Elite Athlete Contracts with Kelly Newlon #236

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Trail and ultra runners.
What is going on?
Welcome to another episode ofthe coop cast.
As always, I am your humblehost, coach jason coop, and this
episode of the podcast is alittle bit of a deviation from
our normal content, which is allaround training, philosophy,
physiology, coaching aspects andthings like that, and I wanted

(00:30):
to take the time to shine thespotlight on something a little
bit different, and that is eliteathlete contract renegotiations
.
The reason that this caught myeye is one of my good friends
and colleagues, kelly Newland,who's going to come on the
podcast today, recently produceda series of Instagram posts all

(00:50):
about tips that athletes shouldthink about and the things that
they should be doing as we areentering into this renegotiation
season, and I wanted to takethat as an opportunity to
produce an entire podcast aroundthis particular content.
A lot of you in the communitywill recognize Kelly as being

(01:10):
one of the food serviceproviders, somebody who cooks
for a lot of the elite athletes.
However, as of the last severalyears, she has also become a
confidant, so to speak, with alot of athletes as they start to
negotiate new contracts, and itis a niche that she has carved
out for herself, as we discussedat the very onset of this

(01:31):
podcast, I'm going to leave alink in my show notes to Kelly's
Instagram handle and if youwant to check out each one of
those tips individually, I wouldencourage you to check that out
as well, but I had a lot of funwith this conversation.
Like I said, it's a little bitoff the beaten path for this
particular podcast, but I dothink that, regardless if you if
you are an elite athlete or oryou're just curious about how

(01:53):
this happens, this is the timeof year where we start to see
all the all of the athletes andall the brands start to set the
table for what is to come.
It's absolutely fascinating tome and I hope that you guys find
it informative as well.
All right, with that as abackdrop, I am getting right out
of the way.
Here's my conversation withKelly Newland all about what to

(02:14):
do and what not to do when youare negotiating a new contract
for an elite athlete.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
First off, thanks, athlete first off, thanks you,
bet, thank you this is gonna befun.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
A little bit of a deviation from my normal podcast
topics, which are training andphysiology related, but I don't
know if you listened.
Last week we talked a littlebit about I had ajw and neil
palace on the podcast and wetalked about this.
We talked about dnfing, and partof that backdrop not the

(02:51):
entirety of it part of thatbackdrop was what happened at
utb most recently it seems tohappen every year where there's
a large contingent of eliteathletes that drop out of the
race, and I'm sure that there'sgoing to be some kind of flavor
of that context or that of thedialogue that you and I talk
about with with relevance tosome of these elite athlete

(03:12):
contracts.
But before we jump the guncause we can't jump the gun we
got to set the table a littlebit for the listeners on who you
are, how we know each other,what you do for your day job, a
lot of other stuff, and thenwe'll dive into the meaty stuff.
So, kelly, first off, you tellthe listeners a story.
How do we know each other?
Just you and I personally Gofor it.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Gosh, I was thinking about this yesterday and I
actually remember the firstconversation we had I don't know
if you do, it was probablyclose to a decade ago but I
called you on the phone to chatwith you about an athlete that
you had just taken on, and itwas an athlete who had also

(03:56):
reached out to me to work withthem at the time for individual
meals.
And that was the first yeah,that was the first contact that
I recall having with you, andthen that just sort of
organically grew to you reachingout a short time later to see
if I could feed one of yourultra camps.
Does that sound right?
Yep, and then you know youspend a week with someone.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Can you either love or hate them up to that point
right.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
And then we just became friends and then you
coached me and then we've justalways had our love of NBA, our
frenemy rivalry with teams.
But yeah, I think that what Iappreciate about my relationship
with you, Coop, is it's sort ofall-encompassing it's you as a
coach, you as what you bring tothe community, me working with

(04:44):
your athletes, and then ourfriendship.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
I'll throw a compliment right back at you.
It's been awesome to see youdevelop as a professional and
your business develop, becausesimultaneously when you and I
first encountered each other,your husband Morgan took of
absence, as is at his normal job, to help you get your business

(05:07):
up and off the ground, and Ithought that that was a really
cool dynamic.
He worked at ultimate directionas a.
What was his role there?
He was the sales director sopretty high level position there
completely abandoned that tohelp you get that off the ground
.
I totally appreciated that andto see you as a professional
honestly like take off like arocket ship to where now?
I mean no, kelly, I mean you'reworking with the best of the

(05:31):
best across a multitude ofsports.
I mean you're literally workingwith the former NBA world
champion, denver Nuggets,beating them and I always say
that doesn't happen by accident,that happens that you're just
really good at what you do.
You're highly sought after andyou're a consummate professional
and it's been neat to see thatgrow from you making burritos

(05:52):
and delivering them in a coolerall over Boulder, colorado, to
endurance athletes.
It's been a cool journey to see.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Thank you.
I appreciate that when you saythat you know it took off like a
rocket ship when it's.
I suspect it looked like thatfrom the outside, but it sure
did not feel like it.
Yeah, anyway, I appreciate that.
Thank you, and it's absolutelyyeah.
And shout out to Morgan Like Icould never have so many people

(06:22):
have asked me like well how didyou all?
of a sudden.
I just started hearing aboutyour company out of nowhere and
you were everywhere and that wasabsolutely due to Morgan
managing my calendar back in theday and it was bananas, so yeah
.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
So for anybody out there that can get on Kelly's
highly sought after calendar forany events, consider yourself
lucky.
But if you can't consideryourself the rest of the pack
because it gets booked up quitequickly and I think NBA stuff
starts for you next week orlater this week, right.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, and that's what right now.
You know, my normal day job isBrad, so professional chef and I
feed endurance athletes.
That's my jam and where myheart is.
And then, outside of that ofthe endurance sports community,
the NBA comes in and that, asyou said, is starting very
quickly here.
So I had this really shortwindow that's kind of like

(07:17):
August, september, where thatalso just happens to be contract
season that I get inundatedwith the topic we're about to
jump into, but so I kind of havethese sort of three things
going on, but they all fallunder and are due to my work
with Rad.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So let's that's actually my next transition
point so many people out there.
We just had this big dialogue.
You're a professional chef, I'ma professional coach and we're
going to start talking aboutathlete contracts and how
athletes can kind of betternavigate them.
How did you get involved inthat Level?
Said that for the audiences aswell, because it's seemingly not
related, but it really is.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah, it's such a good question and I do always
appreciate when someone asks,otherwise they're just sort of
left mystified by what hashappened.
So it was very organic.
Because of the nature of mybusiness, I spend my days either
with the professional athleteor the athlete.

(08:15):
Manager for brand istraditionally who hires me for
anything, so I'm either withthis group or I'm with that
group, and so my company is adecade old now and throughout
the years, due to the time Ispend with these two groups, I
often just find myself in, youknow, again organic

(08:35):
conversations with people thathave.
This conversation has come upwhere it's like, hey, and at
this point you know, if I'mspending again, I'll travel with
a team and I'm at a VRBO withthem for two weeks.
You know, you become friendswith people after a while and
you know human nature, so theytrust me and I trust them.
And you know, hey, I'mnavigating these two contracts.
What do you think this one hasthese things, this one has this.

(08:57):
So it just kind of started thatway just innocent conversations
, and then that, just that.
Then the next time thatperson's contract was up, they'd
be like, hey, I have anotherone, what do you think of this,
and by the next time that firstyear rolled around, I had I
don't know a dozen athletes askme these same conversations,
these same questions.
So the same conversation wouldtake place and because of that I

(09:21):
would hear about differentbrands, different contracts, and
it was all just stuck in myhead so that I had this beta
that I could share with me.
Like, hey, you know what Idon't know about that one.
Maybe you should ask this sothat those sort of things
happened.
And then, on the other side ofthe coin, the athlete managers
again, who are the ones who hireme for events or team training

(09:42):
camps and whatnot, would say,hey, we're looking for an
athlete that fits, checks theseboxes.
Or hey, we're looking at thisathlete so and so, fill in the
blank name.
What do you know about them?
So I and then I also becameprivy to the conversations on
both sides like I'm having ahard time with the brands that I

(10:02):
work with aren't providing A, band C.
And then I would hear theathlete managers say we'm having
a hard time with the brandsthat I work with.
Um aren't providing a, b and c.
And then I would hear theathlete managers say we're
having a really hard time.
I wish these athletes would a,b and c I'm like this is bananas
so I have this whole fullcircle from both sides.
and then over the years, thatjust grew and grew to the point
where I think last year I wasjust telling someone the other

(10:25):
day I had just under a hundredathletes reach out to me.
Jesus, really, it's completelynot sustainable because I have a
.
You know, I'm traveling, or youknow, I just spent five weeks
in France with one of yourathletes and then I was like,
okay, I have to somehow, tosomehow manage this.
I can't, I don't want to turnsomeone away, but at the same

(10:46):
time I really value my time andthat I was like you know, this
has been building, I reallyenjoy the work.
And now I'm at the point where,just a couple months ago, I was
like, okay, I'm going toannounce that I'm now officially
moving into or adding this sortof athlete agent or athlete
manager space to where I'm at.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
So it started out as like an informal advisory role
and now and this is actuallynews to me, kelly you're
breaking the news to me evendespite our friendship.
I can't believe you didn't tellme before.
You told everybody on air.
It's been a while since we'veactually spoken, but you're
turning this into part of yourbusiness portfolio, essentially,

(11:31):
where you're an agent forathletes.
Am I understanding thatcorrectly?

Speaker 2 (11:34):
That is correct.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Wow.
Well, athletes need moreadvisors and counsel in their
corner in this area.
So this is how we're going totalk about it.
So, level, set my perspectiveright and kind of why I reached
out to you.
It's actually a lot differentto where I'm always an advocate
for the athletes.
That's my role as a coach.
They're my constituents.
Those are the people that Iserve.

