Supporting Professional Running Is Hard
This was inspired by a couple of articles and podcasts recently discussing various aspects of this issue as it pertains to pro running, and originally posted on /r/AdvancedRunning on Reddit
I’m a fan of the mighty Reading FC, giants of the EFL Championship. I can shop on their online store to my heart’s content, buying all kinds of merchandise — from all the official kits head to toe, to lamps and towels. I also follow professional road cycling, where I can buy three different version of the EF Nippo kit, from the skinsuit the team wears in time trials to a cheaper (still £80 for the top) top and bib shorts, as well as training kits if I don’t want to be wearing bright pink. Add in various accessories made by the team and their kit sponsor. Many teams also make the relevant national and region championship kits each season, as well as world champions kit (I’ll come back to this later).
But what about running? If you’re a fan of Bowerman Track Club or Tinman Elite (or whatever it’s now called when you read this) you’re in luck — Bowerman especially has a great range of merchandise on sale. Fan of another running group or team? Sorry. whilst a few of the top teams offer some level of merchandise, the vast majority do not.
Why does this really matter? Part of the beauty of running is that you don’t need many pieces of equipment, a team, a set pitch, a referee. You can just go and do it in almost all conditions. Running doesn’t require you to spend £100s on equipment just to get going (I won’t tell anyone about that pair of Vaporflys you have sat nearby). That is indeed true, but right now you’re on /r/AdvancedRunning, so clearly you care more about the sport, in addition to the personal fitness and wellbeing component.
In addition to wanting to rep your favourite team or runners gear when you go for a run — in the same way you don the colours of your favourite football team on match day — there’s also a empathetic reason to care about how athletes earn a living wage. Athletics isn’t a sport that offers a life changing pay-day. There are no guaranteed contracts, no pension funds, in many cases there is very little money outside of prize money at races. Searching for runner gofundme’s and I can find athletes that have won medals for Team GB and Australia at events like the Commonwealth games looking for money to help with their training. This is for things like altitude camps, time away from their full time job, those additional bits of equipment that a member of BTC can access by going into one of many state of the art buildings on the Nike Campus, but that the vast majority cannot even begin to think about easy access to.
So to summarise so far:
* Very few running groups or brands make professional kit or merchandise available to fans, which is something other sports have done well for decades now
* Many many elite runners barely scrape a living
What can be done then? What was the point of all these words? (what I talk about below is blue-sky thinking, I’m not actually expecting anything, I’m just some guy on a rest day wanting to write about running)
Professional runners, individuals or established training groups, should offer running fans more ways to support their running. Whether that be through the brands that sponsor the team directly, or enterprising team members producing merchandise independently.
We’re starting to see more efforts to produce video and social content above and beyond what we witness at established races, so teams and individuals are clearly looking to grow their fanbases. This is great, but give us ways to actually financially support those runners. The Athlete Special and Allie Ostrander do a fantastic job of showing their lives with Brooks Beasts, but Brooks Beasts have no (easily locatable) merchandise. Give us fans an outlet to show our support with our wallets for individual runners and teams.
We need more than the generic Nike Elite singlet, or a Team GB adidas vest every 4 years for the Olympics. One of my favourite runners is Jack Rayner, who runs for the Melbourne Track Club, probably the best distance running team in Australia. The team does not have its own kit, the few members sponsored by Nike wear the generic Nike Elite kit, others wear plain kit. Given the team has the majority of the top Australian distance running talent, merchandise would surely be bought by the fans of the team and the individuals themselves, given the huge range of fans the members cultivate — from Stewart McSweyn taking on the Ingebrigtsons at the 1500m, to Sinead Diver, who works and is a mum whilst representing Australia in the marathon at 44 years old. The team is ever-present in the Australian running scene, so give fans a way to support those runners, not just the top few but the up-and-coming members of the team too.
Whilst I don’t expect giants like Nike to start making 20 different unique team kits, I think it would be fair to at least be able to make different colourways of that year’s singlet (Nike seem to be starting to do this to a degree) and a team logo. MTC might not be able to have custom kits in the same way BTC get from Nike, but a kit in Australian yellow and green with an MTC logo would surely be an improvement for the members of the team to race in, and something that fans would be more inclined to wear themselves.
Once teams and individuals start making merchandise available, I’d hope that this could be used as leverage to make changes to the kit rules. This is where we run in to World Athletics issues (as any problem in Athletics does).
