in the USA into a big industry. Why don't we all give him half a friggin minute to do the same with Track and Field. A couple of years from now, if the sport is a bust, then we can criticize.
in other news.... this is easily in the top tier of any content that has ever been posted on flotrack.

yo nick mark is saying that because if reebok and asics pull out of our sport and so that gives Nike all the control, they could do what they want over us. mark is just saying we basically have NO CONTROL over our own sport and the business off it, which is so frustrating!!!! mark i need to work with you guys

Why would a shoe company ever want to pull funding for running? We invest way more money annually in running shoes than any average joe spends on a pair of air jordans. Especially since the elite athletes who log 100+ miles per week might go through a pair of shoes in around 1 month. If a major shoe company like Nike decided to pull funding for USATF, then I know one person who won't buy anything Nike after that.

there will never be more money in the sport until the fan base is expanded.

why is everyone so picky about the camera being still.. Shut up, who cares

gee, running shoe companies sponsoring running. what a novel concept. maybe like tire companies sponsoring nascar. if we ever start pod racing, nascar is so screwed!

in all seriousness, he answered the questions well and has some good ideas.
re, the camera, do you think you could hold it steady next time?

Instead of putting money into USATF, money needs to go into starting the MLTF (Major League Track and Field). It could be a league just like the MLS. That would be the best way for athletics to make a name for itself in the US.

I totally agree, we need to find other sponsors. Shoe companies are running are sport and if they decide to leave we are screwed.

great stuff Mark