(11:57):
And, yeah, I have to play nicewith the brands and I know the
brand managers and things likethat.
I'm kind of on a level that youdo, but they're, and I know the
brand managers and things likethat.
I'm kind of on a level that youdo, but they're, they are not
my constituents at all.
I'm very, I'm very clear aboutthat.
And so my role in helpingathletes kind of navigate this
is more on the athlete side andhelping them understand what
they're getting themselves into,mainly through the lens of what

(12:18):
their goals are.
Does this set up, help yourgoals as you're expressing them
to me as an athlete and I'm yourcoach, and how can we help
navigate that?
it's never a perfect 100alignment right, because that's
just part of, you know, part ofthe deal that we'll get into.
But my kind of like role inthis and the reason that I reach
out to you so frequently forcounsel is to help me navigate

(12:41):
that, mainly on the behalf ofthe athletes.
So I want the listeners toremember that whenever I'm kind
of like coming in with some sortof epiphany or opinion or
whatever it is, that's usuallymy angle is how do I help my
particular constituents out?
Not necessarily how do I helpthe brands out, although I love
them and I realize that we'vegot to.
You know, we have a wholeecosystem that we have to, that

(13:04):
we have to support.
Here I'm very clear that my, my, my peeps are the athletes and
I want to look after them.
So, with that as a so, withthat as a little bit of a table
set, the next part of this justto, before we start to dive into
the dialogue and how we've kindof structured the dialogue is,
I think it's important to thelisteners to know what is the

(13:26):
scope of economy and timeframethat we're looking at here.
You know you've started to seethese contracts roll in and most
people don't know crap aboutcrap, right, they just don't.
They just kind of don't know.
They see these things on fromthe league sports right Cause
that's all public informationwhen they negotiate it for your
beloved Denver Nuggets or mybeloved Dallas Mavericks or

(13:48):
Dallas Cowboys.
We see all these contracts kindof play out in real time.
It's all publicly available.
But what we don't see in theendurance sports typically is
how that plays out because of anumber of different factors that
we might get into.
But can you give some like anoverall umbrella within trail
and ultra running, of what thatactually looks like in terms of

(14:10):
the economy of scale and thetimeframes that most of these
contracts are actually beingnegotiated over?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Sure, I think I've already mentioned a couple of
times the phrase like contractseason, so that will usually
fall.
No one really wants to bebothered like.
Reaching out to an athletemanager in the middle of july is
just like a gnat there's otherthings going on.
People are racing yeah, they'reracing and then everyone's

(14:37):
traveling and there's a lotgoing on and they're focused, as
they should be, on the teamthat they have at hand, uh,
which is really where all theenergy should be anyway.
Uh, and the athlete themselves,like that's, their focus is
racing.
So I'll start to hear kind ofrumblings around august, but not
generally until right about theweek before utmb, as far as our

(15:03):
sport is considered, and thenoften this year I saw a lot of
athlete managers at UTMB whowere reaching out to athletes
who were in France, in Chamonix,during that time, whether they
were racing or just there.
They were setting up meetingsto go over contracts that had
been sent the previous week.
So maybe contracts were weresent, let's say, beginning of

(15:26):
August.
So August, september, reallythat's when things are picking
up and everyone is wanting tohave that conversation because
everyone thinks contract seasonstarts in October and I will
absolutely tell you, if you'rewaiting until October 1st,
you've probably waited too long.
So there might be some shiftingaround, but for the most part I

(15:50):
always advise people like, getyour ducks in a row in August,
so mid to end of August you cansend whatever you need to.
So August, september, october,things are kind of.
There's a lot of back and andforth whether it's in person or
on the phone or zoom, andnegotiating, hopefully within

(16:10):
the contract, and then I wouldsay end of October, beginning of
November is when brands want tohave contracts signed, so that
process will take a few weeks toget going and then they are.
Often there's a few brandsright now that are really
waiting for a couple bigathletes to sign and they
haven't.
So due to something like that,a brand might be like you know

(16:35):
what?
We can't chat with you rightnow.
We're going to circle back in acouple weeks because they're
waiting to see what their budgetis if they're able to pick this
athlete up.
So august, september, october,signing in october, november.
There's a couple brands thatreally dragged their feet and
the athlete is committed andsigned their contract and sent
it back to the brand.

(16:56):
There's a couple brands thatdon't sign until, even though
they're like great, this isawesome, they don't sign that
commitment on the contract untilDecember or beginning of
January, which is nerve wrackingif you're with one of those
brands.
But yeah, so does that answeryour question?

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, Let me kind of address the elephant in the room
that I think people are that'srumbling in the back of people's
minds.
With this timeframe, itnaturally falls, as you
mentioned, right around UTMBweek, and the heavier parts of
the negotiation usually happenafter UTMB week.
Is that because you have thesetwo things kind of coalescing at

(17:33):
the same timeframe?
First off are the racesthemselves that have the biggest
spotlight on them, which arethe UTMB races, and they're
after Western States, which hasthe other big spotlight on it,
and the athletes and brands areusing those as part of the
decision-making process, whetherit's a piece of leverage or a
chip that they can negotiate, orthey're using it as a proving
ground for the athlete.
There's a whole host ofdifferent things.

(17:55):
That's thing number one that'shappening at the same time.
And thing number two that'shappening at a similar timeframe
not the same timeframe, butsimilar timeframe is brands are
starting to get their budgets inplace.
Most people are running offannual budgets.
They have some semblance ofthat annual budget in the third
or fourth quarter, dependingupon the operations of business.
That then gives directive tothe athlete managers on how much

(18:17):
they can spend.
They then take that budget andstart to deploy it out and out
into the field.
Is that my understanding thatcorrectly?
From a timeframe perspective,that's really what we're seeing
here.
Is this phenomenon of those twothings kind of coming together
at the same time.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Absolutely yeah, and as you said.
So the budget for those thataren't aware of the budget for
the athletes that are sponsoredabsolutely falls into the
marketing budget and it's notuntil that quarter.
That's and that's why it'sOctober's that people are like
you should wait until October,but they'll kind of have an idea

(18:53):
of who they're going to atleast keep on and move over so
they'll know how many spots theyhave.
But they can't make a moveuntil that budget comes through,
which is not until that sametimeframe, and then that's when
they find out their marketingbudget.
So, and absolutely what yousaid about the races, they're
watching how their athletes aredoing.
They're watching any otherathletes that were like, oh you

(19:14):
know, like of interest or anathlete that they had no idea.
That was all of a sudden, asurprise on the podium at like
three different big races, whichis great and it's also great
for the athlete, like it'sanother kind of reason I usually
like I love to see an athletewait until after if they're
racing Western States and UTMBWait, don't negotiate before

(19:36):
that, because what if?

Speaker 1 (19:38):
It's a bet on yourself strategy, right yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
And there's a cool thing I'll have to put a pin in
Remind me to chat with you aboutrollover bonuses for contracts,
which absolutely affect thenext year's budget.
Because if you have an athletethat has, you know, won Western
States or podiumed on WesternStates and Hard Rock and UTMB,
and each of those races receives, you know, tens of thousands of

(20:03):
dollars for each race and thebrand, so they've got the bonus
for the races.
And then they also, if theyhave a rollover clause in their
contract, what if they made 20let's say 20 60 000 in bonuses?
That now is added to theirsalary for?

Speaker 1 (20:20):
the next year.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Right, yeah, it's a lot of of money.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
So let's not dance around this.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Sorry, I'm getting around.
No, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
It's okay.
No, we're this podcast.
Listeners of this podcast areused to things going off the
rails when I get involved.
Let's not beat around the bushhere.
I do think that it's importantto at least put in a bread box
the economy that we're talkingabout.
I mentioned that when we go tothe pro sports, we know it.
We know how much PatrickMahomes gets made or makes,

(20:49):
because when his contract getsrenegotiated it's all over ESPN
and things like that.
And then all the otherquarterbacks in the league can
look at that and say, oh okay,well, if Patrick's getting paid
this, I'm better or worse thanPatrick or I'm on a better team.
They kind of use that as a chip, so to speak.
So the athletes may or may nothave a scope of this, but the
public certainly does, not JustJoe Schmo public that's

(21:13):
listening to this podcast.
That's not in the elite athlete.
They probably have no clue.
If you were to ask them toguess, they're going to be 10x
under or one-tenth, somethingkind of outside that timeframe.
I know we can't divulge anyindividual athletes because now
you're working with them, you'rekind of confidentiality bound,
now that I know that.

(21:33):
But also the athletes are morelikely than not and maybe
exclusively.
You can render an opinion onthis under NDAs not to disclose
all or parts of their contract.
But can we at least kind of putit in a bread box, so to speak,
like what are we talking abouthere when these people are
negotiating contracts?

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Sure, and just to clarify, you're asking for like
dollar signs for like differenttiers.
Yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
Like is it 10 grand or is it a hundred grand or is
it 10 million?
Like let's just try to like,just to make sure that everybody
knows how much bread we'repushing around.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah.
So the first question I alwaysask an athlete that wants to,
like, go pro is why do you wantto be sponsored?
And they tell me all theirstuff, their hopes and dreams
and I'm like, all right, I justwant you to know before you get
started because of where you areas an athlete like you're a
strong runner, you're great,strong runner, you're great
these things, whatever socialmedia but the average that

(22:28):
you're probably going to makeentry-level annual salary is
$4,000.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
And then, where does it graduate from there?
Because that's going to betheir next question, right?

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, and you know they're like well, you know, I
want to get you know.
Or someone will say, well, I'msponsored by so-and-so and I'm
like what does that mean?
They're like well, I get gear.
And this, I'm like I get gear,I got so much free gear.
So you're really not sponsored.
You're an ambassador unlessyou're getting money.
So then there's you know thethings they want you to do and
within is likely not going toget the bonus schedule that a

(23:03):
mid to top tier athlete isgetting within that same brand,
so they might not even getoffered bonus because of where
they might fall.
There's so many exceptionalathletes.
One of the hardest things aboutconversations that I have is
finding a compassionate,creative way to tell someone
look, you're a stout athlete,but you're a dime, a dozen.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Wow, that is a tough conversation to have.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, so, and it doesn't mean that they're not an
exceptional person or a strongathlete, but especially, let's
say, the front range of Colorado, there are a hundred versions
of the same level of skill thatthis person might have, versions
of the same level of skill thatthis person might have, man or

(23:50):
woman.
So to get signed is one hardTwo, not what you think.
So let's say that first sort ofentry into the sport, let's say
four to six, depending on thebrand.
And then as you go up, let'ssay all of a sudden you're like
I'm one Quad Rock and I was, Idon't know, top 20 at Western
States and top 10 at HighLonesome.