4.2 in the World Athletics Marketing and Advertising Regulations states:
For the avoidance of doubt manufacturers and Athlete Sponsors can only have one brand name/Logo applied once on items of Athlete Kit or other apparel (as referenced in Clause 5.5) and personal belongings or accessories (as referenced in Clause 6) in accordance with these Regulations (i.e. they cannot have a name/Logo of one brand in one position on Athlete Kit, other apparel, personal belongings or accessories then a second different brand name/Logo in another position on Athlete Kit, other apparel, personal belongings or accessories or have the same name/Logo appear more than once items of Athlete Kit or other apparel, personal belongings or accessories).
Athletes are limited to a single sponsor on their kit. Seb Coe, World Athletics president, had to be pressured to give up his 6-figure Nike ambassadorship when elected president of the then IAAF. Whilst these are not logos appearing on Seb’s suit, it seems somewhat hypocritical to preside over rules limiting the hugely limited income streams of the product (especially given athletes wear national kits at some of the biggest events) but have multiple revenue streams yourself whilst claiming to be impartial.
Being a member of the House of Lords, Seb Coe has to declare his interets here.
(It’s also odd that energy drink sponsorship has to be approved (3.5.6) — presumably Mondo Duplantis has this approval — given the vast sums of money they pump in to other, far less popular sports. Maybe allowing this sponsorship stream would be of major benefit given the money and coverage brands like Red Bull provide their vast athlete pools.)
I’d like to see these rules changed. Purists will hate this change, and bemoan athletes becoming walking billboards — the irony being the outrage at an additional 5cm logo on an athlete’s singlet as they run by numerous advertising banners raking in money for World Athletics, the IOC and the event organisers (usually with the event taking place in a morally questionable location). One of the things that triathlon does well is allowing athletes to cultivate their own sponsors, running needs to let their stars have access to this income stream too.
My final blue-sky change I’d like to see comes directly from cycling. We need to celebrate World, Olympic and National champions better. In cycling disciplines administered by the UCI (equivalent to World Athletics), the World, Regional (Europe, Oceana etc) and National champions are permitted to wear special kit pertaining to that discipline — so the winner of the World Championship Time Trial will be allowed to wear the UCI World Champion jersey with the recognisable UCI stripes. Filippo Ganna can wear this only during TT events, during road races he wears his normal team kit — Julian Allaphille is the road race world champion currently. Past champions are also permitted to have a band on their sleeve with previous titles -Peter Sagan is currently Slovakian national champion, and as a previous world champion can wear the UCI stripes on his sleeve.
I’d love to see running embrace something like this. Celebration of current and previous champions adds to the prestige of the events, for fans and runners alike. If we were to implement my first and second ideas, sponsors would be more attracted to be seen on the world champions singlet or shorts, and merchandise related to the titles would surely benefit the athletes too. Allow World, Olympic and National champions to wear a special singlet or kit in their specific event, and have a mark on their singlet in the following years to denote their previous titles. It’d be great to see Eilish McColgan and Marc Scott with a special singlet like this for the next year in any 10000m races they do to indicate that they are British 10000m champions.
Whilst I’m sure you’ll agree, disagree or have different ideas to the few I’ve discussed, fundamentally running and athletics are stuck and behind the times. I think we can all agree that in many areas, the sport of athletics has not progressed for many years in how new fans are attracted to the sport, kept interested, and able to put money in to the sport. Where I can watch an F1 race on a camera on a specific car, with the driver’s radio instead of the normal TV commentary, we’re still in a world where key parts of races are cut away from. After the F1 race is finished I can buy all kinds of merchandise from teams and drivers themselves. I also think any changes need to come from the top, middle and bottom. Fans and athletes have been shown time and time again that World Athletics care first and foremost about what makes them the most money, and usually this is not related to the actual events but on bribes and corporate sponsorships — this is where I’d love to see athletes and teams take the initiative and give us fans ways to support the athletes. Whilst gofundme’s serve a purpose I don’t feel that it’s a sustainable way for fans to support the athletes we seek entertainment and inspiration from. If athletes and teams do provide merchandise, vote with your wallets as they say. And wherever possible lobby those at the top to make changes to benefit the people we want to see performing, to allow them to do so without having to decide between barely scraping a living or giving up the sport entirely!
What do you think? Would you buy more team kit if it was on offer? Do you also think World Athletics needs to have a serious overhaul of its structure and rules? Do you know other ways of supporting professional runners in a more direct fashion than buying shoes from Nike.com?