(24:11):
So your contract is up, they'regoing to renegotiate.
They're like you know you'redoing really well and you prove
to them that you're moving up.
Let's say that person is nowlike at 10 grand and then they
might see a bonus schedule.
Then so what does that looklike?
That means like top tier races.
They will get.
Let's say, someone like thatwould probably get like seven
thousand dollars if they wonwestern states.

(24:32):
Or now everyone listening tothis, that's actually top tier
athlete is like holy smokes, Iget a lot more.
Yes, you do, absolutely so.
Then let's say that person thatthey re-sign but they just do a
one-year contract.
Actually, top tier athlete islike holy smokes, I get a lot
more.
Yes, you do, absolutely.
So then let's say that personthat they re-sign but they just
do a one-year contract becausethey're really like you know
what I'm doing, but I'm reallygetting stronger and at this
point they're I don't know, 25years old.

(24:54):
So then the next year they areI don't know, they win a couple
races.
They are, I don't know, theywin a couple races.
They're top I don't know fiveat Javelina and they're top 10
at Western States.
Then they sign probably with anew brand who's been watching
them, or if they're a smartathlete that's really gone after
a brand, then they'll probablyre-sign with a new footwear

(25:16):
company that, let's say, givesthem 15 to 20 grand.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
So let me pull some data into this and this is a
couple of years old.
It's a survey that ultrarunning magazine, or an article
about the survey, was written inultra running magazine a couple
of years ago.
So.
So the values are going to be alittle bit dated because these
are always moving and thankfullyfor the athletes they're moving
up, meaning they're kind,meaning they're generally
escalating in terms of theamount of contract value.

(25:44):
I'll leave a link to thisarticle in the show notes.
There's one graph in here inparticular that I think is quite
telling to the question that Iwas asking, which is generally
how much everybody makes.
So let me just pull out acouple of highlights of it.
So, kelly, to your point whereyou're starting around four
grand, six grand, somewherearound there, let me set up the
survey again.

(26:04):
So they asked 200 eliteathletes a whole series of
questions who's your mainsponsor?
Do you get more from prizemoney or from a base salary?
How much is it?
Blah, blah, blah.
It was anonymous survey and sothe athletes were kind of free
to share whatever they, you know, whatever they could, without
breaking, without breaking anysort of their any piece of the
NDA parts of their contract.
It was also some total 50% ofthe athletes that responded make

(26:31):
less than $10,000 annually.
That's both from their contractvalue as well as from as well
as from prize money.
The way that gets distributed isuneven.
So to your point of how theescalation happens in an uneven
fashion, and what I mean by thatis the people who are making.
Zero to 5,000 is 34% and fiveto 10,000 is 14%, but if you sum

(26:56):
total all of those, half of thepeople that responded, half of
the 200 elite athletes thatresponded to this, make less
than $10,000 annually.
If you go up to the upper endof the kind of echelon, so to
speak, two and a half percentmake above a hundred thousand,
and the cap that they kind ofput on this, which is weird, is
a quarter million dollars a year.

(27:16):
So, just to set the scale,we're from thousands and tens of
thousands of dollars to a fewpeople that make over a hundred
K a year, and then maybe there'ssome very few that are even
higher than that.
But in terms of the entirety ofthe scale, nobody's making
Packer Holmes money to myearlier or Nicola Jokic money.

(27:37):
We'll use Kelly's favoritebasketball player.
Nobody's making it.
Yeah, nobody's making that.
Yeah, you wish, cause you're anagent now, so you're going to
play a part of this economy, soanyway, okay, so with that as a
table set, right, the context ofthis conversation was
inspiration that Kelly'sdelivering to the universe
currently, and we don't knowwhen the end of this inspiration

(27:58):
is.
So we're recording this podcast.
It's done.
It's done.
Okay, it is officially done, sowe're recording.
Okay, there we go.
We're recording this.
It's done at 10,.
Right, I didn't.
I haven't checked Instagramlately.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah, so we're recording this podcast on
September 25th.
If you are not followingboulder, there'll be a link in
the show notes on Instagram.
You can find these 10 pro tipsthat Kelly's posted on Instagram
that we're going to use thisframework for this conversation

(28:29):
Maybe not in order, Maybe it'llbe a little bit more chaotic
than that, Maybe we'll only getthrough seven of them and we'll
spend a lot of time on one, whoknows?
But that's the framework for itand for the elite athletes that
are out there that are tryingto navigate.
This is a great place to startyour own internal framework for
how to work through these thingsand for the people that are
curious about it.
I think that this also givesgood background content for what

(28:53):
the athletes are actually, whatthe athletes are actually going
through.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Okay.
So we're going to start numberone.
I'm going to give you, I'mgoing to give the pro tip, and
then you're going to expand onit and then we'll bat it back
and forth a little bit, great.
So number one one sheets pluscover letters are in multiple
slide decks are out of date andinefficient, and I'll add mine
anything under 20 point fontnobody will read.
That's my addition to that.

(29:20):
I just designed a presentationand I was reminded of that rule.
So, kelly, what do you mean bythat?

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, I love that point too, coop, because it has
to be easy and that justencompasses this entire
statement.
So this is number one, becausebefore you reach out to anyone,
if you send that initial emailwithout any sort of attachments
on who you are, you'reimmediately missing the boat and
no one has time nor wants toread a 20 page deck from some.

(29:47):
If you can't tell your story inone to two slides, don't do
your slide.
There are very few things,instances where you would need a
slide or a deck.
Let's see if you're a fitnessmodel instead of being sponsored
, which is a whole other episode.
One sheet is one sheet andthat's exactly what it means.
It's called that for a reason.
So put your best photo up there, pick your best photo, give a

(30:09):
list of like who you are, yourtop things and, the great thing,
you know it's 2024.
So what I love about a onesheet is you can put an
electronic link in there topodcasts.
You've been on to YouTubesomething or others to.
If you're featured in, you know, ultra running magazine, put
that in, but tighten it up,right?

(30:31):
You've got one chance to makethat impression.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
What are the categories that are going on
that one sheet?
Because a lot of people willthink, oh, it's just performance
, I'm going to put my Palmareson there.
Right sheet, because a lot ofpeople will think, oh, it's just
performance, I'm going to putmy Palmares on there right.
I won this race.
I got fourth in this.
We just went through that.
But what else should beencapsulated in this one pager?

Speaker 2 (30:48):
Right, let's see I'm trying to think, but say I'll
use you as an example.
So, Jason Koob.
Here's some bullet points ofyour race resume over the past
two years, three years tops.
I don't care where you went tohigh school.
No one needs to know that youhave run.
I ran 27 or was on 18 podcastslike.
You don't need that.
Just hold on bullet like yourtop three races per each year.

(31:12):
Now if you're someone who wonlike a maze I don't know utmb,
hard rock, western states andtdg, obviously those should go
on there.
But um, two to three years tops, three to four races on each
year and then underneath thatit's any podcast you were on any
media that you did.
If you were ultra runner of theyear, things like that, right,

(31:37):
anything else.
Let's say, um coop, if you wereum on the board at Western
States, that would be on theirboard.
Member at whatever.
If you sit on a panel for thePTRA, that's great to have on
there.
Anything that shows your levelof commitment to the community.
How you give back something.

(31:58):
That is who you are, that, likeyou are instrumental for the
the incline board like.
Is back something that is whoyou are, that, like you are
instrumental for the the inclineboard Like.
Is that something that youwould be on, that you would put
on there, right?
Everyone loves to do theincline.
It's a huge part of our cultureand community where you live
and you are like a kingpin forkeeping that thing tight.
Like that should be up there,right.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Founding member of the incline board, by the way.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh see, there you go so things like that need to be
on there and as far asinformation like, you don't need
to put your address.
You could put jason cooke,colorado, springs, colorado, but
no one needs to know where youraddress is, put your phone
number, your email, and likeinstagram or something on there,
and I'm happy to.

(32:39):
If anyone wants to reach out tome and send me a message, to
send them an example of what aone sheet looks like, I can.
I have a few that I can send.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
How do you advise people describe or promote the
social side of things?
Do you advocate for them tofocus on followers, engagements,
a specific post or examples ofwhat their content actually like
, actually looks like?
Like?
How do you advise athletesmanage that piece of it when
they're pitching themselves?

Speaker 2 (33:09):
I don't know honestly , because the athlete manager is
going to look at your instagramthemselves.
They're going to be like hereit is, it's on the one sheet.
They'll figure it out.
Everyone's different.
You know, something like robmuki from Adidas.
What he wants to see isdifferent than what someone else
wants to see, and it's yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
I mean that's interesting because a lot of
people would default to think,hey, listen, if I've got 200,000
Instagram followers, I'mdefinitely putting that as like
one of my assets that I'mbringing to the table.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
And what you're saying is, the athlete managers
are going to do that anyway, soyou're telling them information
that they're doing due diligenceon someone like Billy Yang
who's constantly producingcontent in a way that you know,

(34:08):
like video and YouTube, likethat's a different kind of story
, but the athlete manager isgoing to find you anyway on
Instagram, so they'll find outthemselves what's important.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Interesting.
Okay, let's move on to numbertwo.
Upon receiving the terms whicheverybody's doing right now, we
just went through the timeframetoo.
Upon receiving the terms whicheverybody's doing right now we
just went through the time frameBe sure to ask.
I'm emphasizing that word.
Be sure to ask if there's aclock on the offer.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Absolutely.
So what this means is right.
When you get an email fromwhoever you know, the athlete
manager, and they send you likethis is what we want to be, like
great, thank you so much.
This is is confirmation.
I've received the terms.
Is there a clock on this offer?
If not, I can get back to you.
I don't know what's today,wednesday, I'll get back to you

(34:47):
on Friday or I'll get back toyou by end of day, monday.
But there needs to be some sortof communication.
And the reason this is becauseI have a laundry list of
examples of athletes who haveliterally lost an offer because
they waited weeks to respond tothis while they were trying to
filter through other offers orgo out of town.
Or you're on a race and you're,or they just dragged you.

(35:11):
Some people are just lazy andjust drag their feet.
They don't understand the goldmine.
So I have, unfortunately, likeexamples of athletes that circle
back like a month later.
They don't respond for like amonth and they're like hey, I'd
love to chat with you about thisand the brand is like I'm sorry
, the offer's longer available.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
We've moved on as they should have.
They got budgets to run.
They got a department to run atthat point.
So the point is well taken.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Okay, number three Do your own homework.
Research a brand from theinside out.
Remove the romantic goggleskeeping you focused on the
outside view yeah, I feel thatthis is aimed at like one
specific brand it's so funny.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
when I posted this, a half a dozen athletes sent me a
message.
Was this me, was this I'm like?
No, that's how many?
people that's how many peopleI've had this conversation with.
They're like oh, this is thesponsor I want to go with.
They're so amazing.
I'm like, just hold on a minute.
When you do your research,contact people that are with

(36:19):
them With this brand, contactpeople who used to be with the
brand, ask them pros and cons,ask them if there was anything
that you were like, hey, Ireally thought this was going to
happen, but it didn't.
But all the things that areimportant to you as an athlete
if you get an offer from thatdream sponsor, ask people who
are with them or who have beenwith them the very specific

(36:40):
questions about the things thatare important to you and see
what their response is.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
The peer research on this.
I'm happy to see that becomemore a part of the fabric of
this entire thing that peopleare trying to work through,
because I felt that severalyears ago athletes kind of felt
like it was taboo because you'retalking about money and what
you're worth and am I worth morethan you and all this kind of
stuff that you know can thepeople just view as sensitive.

(37:05):
But I think now, not that it'sunit, not that it's a universal
sentiment, but people are justgetting more and more used to
just asking their peers hey,what does your contract look
like?
Do you like it?
Do you like this brand?
What are you not Just like justwhat you went through in people
for the most part not everybody.
Some people want to keep itprivate and that's their own
prerogative, but for the mostpart people want to help each

(37:27):
other out.
That's part of the fabric ofour community as well as they
want to uplift every everybodyelse and from a from from.
I think that from a selfishstandpoint the athletes can are
also starting to realize what'sgood for the goose is good for
the gander, meaning if they canhelp lift somebody else up and
kind of help them, you know geta better kind of, get a better
deal that's going to work out intheir favor, because the entire

(37:49):
you know tide is right.
It's been you know rising, soto speak.
So I've been really happy withseeing that kind of like play
out in the space, that so manypeople are open about it and
willing to kind of give eachother counsel on it.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yeah, and it's perfectly okay to do.
You're not sitting thereshowing them.
I'm not saying show them yourcontract show them your offer,
Like that's just unprofessional.
But ask them conversationallyjust what's going on.
That's perfectly okay to do andwhat you should be doing.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Yeah, interestingly enough, I always describe this.
I've seen and you've probablyseen this as well five or six
versions of the rotation whereall the athletes on brand X love
their stuff and they hate it onbrand Y, and then, two years
later, all the people on brand Ylove their stuff and they hate
it on brand X, and then brand Acomes into the mix and then

(38:38):
everybody loves them and theyhate brand Y again.
Then it just goes round andround and round.
I think part of helpingathletes navigate that is
keeping in touch with thatentire system, both the people
that are in the brand thatthey're potentially courting,
but also people who are not inthat brand.
That just have scope of whatare the other things going on.

(38:59):
Honestly I'm going to give youa plug here, kelly, for your new
venture just have scope of whatare the other things going on
and honestly, that's the one ofthe I'm going to give you a plug
here, kelly, for your newventure.
That's one of the primaryadvantages of having an agent is
you have that scope over theentirety of the sphere and not
just this really narrow view ofthis.
Is what my experience has beenlike with this one or two
contract cycles.
However, you know however manytimes the athlete has actually
been through it.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, and you know, quick side note, I there's one
brand in particular right nowand another one creeping up on
it where I have seen in the pastmonth eight just me alone eight
athletes have come to me andhad offers from brand a and all
of them declines the offerbecause they have heard such

(39:43):
negative things they've heardsuch negative things, so you
know it's going to get peopletalk.
It's human nature.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
It's going to catch up with a brand if that's what's
going on and that once again,and that's good for everybody
because it keeps people on theirtoes, it makes the offers fair.
People know that's going tohappen, so they're doing their
best thing.
Transparency I say this incoaching all the time too.
Transparency is good for theentire community.
If service providers I'llbroaden it out from coaching If

(40:10):
service providers, similarly,are transparent about kind of
every which way that theirservice and business operates,
it's better for everybodybecause you're forced to deliver
better service, you kind ofknow what equivalent price
points are, what equivalentvalue propositions are and
things like that, and justeverybody benefits.
So I'm not going to beat a deadhorse on that.
Let's go on to number.

(40:31):
What are we on now?
Five here we go.
Ask any potential spot.
Four I just went through four,right?
Oh no, sorry, I skipped four.
No, you're right, I told you wewere going to go off the rails,
kelly.
Four is important.
I'm glad you brought me back toreality.
Number four advocate foryourself during the negotiation
process.
Bidding on yourself is alwaysworth it.
We already touched on a littlebit of this theme.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, so these were all in different orders and I
shuffled them all around.
When I around, when I read, youwere like hey, feel free to
shuffle these around.
It was like I really needed to.
So the reason this is in theorder that it is because at this
point you've got your one sheet, your cover letter, you've
already reached out, you've gotyour offer term, someone's
speaking to you and then you'vedone your research.

(41:13):
So now it's time for you to goback and negotiate and discuss
with the athlete manager aboutyour offer.
So this is a really good, justlevel set of like you're here to
navigate, like to advocate foryourself as you navigate this
contract.
So keep that front of mind.
I wish there was a magic pillthat I could give to people that
would give them the confidenceor adjust our mindset to the

(41:37):
realization that this is abusiness decision, if you can
remove that personal attachmentto all of this, which is really.
It's hard to remove thatemotional attachment when you
are an emotionally driven personand a lot of athletes are and
because of that we don'tadvocate for ourselves as
strongly as we should.
So it doesn't mean going, youknow, with boxing gloves on, but

(41:58):
it goes in.
It means going in negotiatingas if you were buying a house.
Going, you know, with boxinggloves on, but it goes in.
It means going in negotiatingas if you were buying a house
right, like you know, workingwith that offer and going up and
down.
So I equate it to that.
Or if you want to buy a car,you know something that you
would be like I'm going in.
Think of it that way.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
I'm going in and I know my stuff.
I mean, once again, it goesback to Exactly you.
I'm going in and I know mystuff.
I mean, once again, it goesback to you know your worth, you
know your worth.
You get that through networkingwith your peers, having a
little bit of experience, askingfriends and mentors, and things
like that, and then you're notso blindsided by, like, what is
actually going on.
Here's the thing, though, thatI'm sure you've wrestled with
this that a lot of athletes thatare listening to this are

(42:38):
thinking when I do that, do Irun the risk of losing out on
the offer that's on the table?
So, if I go in, I think thatI'm worth X and the brand is
coming back with Y, and I, youknow, put on my boxing gloves,
or I'd put on my MMA sparringgloves.
We'll go for the lighterversion of the sports analogy
there.
If I do that, do I run the?
Do I run the risk of screwingthe whole thing up?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
That's a great question.
That's always the big fear,right?
It's very few and far betweenthat.
I have seen that happen andit's only been just in my own
experience.
It's only been when the athletewent in like I'm worth 20 grand
more than you're offering me.
Big deltas and it was so full ofjust bravado that it was bound

(43:22):
to fail.
So what you can do, let's say,if your um annual offer is for
25 and you're like I'd reallylove to get just 30 out of this,
or 35, there's other parts ofthe contract that you can
negotiate to get that like seeif they'll increase your travel
budget.
See if they'll increase yourtravel budget.
See if they'll increase yourbudget for race entries.

(43:45):
See if they'll increase yourbudget for body work and
coaching and PT and we can touchon that more later.
So it's a little bit of asofter approach in working
around things and it shows thatyou wanna have a conversation
and you're not just like this isridiculous Because, let's face
it, if you show up to a contractthat is offering you 20K a year
and you think you're worth 40,you shouldn't be entertaining

(44:08):
them with a meeting anyway.
If they're that far off of whereyou think you should be, or
maybe where you truly are, thenyou absolutely shouldn't be
talking to them anyway.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
And you're probably getting courted from elsewhere
in addition to that, if that'sreally what your value is.
Yes, Okay, now we'll move on tonumber five, if I can get my
ordering correct here, ask anypotential sponsor what they
expect from the athlete theypartner with.
What is the one thing your mosteffective team members do

(44:37):
outside of the podium that makesthem stand stand out above the
rest?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
yeah, this is a really good thing to ask again
before you sign the contract.
But so you know what you'regetting into and there is no
gray area and you don't sign.
And then you're like, oh mygosh, I didn't read any of this
part of the like.
The contract didn't make senseto me or I didn't read it, which
you know.
Contracts are long and most ofus don't read the entire thing,

(45:02):
but you likely, if you'reconfused afterwards, you likely
signed off on something that youwere not aware of.
So asking this question againsort of level sets and allows
them to, in layman's terms, tellyou what they want.
And you know, if it's a, I'mnot signing with a brand unless
I really believe in them andwant to stay with them.

(45:22):
And if that's the case, I wantto do the best that I can for
them because it's my job andbecause that's just who I am.
So you know, as a pleaser andmost athletes are pleasers you
want to ask, like, what is thebest thing I can do for you?
What do you wish the athletesthat you had did you?
What do you wish the athletesthat you had did?

(45:43):
And this kind of goes back,around this other side of the
coin, to conversations I havewith athlete managers who are
like, oh my gosh, we're pullingour hair out because we wish the
athletes would do this and thisand it's in their contract.
But it's like pulling teeth,like why does it have to be so
hard to?
It's like wrangling cats, youknow.
So I know that's what athletemanagers want.
When you have an athlete thatactually takes the minute to ask

(46:05):
a manager this, it's sort of abreath of fresh air and they're
going to like you from the getgo even more and then you have
even more wiggle room about yourcontract because now they like
you, because you took a momentto actually acknowledge that
this is a business.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
So let me give you my perspective.
You know exactly where I'mgoing to go with this on where
that conflict comes into playthe most.
You know exactly where I'mgoing to go with this on where
that conflict comes into playthe most.
It's when the brand usuallywhat, usually one component of a
contract is there X amount ofactivations that you have to be
at shoe launch, go to the storeand give a talk, things like
that.
That's a little bit of anambiguous category which most of

(46:41):
the athletes don't have aproblem with it, until the race
rolls around and the activationjust happens to be two or three
days in advance of the race.
That's when the conflict reallykind of comes into play, where
these components of the contractstart to conflict with what the
athlete wants to do from aperformance perspective.
And that's where I get in,that's where I get involved and

(47:03):
I'm just and I tell them thesame advice that you just told
the athletes is advocate foryourself and just say no, figure
out a solution that is laterdown the road that doesn't
interfere with the months oftraining that you've just done.
Once again, my constituents areathletes at the brand.
So I can say this to theathlete and you know the brands.
Can, you know, hate me for itor whatever for that piece of

(47:25):
advocacy?
But in my experience, wherethat particular component comes
arise, where those two thingsstart to come into conflict the
proximity of the race and thenwhatever the ask actually is,
it's usually some sort of, youknow, personal or physical
appearance.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Yeah, the meet and greet.
That's the day before you'regoing to go run a hundred miles
and you're trying to stay offyour feet and rest before you're
going to go run a hundred milesand you're trying to stay off
your feet and rest andeverybody's got COVID and you
know, yeah, and you know just, Isuper agree with this, and my
response when athlete managersmentioned this is hey, like,
this is where they're at rightnow.
This is where their focus shouldbe.

(48:01):
You can't expect them toperform this well and end up
here on the podium if you'realso like tying them down with
cement bricks by asking them todo three meet and greets in a 48
hour period.
So, but you mentioned something.
Coop was something to theeffect of find a solution that
works.
Hey, we need you to do thesetwo store appearances and these

(48:25):
are the times.
I would say something to theeffect of, or recommend, like a
communication that is like, hey,I can't do the whole thing, but
I can do this.
This is what I can do.
I can't do this, but I will dothis.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yeah.
And I'll add to that, especiallybecause the pattern is
predictable Western States comesaround, utmb comes around, all
the brands start putting theiractivation things in place and
then they start asking theathletes in for UTMB, at least
July and the beginning of August.
Hey, can you come do this?

(48:58):
Hey, can you come and do that?
What I've actually started todo in advance is using my
coaching scope and saying thisis how I want the last 10 days
to look at, look like even whenwe're eight weeks.
Saying this is how I want thelast 10 days to look at, look
like even when we're eight weeksout.
This is what I want the last 10days to look like.
This is what I want the taperto look like.
Go to your sponsors now and askthem what they want from you and

(49:20):
if their answer is I don't know, get an answer out of them or
tell them the answer is going tobe no, because we're going to
script out these last 10 days.
That's what I've started to domore and more with the athletes
that I work with, just so itdoesn't get foobarred.
One, so they don't have to doit, but two, this is the this is
actually another thing, so theydon't have to deal with like
the consternation of thinkingabout it.

(49:41):
I know I have these gestures onzoom and they keep foring
everything so they don't have tothink about oh I'm, you know
I'm skipping out on one of mysponsor obligations and that's
going to cause some undue duress.
They can kind of get rid of allof that several weeks out in
advance of the race and justreally clear their mind and
calendar for those lastremaining 10 or 14 days I I love

(50:05):
that One.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Thank you for doing that and it's a really important
pattern and it's a pro pattern.
It's sadly something thatpeople don't start doing until
they've gone through all theyuck before.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
And I'll also add this you know, bring someone
with you to an appearance thatis like your gatekeeper, and
it's like, all right, the time'sdone.
I'm getting you out of here.
I've done that for a fewathletes before I'm like they're
done.
Party's over.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yep, super smart, super smart.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
It's a good convo.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Okay, so let's move on.
This starts to get into thepayment piece of it, which
causes just as muchconsternation.
We're on six, right yeah?
We're on six.
I'm going to have to help youkeep me accountable here.
Add a late payment to yourcontract.
If the sponsor pays late, thereis a fee added.
I feel like this is like mycredit card company that's going
to charge me a late fee orwhatever.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I had.
This is probably this might bethe one on the list that I got
the most messages about.
Seriously, people saying I hadone athlete say to me my athlete
or my sponsor hasn't paid me ontime in three years.
What?
Yeah, wow, yeah.
So, first, if the sponsor doesnot pay you on time, that's
breach of contract.

(51:17):
So you can get out of yourcontract at any time, as long as
you have documentation thatthey didn't pay and as long as
your contract has either dateswhere they're supposed to pay
you or what I often see is likeduring these months, you'll be
paid.
So if you're over it, that's areally easy out because they
breached the contract.
Like I spoke with someone againtotally different athlete the

(51:39):
other day who was like they havebreached my contract nine times
in two years.
So he's like, would this behelpful?
I was like, absolutely, we'llget you out of here in five
minutes.
So, just like anything, ifyou're late on the mortgage,
there's a late fee or it looksyour credit is crap.
So if your sponsor is notpaying you on time, therefore

(52:01):
you're late on your bill.
So now you're paying latepayments.
It's just not a good look andit's absolutely unprofessional.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Well, and once again going back to the peer to peer
piece, I do think that storieslike that start to get around.
The whole ecosystem of athletesis not that big.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
And they start to figure that out pretty quickly.
Brands are in the position towhere they can course correct
that fairly readily Right, andsometimes there's there's like
legitimate accounting thingsthat have to happen.
I don't have a lot of tolerancefor that, but I can understand
when the one-off things are thecase.
But when it's a pattern,breaching your contract nine

(52:38):
times over two years or threeyears or whatever the timeframe
is that's not a one-off instance, that's a pattern and that's
something that absolutely needsto be reconciled.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
I'll come at this from a little bit of a coaching
standpoint.
So I've been in this positionbefore where something like that
has caused a lot of unduestress in the athlete's life
because they literally can'tmake ends meet.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So their training suffers.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
That's bad for their race performance.
That's bad for the brand aswell, their race performance,
that's bad for the brand as well.
And somehow or another thiscomes into the coaching, into
the training, into thearchitecture side of things that
I'm trying to manage becauseit's a stress just like anything
else.
So I think if everybody couldrealize that's also part of the
dialogue here, I just think ithelps keep people on their toes.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Yeah, and it's on the list for a reason because it
happens enough.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, okay, number seven negotiate extras into your
contract, ask for additionalbudget to use to give back to
your community via the brand andin 7A this is our outline,
nobody's going to find this onyour part of it or for support
services rate support, coaching,physical therapy, et cetera.
So you've got the base salary.

(53:49):
This is in addition to thatspecifically allocated for
things as otherwise specified.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yeah, absolutely, and I loved your note, by the way,
before I address that.
The reason that I put this inhere is because I always counsel
athletes on before you sign acontract.
If you're like, this is great,I think I really want to do this
.
If you have a passion projector something you're really into,
again I'll just use you.

(54:15):
Pretend you're a 30 year oldcoop and you're signing a
contract and you're not on theboard for the incline yet, but
you want to be in your part oftheir whatever.
That's when it would be reallywise to be like to ask your
sponsor.
Hey, I would love to addanother 2K to this that I can
use to hold an event once aquarter for trail maintenance

(54:37):
day for the incline, sponsoredby fill in the blank brand.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
I know a lot of athletes that do that with like
camps and things like that thatthey run.
So they know that they're goingto have you know three or four
camps that they're eitherorganizing themselves or they're
a part of and they kind of likeloop that into part of the
negotiating part of the contract.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yeah, it's really smart.
I've always appreciated it.
Um last, sometime last year Iasked an athlete about this
women's speaking series that shewas giving and it was sponsored
by her brand, and I said howdid you do that?
And she said because you toldme I should do it.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
See, Kelly, you're already having an influence on
people.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
I was so excited for her that she actually did it and
it came to fruition and sheholds these monthly women's
speaking series sponsored by herbrand in the town that she
lives in and they support it alland it's it's a really
important thing for this athlete.
So it made me really happy thatshe had this very individual
thing and it really personalizedher contract.
And then to your question Itook some notes, so you had a

(55:39):
hey, but also ask for monies forbody work or or travel.
So just in the past month, theaverage that I've seen on
contracts from eight differentbrands and this is great for
travel so between $7,000 and$10,000 in addition to their

(56:00):
annual salary for PT, body workor coaching is the average is
four to eight grand, dependingon low end to high end athlete.
And when I ask athlete managershey, how long have you been
doing that or why did you startdoing that?
They said because so manyathletes have started asking

(56:21):
about it, which is such a cooland you know, proof is in the
pudding right.
Like the athletes that askedthis in the years prior are the
ones that set the table for thisto now be part of a boilerplate
contract within our community.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Yeah, and it's been your point.
That it's been a more recentphenomenon is really well taken,
because I do know that from thebrand manager side of things,
they're not having to do this asmuch.
But one of the things that theydid have to contend with is the
ones that originally had thatin there.
So we're paying an athlete 20grand a year, 40 grand a year,
whatever, and we're going to setaside $10,000 that you can use.

(57:00):
If you show to us I'memphasizing that intentionally
If you show to us that you'regetting coaching, you're getting
body work, you're gettingphysical therapy, you got to
submit a receipt and we havesome clearinghouse for the
providers and for the servicesthat you're delivering.
There's some checks and balancesthere.
The pushback that they weregetting sometimes from the

(57:25):
athletes is well just of dollarsto come from.
That has some checks andbalances on it.
I think balance is both boththe needs from the brand's
perspective to make sure thatthe athletes are kind of vested
in performing at races andthings like that, but also what
you mentioned, something thatthe athletes have already
started to command.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Absolutely, manned, absolutely, and I'll I'll kind
of go to the side of the athletemanager and brand on this, you
know, because over the years theconversations I've had with the
athletes are well gosh.
You know, they're hardly payingme anything and they would say
to the sponsor if you just gaveme this much more and I could
use it for body work andphysical therapy if I got

(58:05):
injured right, or I'm lesslikely to get injured if I have
these things or if I have acoach.
So they were the ones thatspecifically used those
conversations to get the money.
So it shouldn't be a problem ifthe brand is, then like that's
great, here it is, but we needto see that.
So I'm definitely like devil'sadvocate with that.
If that's what you're going touse the money for anyway, it

(58:26):
shouldn't be a problem.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Yeah Well, internally I can say that we've been
gradually changing our eliteathlete kind of like business
model, so to speak.
So for years when I would workwith elite athletes, my deal
with them was is I'll coach youfor free, you don't owe me
anything in return.
Just go out and run your heartout and do good, and we'll
figure out how the ROI comesback to me in arrears.

(58:48):
I'm okay.
I'm okay with that.
You go out and perform.
I'm pretty sure the universewill kind of work that out.
We're gradually shifting thatmore towards and recognizing
this contract shift is a bigpart of that.
We're gradually shifting thatmore towards.
Listen, the athlete's got topay If this is part of their
contract.
This is part of what it takesto be an elite athlete.
They're a small business.
They've got to kind of reinvestin their business.

(59:08):
This is a part of the way, justlike having an agent.
This is part of the way thatthey reinvest in themselves and
reinvest in their business.
Now, I'm not going to saythat's like turned on a dime or
that it's gone from zero to athousand all of the sudden, like
0% to a thousand percent all ofa sudden, like 0% to 1,000% all
of a sudden, but we'regradually being able to titrate
that up to where there's areasonable amount of an economy

(59:30):
involved in coaching theseathletes, so much so that we
kind of have a not kind of we do.
We have a specific productwhere we can kind of like wrap a
team around them, and it's morethan reasonable across all
different fronts.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, I think that's smart.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Okay, we're going to move on to number eight.
Before signing a multi-yearcontract, implement a clause to
reevaluate compensation annually.
This is protective for both thebrand and the athlete.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Yeah, I think I've seen this on a few contracts and
so one I'm going to start withlike a nutrition sponsor.
If you're starting with amulti-year contract like a
nutrition sponsor, if you'restarting with a multi-year
contract with a nutritionsponsor and this is the first
time you're signing with them,it's really difficult to see how
that product works with youduring a race, if you're, if

(01:00:18):
you've only tried it during likea couple of training runs.
So then you sign likethree-year contract with them
and you're like after you knowsix months, you're like this is
not the product for me.
It's nice to have a little bitof an out where you can
re-evaluate things over the yearfor the product anyway.
Or the shoe, let's say you signwith a very specific type of
shoe that is, uh, unique, uh,and I've seen a few athletes

(01:00:42):
seen or like I just can't racein these shoes.
I can't, it's not gonna work,and also and also just to reset.
So it's a good, it's a goodthing for the sponsors to give
kind of feedback on like wherewe've been this past, like this
first year, especially if it's anew athlete to see.
These are the things we'd loveto see you work on.
They are in your contract, bythe way.
But we just want to kind ofcircle back to see if we can

(01:01:06):
tighten up on some things, or ifthe athlete has.
If that same contract, let'ssay, does not have a, it has a
weak bonus structure and all ofa sudden this athlete's blowing
up and winning everything underthe sun.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Revisiting it once a year to see if you can adjust
that yeah, because, let's faceit, that can happen on a dime
and sometimes out of nowhere,like we see these performances
all the time.
Vincent Bullyard is probably agreat example of that, although
he's not like really looking toturn pro, or at least that's
what he's been indicating,indicating in public.
Those performances can have anight and day difference where

(01:01:42):
all of a sudden you've neverheard to somebody and then all
of a sudden they're the hottestthing on the planet 12, 12
months from now.
That doesn't always happen.
Usually it's like a stepwiseincrease, but if you get caught
behind the eight ball, you kindof the way that I've viewed it
is you kind of miss out on acouple of years of your earning
potential, if you're kind ofreally locked into that and that
ends up being the caseno-transcript brand doesn't do

(01:02:28):
that and they're paying thisperson, you know, 10 grand or 12
grand or something.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
It's not uncommon that a bigger brand would buy
them out of that contract anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
Well, that's exactly where I was going to go.
So I've had athletes that havebeen in this position.
They've been in midstreamcontracts and they have some
sort of like unworldly series ofperformances or whatever, and
they're literally gettingunderpaid for what they're kind
of, what they're delivering andwhat the sponsor kind of
expected them to do.
I, going back to your earlierpoint, to advocate for yourself,

(01:02:59):
I and what I've always told theathletes is, I think it's the
in the brand's best interest tolock you up and to renegotiate
your contract in advance of whenit's over.
Not try to squeeze.
Oh man, we're only payingsomebody 10 grand and they're
giving us, you know, 500 millionBrazilian dollars of marketing
value because they're thehottest thing on the planet, or
whatever.
If I was sitting there, being abrand manager, I would say

(01:03:21):
listen, I got lucky.
I found this athlete, I foundyou know, I found the needle in
the haystack.
I found the person that's goingto be like so marketable, let's
renegotiate.
Now that they're like there,are they like the brand, they've
been with us for a while, let'sgo and overpay them.
And that's what I would thinkas a brand manager, and I tell
the athletes that that like, goand advocate for yourself
because they've got to realizethat they're.

(01:03:43):
When brands are signing athletes, I'll let everybody in on a
little secret about highperformance.
When brands are out therescouring the world trying to
find the athletes that are goingto do well and be marketable
and things like that, they allclaim to have their proprietary
systems.
And okay, we're going to lookat this race and okay, the
athlete had this jump to thisjump on this race.

(01:04:04):
All that is bullshit.
They're all just guessing andthe ones that end up having the
premium athletes either gotlucky early in the athlete's
career or tagged onto them afterthey were very good.
There's no other way around it.
I know there's a lot of peoplethat spend a lot of time
prognosticating on who's goingto be the next X, who's going to
be the next Killian, who'sgoing to be the next goat or

(01:04:25):
whatever.
And when somebody actuallyfinds that person, they find the
magic.
They claim to have the magicformula, but in reality that's
maybe 1% of it and then 99% ofit is they just got lucky.
If brands just realized thatand said, listen, we just we
found the next whoever whateveranalog you actually want to give
went back to the athlete andsaid hey, we think you're the

(01:04:47):
next.
Whatever, let's get out of yourcontract early, start paying
you what you're worth.
I think that it's a better setupacross the board versus having
to come to it to the very endbecause you know you're going to
get courted right, you knowyou're going to get courted and
you know that after the factpeople are going to try to come
in and beat you to the punch, soto speak.
So I've always said why not getin front of it?

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah, Even if let's say it's the first year of a
three-year contract and theyblow up.
I super agree with what youjust said.
Like get rid of that.
Even just sign them for onemore year to see where they're
at Give it.
put all your eggs in that onebasket for a year.
Give them what they deserve.
It will be helpful to you.
And then if someone does decideto buy them out, then you're

(01:05:29):
still getting more money andlike it's a win, it's all.
Yeah, I mean, I hate to bebusinessy that way, but that
absolutely is.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
I think you burn some sentiment when you don't do
that.
I mean, it still is going tocome down to the next contract
round because athletes are goingto be driven by.
They're primarily going to bedriven by the value of the
contract.
There's obviously other thingsthat go into it, but I kind of
think that when you don't extendthat goodwill this is me
playing the role of brandmanager on behalf of my athletes

(01:05:56):
.
Once again, athletes are myconstituents I do think you burn
a little bit of goodwill by notdoing that, by not at least
owning up for the remainder ofthe contract to pay kind of like
fair market value, and thatcomes back to bite you in the
rear once if you try to take along-term perspective at it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Right, right, I agree .

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Okay, let's skip to number nine.
This might get me get my bloodboiling as well.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
I don't remember what it is, so tell me.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
I'll tell you Understand the images and
likeness in the terms of yourcontract, knowing when to
redline this section of acontract from the start.
So I'll start out and you cankind of go.
Athletes are in large partsports models they're used in.
You can go and open up anycatalog and you will see.

(01:06:43):
Alongside actual sports modelsyou will see athletes that are
performing at the highest level,that may be unbeknownst to the
viewing public, are who they are, but they're absolutely being
utilized in that way.
So you've got this specificpoint to understand what the
kind of like framework andlimitations of this likeness and
image piece actually is whenyou sign it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Yeah, and I think so often.
It's usually kind of likeanything, like we don't know
what, we don't know until weknow it, sort of.
So when you first get into acontract, your first few years,
like I don't really know, you'rejust like, well, this is what
the contract says.
So this is how I have to goabout it.
And, like anything, you canalways fight for something and

(01:07:25):
be like, well, this is reallywhat I would like to have on it.
A brand might go with it or not.
Like I've got all these tipsand you might be like, well, I
tried all of them and I only gotthree, but you just never know.
So this is one of those thingswhere this is a very regular
conversation on both sides ofthe coin and often an athlete
manager will, especially if it'sa new to the company manager.

(01:07:45):
They're sort of just inheritingthis boilerplate contract that
has been there for years andthey probably came in a fury and
the athlete manager has no ideawhat the heck the thing says
either.
So they don't mean you any illwill or harm, they just are.
Just you know it's a storm.
So what I would do go throughand find someone you know, find

(01:08:07):
an attorney, find someone tospeak to that you trust, and dig
through imaging and terms ofwhat the likeness they might
like that means.
I don't know if someone createsa Jason Koop bobblehead that is
a likeness of Koop or photo orvideo, or whether it's in print
or it's a mailer in a.

(01:08:29):
It's not often these days, butyou might get something from,
let's say, eddie Bauer, rei, andinside the catalog for that
season is a insert.
That's a mailer.
It has picture of you.
But is there a clock on thiscontract sort of thing.
So put a clause in your contractred line things you don't like
on imaging and if there, if itdoesn't say it in there, then
then you need to put it inSomething that says this if it's

(01:08:51):
used in a campaign, thecampaign, if it runs for more
than three months, then you'readding X amount of dollars to
every other time that particularimage was used again.
And if all of a sudden like,let's say, they run and a brand
runs something for a campaign,and then it's great, it's there
for 60 days and it's all overthe internet, it's on Instagram

(01:09:14):
and Twitter and all that, andthen it goes away.
But then they all of a suddenthe holidays come around and
that shoe's now on sale or theywant to push that shoe again
that you were wearing in thisimage and they show that again,
again.
Put something in your contractthat gives you monetary kickback
for that so real world exampleof this.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
I'm going to anonymize this as much as
possible.
It's an athlete that I nolonger work with but I worked
for with for a long time, prettypopular athlete, also a good
looking athlete.
Like most athletes have a good,just phenotype and architecture
about them where the brandswant to use them in images
because they're athletic lookingand they resonate with the
everyday person.
They're not a sports model,right when they're like you know

(01:09:56):
, like coming off of the parishrunways or things like that.
They're actually real people,real good looking people that
other real people can look atand kind of aspire to.
So this person fit that moldvery well.
I was doing some consulting work, some ad hoc consulting work,
with this brand.
I flew into one of the biggestairports in the world, stepped
off of the airplane, startedwalking down the terminal to get

(01:10:19):
into my Uber and there is a 30foot tall picture of this person
in one of the biggest airportsin the world in a brand store
that is attached to the airportand I immediately called this
person.
At first off, I was thrilledfor them.
I was like hey, that's cool.
Like here's a gigantic image ofyou that you're still with this

(01:10:42):
brand and I said did you knowthat they're using these images?
Cause I was with this personwhen they were kind of
collecting these images, so tospeak.
So did you know that they usethis image of you when you were
here in this fashion?
And this person goes no, theytold me that they were using it
for something far more remedialthan that, far more remedial

(01:11:03):
than that, like a, you know,social media campaign or
something like that.
And they just happened to likethe image so much that they blew
it up 30 feet tall in themiddle of one of the busiest
airports in the world thathundreds of thousands of people
are walking by.
And my first thought is whatyou were just thinking is let's
go look at the contract and seewhat the scope of limitations

(01:11:26):
are for using these images.
And sure enough, it's unlimited, right.
This is six or seven years ago,when all these things were a
little bit more of the wild west.
But to your point of trying tofigure out what that scope of
limitations are, here's aninstance where, if that brand
were to pay a proper sportsmodel to go and do the exact
same thing, they would have topay five or ten x of what that

(01:11:49):
athlete's entire contract wouldbe, and they're just getting
away.
You turn on your mic when yousay things like.
That makes me sound.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
It makes me sound better my blood is boiling just
hearing this yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
So I guess my point, I guess my point with that, I
guess my point with that is, isthese things like actually
happen and as an athlete, firstoff, you should be recognized
for and paid for the work thatyou're, the services that you're
providing in this case is yourlike, likeness and image.
But you also have to protectyourself on the front end when
you're signing these contracts,to know that they can, they have

(01:12:23):
the potential to have thesethings happen.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
Absolutely.
That's such a great examplebecause it happens repeatedly
and I'll give you.
You know, fit models are afriend of mine who's also an
athlete.
He's sponsored by a shoecompany, strong Athlete, and he
was approached by another brandthat he doesn't work with to be
a fit model for a campaign.

(01:12:47):
So he spent two days with thisother company that he's not
sponsored with made.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
Sports models make a lot.
I know we're.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Twice as much for this two-day fit model gig for a
brand he's not sponsored withthan any of the actual contracts
I had on my desk at thatspecific day for the brand that
hired him.
So let's say you're being, Idon't know, here I have Fritos.
Fritos is going to sponsor you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
Chef Kelly coming in with the Fritos on her desk.
I love that.
I know I'm at Morgan's desk.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Fritos is going to hire you to be a fit model to do
two days for them and they'regoing to pay you $30,000 for two
days and meanwhile they have ahandful of athletes that they
are approaching to that they'reliterally offering to be annual
sponsored athletes for them andtheir offer to those athletes is

(01:13:42):
$10,000 for a year.
So my big besides that, there'slevels to this that are just
crap.
But I love putting in acontract that any time for an
athlete and it will go underthis whole image and video and
likeness thing that you getfirst dibs as an athlete at any

(01:14:03):
campaign you're running, you getfirst dibs over a fit model.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Yeah, I think that's super smart.
This dovetails into the nextpoint which we were going to
combine and, kelly, if you'llgive me such liberty, I'm going
to add my own flair to this, areyou okay with that?
Okay, so this is the last oneand I want to come back and
revisit one point, but itdovetails into this likeness in
image piece.
Know that you are a marketingemployee and my flair is and

(01:14:32):
asset for the brands that yousign with.
So the employee being you're anactual worker bee and the asset
is your actual image Twodistinct things that get rolled
into this marketing bundle thatyou have to realize, the kind of
the game that everybody'splaying here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
I love that.
Thank you for stating that.
That is such a great segue intostating to the athlete manager
that you have a potential, youhave an offer with like.
I recognize that I am amarketing employee at this point
, but I also want you torecognize that I know that I am
an asset and my likeness and myimage is an asset to you, so

(01:15:11):
this is a very right.
It's a good touche to put in anemail or say in a meeting and
it's really like look, I wantyou to know that I understand
this, but I also want you toknow that I really do understand
this.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
I understand the world that we're playing in
right.
I'm not so naive to it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:33):
Exactly.
I love that.
You know there's a handful ofathletes.
I remember sitting on anairplane next to a very
well-known ultra runner one dayand overhearing when someone
asked him what he did and hesaid I'm a marketing employee
for fill in the blank brand.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Because it was easier for him to have the
conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
I'm a sponsored athlete and the other was.
He recognized that it was just.
It was true.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Oh, that's smart.
Well, there you go.
It avoids the conversation.
Okay, let's come back tosomething that I egregiously
skipped over on the contract andthe support piece of it.
Egregiously skipped over on thecontract and the support piece
of it.
I'm finding more and more thatathlete managers have some level
of discretion.
After everything is all signedand all the you know I's are
dotted and the T's are crossedand you're in the middle,
midstream of your contract orwhatever.
That when athletes go back andthey have a good relationship

(01:16:24):
with the brands that they areworking with, when they go back
midstream and say, hey, listen,can I get support for X or can
we change this to Y or can I dosomething different, that's not
stated in here At least.
I found and I want to get bothyour impression on it but then
also how you think athletesshould handle this that the

(01:16:44):
athlete managers are just morereceptive to those midstream
types of changes and they haveeither formal discretionary
stuff and funds that they canuse or they've got the kind of
authority, so to speak, to rollthings up the ladder and say,
hey, listen for this athletesthat's doing this, that's not on
their contract.
Why don't we divvy up our fundsor allocate our resources or

(01:17:09):
whatever, because of thisspecial situation.
What do you have to say to thatdiscretionary piece after it's
all said and done?

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Yeah, that's.
It's literally why I always saybefore hey, before you sign
anything, ask for everything youwant.
If you're like, oh, I'm goingto ask me about my camp after
I'm signed, You're not going toget anything, ask for everything
you want.
If you're like, oh, I'm goingto ask them about my camp after
I'm signed, You're not going toget anything for your camp after
you're signed, Put it in.
Put it in before.
But I will say this If let'ssay I don't know, I'll use

(01:17:36):
Killian as an example.
If midway through the year, hewas like I've just decided I'm
going to go run up theMatterhorn as fast as I can.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
This is Killian, Everybody just says OK, go Right
Over lunch during his lunchbreak During lunch break.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
So he's got some big thing he wants to do and it will
be a great marketing tool forthe company.
The company is going to findthe money for you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Yeah, does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
It does Okay.
Last point before we get onto afour-hour podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
And I want to expand on this a little bit because
it's 1230.
It's almost lunchtime for me.
This has themes of somethingthat we mentioned earlier, but
the way that you expressed it,or the way that you expressed it
on Instagram, was if you can'trun in the shoes, you shouldn't
be signing with them, and what Iwant to do is I want to expand
that to all the different typesof partners that athletes can

(01:18:33):
bring on board Footwear,equipment, nutrition and things
like that.
There's this, this general.
There's this point of it's notconsternation, but it's kind of
confusion with how much shouldthe athletes scrutinize the
products that they're using,promoting, wearing, advocating

(01:18:56):
for and this came up in thewhole spring energy controversy
as well, where they had thishuge ambassador network and
their project their productsturned out to be fraudulent,
unbeknownst to the athletesthemselves, but a lot of people
took that as as well.
The athletes should have knownbetter or should have put more
kind of like scrutiny on that,which that's a legitimate source
of feedback.
So I kind of turn it over toyou when athletes are like

(01:19:17):
negotiating contracts, theyobviously can't be responsible
for the entire like you knowproduct chain of every single,
of every single component thatthe brand has underneath their
purvey, where it's sourced andhow it's made, and do they have
humanitarian, you know blah,blah, blah and all this kind of
stuff, but there's still, at thesame time, should be some sort
of reasonable scrutiny that theathlete is kind of putting on

(01:19:38):
the products themselves.
So how do you counsel athleteson that, on that front,
particularly with new brand orbrands that are new to them?
They're switching from one toanother or they're just doing
this for the first time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Yeah, that's a really great question, especially, you
know, as we have such an actual, solid example.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Yeah, I mean that's why I bring that up.
I mean I know that boils a lotof people's blood, but like
actually that did happen, thatwe can't like erase history or
whatever that, something likethat actually happened, and it's
unfortunate that that some ofthe athletes got caught in the
crosshairs of that.
But how, what should athletesbe doing?

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
Yeah, it's not a hypothetical.
So most contracts, I'm certain,like everyone that I've
honestly ever seen, has a likeyou can't speak disparagingly
about your brand, blah, blah,blah.
However, if, let's say, if Iwas an athlete for spring, I
could care less of what theythought after I said that,
because I don't want to staywith you anyway.
So it doesn't matter if Ibreached your contract by saying
something disparaging.

(01:20:36):
So I think it's a really goodlesson in delivery and taking a
beat to like how can I say thisabout this particular product?
Let's say, it's a shoe that youare working with a brand and
it's campaign for a shoe thatyou're like you have to do.
You're required to do thiscampaign for the shoe.
I think it's important to behonest with something and we're

(01:20:57):
all different as far as whatwe're looking for with a product
, but you, you know it's really.
It's always possible to be like, hey, these are the great
things that I like about thisshoe, I like this one.
This one works better for me onthese things, but I would use
this one for fill in the blankor this one's still my favorite,
but so it's kind of that strokekick method, but I would be

(01:21:23):
aware of the delivery, of howyou say it, just for your own
protection, or you could alwaysjust run it by honestly by your
athlete manager.
But I'm more of a ask forforgiveness later kind of person
, because if you're wearing sothere's a certain brand that I
just cannot wear all personally,like I feel like I'm getting
injured and I can't, no matterwhat I do, I can't wear that

(01:21:44):
product.
So when someone asks me aboutit, that's my feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
But that happens all the time on the front end, and
that's I kind of want to takethis part of the discussion
sequentially.
So you have an athlete that'sgetting courted by brands,
multiple brands.
So you have an athlete that'sgetting courted by brands,
multiple brands what level ofdue diligence would you advise
that they actually do on thosebrands?

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
As far as the product .

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Yeah, as far as the products themselves, Should they
actually get in?
Should they wear testing?
Should they test things outfrom a nutrition perspective?
How deep can that actually go?
I'm not saying that athleteswho are signing new contracts
need to these like ultimatearbiters of the products that
are coming out.
I'm not saying that at all.
But what I'm trying to get alittle bit of a flavor for, and

(01:22:30):
what we can kind of counselathletes on, is how, like how
can they do enough in advance tomake sure that the products are
going to work for them, thatthey can authentically endorse
some or all of the features ofthe products as you've just
mentioned?
Like, how can they navigatethat?

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
I love this question.
One of your athletes justyesterday was like you're going
to send these emails out, allthese people that sent you
offers and terms, and you'regoing to respond.
Ask if there's a clock andyou're going to ask them to send
you products so you can testthe product.
Absolutely, ask for the productright away Because, again to
the statement, you don't signwith the company if you can't

(01:23:11):
run in the shoes.
And there's a couple, two orthree brands out there right now
that are very specific, thatsome people are like gosh.
You know these people.
This brand has money coming outof their money but it cannot
run in their shoes.
It's unfortunate, but I wouldabsolutely.
My response to that is alwaysare you sure?
When was the last time you ranin their shoes?
You're like well, it was threeyears ago.

(01:23:31):
Like they have new models now.
Ask them to send you specific,different ones to try.
Give it a shot.
They're really coming after you, but I would absolutely like
you've got to try, otherwiseyou're going to be, you know,
leaving the starting line in theshoe and jumping in the you
know, the bushes at the firstaid station and putting on a
different brand and that's notgoing to fly well.
So, as far as nutrition, sendme any time, send me a product,

(01:23:55):
send me working sample, if you.
One thing I love about the feetis because it's or like even
Vibra.
I'm like it doesn't matter whatshoes or food you want, because
they're all encompassing.
I always thought those were twosmart brands.
But let's say, if you're, Idon't know again, fritos is
going to sponsor you.
Go out into the woods with aband of Fritos and spend 10

(01:24:17):
hours out there messing aroundand see how you feel.
But yeah, am I answering yourquestion?

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
Yeah, I'm trying to get a flavor and I'm trying to
like communicate to the audienceand the athletes that are like
contemplating this is what'slike try to get a try to get the
answer to what's a reasonablelevel of scrutiny to put on
these things.
I mean, obviously, yeah,they've got to be able to run
the shoes, but you and I bothknow many examples of where that
is not the case.
They're sponsored by Brand X.

(01:24:44):
They cannot wear Brand X'sshoes and it's a shoe company.
This is where it kind of comesinto conflict.
And then they wear shoe Y atthe right.
I mean that happened when theVaporflies first came out
because everybody was lookingfor a performance advantage that
were not like not nike athletesand it caused a level of
consternation amongst the wholecommunity for a short period of

(01:25:05):
time.
Now, with their brand, I thinkwe need to recognize that our
brands out there that are tryingto do either a head-to-toe
solution or some semblance of ahead-to-toe solution, so they're
a shoe company that is alsotrying to outfit the rest of the
athlete in a branded pack and ashirt and they might not be the
best textile manufacturer orpack manufacturer and things

(01:25:28):
like that, and so it gets kindof hairy with athletes that are
either a really particular abouttheir gear or B don't test it
out in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Yeah, a pack is a really good example of that.
My advice is let's say, you endpack is a really good example
of that.
My advice is let's say you endup with a sponsor that's doing
that.
You're already signed with themand all of a sudden they're
like oh, we have this co-companyor we're co-partnering with
fill in the blank brand for thispack and you have to wear it.
Now, that's just it.
Try the pack.
If you're like this thing ishorrible, I absolutely cannot

(01:25:58):
wear it, then you need to letthem know I'm not wearing it.
It's not going to happen.
Let's say, if it's a shoecompany and they don't make a
road running racing shoe yeah,that happens a lot actually.
Then most contracts will saythat's the caveat.
If they don't make a productthat you need to do a specific

(01:26:20):
event, then you can wearsomething else.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Okay, so this dovetails into the next piece of
this.
We're kind of goingchronologically.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
So the athlete does their due diligence.
They can run in the shoes thatthey're promoting.
They like the pack that they'reactually wearing.
They authentically, you know,have kind of tested it out.
Then what happens midstream isthe promotional side of things
right, where let's face it withany piece of nutrition or gear

(01:26:49):
and everybody needs to sit downand really think about this
before you pass judgment.
There are things that you likeabout it and there are things
that you don't.
I can take my favorite runningshoe, my favorite running shoe
of all time, which was probablythe Speed Gun.

Speaker 2 (01:27:04):
Pearl Zumi.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Yeah, pearl Zumi, actually, no, that's actually
that is my favorite running shoeof all time.
I had to really rack my brainon that one, pearl Zumi.
I can look at that shoe andthere are things that I loved
about it it was my absolutefavorite shoe of all time and
there are things that I reallydidn't like about it.
There's about it it was myabsolute favorite shoe of all

(01:27:25):
time and there are things that Ireally didn't like about it.
There are.
There's always things that youdon't like about whatever it is
with nutrition, product, pieceof gear kind of whatever.
And so how do you help athletesnavigate that, that piece of it
where there are, where they'rehaving to promote a product,
kind of through the lens oftheir role of being a marketing
employee of the of the brand,where there is some of this
internal conflict?
I like these pieces, I don'tlike these pieces.

(01:27:47):
How do I publicly, how do Ipublicly kind of communicate
that?

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question,
something that happens so oftento athletes.
So I think there's a way thatyou can do it.
I think you can be professionalin the way you like, list all
the great things and you're likethere's a few things that I
wish that I would love to seetweaked.
If there's a second edition ofthis, or maybe in the year, I
can't looking forward to givingmy notes on this to our shoe

(01:28:14):
designers, you know, forfeedback for the next edition.
Or you know I think there's away to do it for the next
edition, or you know I thinkthere's a way to do it.
But it's also important to know.
But remember, just because therewere things that I might not
like as an athlete, if I list it, another person that's reading
it might be like I don't careabout that.
You know like I love that partof it.

(01:28:34):
You know some people love that.
Like you know, it has likereally sticky rubber here.
It's like I'm like gosh, that'sjust too hard, I can't run in
that carbon foot plate.
And some people are like I lovea carbon foot plate and I might
be like I don't like the shoebecause of that and they're like
I don't care.
So that's important to rememberas well.
But I think that it's up to theathlete.
Some people it's not importantto them to be able to be.

(01:28:55):
You and I are very like.
We want to give all thefeedback for our own research
and just to share that, and noteverybody wants to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Yeah, I think the public kind of comes down to
feel bad speaking for the public, because maybe I missed the
mark on this, but they kind ofcome down to two things.
Right, it really resonates withthem when people can
communicate how they areauthentically using things, like
I'm actually using this productor this piece of nutrition in
this exact scenario.

(01:29:23):
This is exact.
I woke up, I waited an hour andI took this gel and I liked the
way the gel tasted and I waited30 more minutes and then I took
another gel.
Where they get, where the publickind of gets sideways and gets
cynical I'll use that word theyget kind of cynical about it is
when the person doing thecommunicating is kind of

(01:29:44):
exaggerating their use or theirinvolvement in it.
So I'll give you a good exampleof what happens in footwear,
right, so in footwear they usethe elite athletes as part of
their testing group.
And that testing group in thattest, that testing group happens
in the field.
They send them a bunch of shoes, tell us what you think, tell
us where the wear patterns are,tell us what you like, tell us

(01:30:05):
what you don't like.
It also happens in the lab,right, they go to a lab, they do
running economy testing.
They do whatever the shoecompanies are actually doing
when the athlete actually tellsthat story.
In that sequence, I got theshoes, I ran them on, I ran them
on, I ran them on, I ran withthem on the trail.
I then went to the lab.
This is what we found out ofthe lab and things like that.
When they tell that authenticstory, the public can then

(01:30:28):
realize it.
But when that story gets likeexaggerated to I helped develop
the shoe, or you know, this ismy like co-signed shoe, or
something like that when they'reexaggerating their involvement
in the entire process, that'swhere people at least in my
experience kind of get turnedoff and get really cynical about
it.
Because they then look at thatand say, no, wait a minute, were

(01:30:50):
you actually in themanufacturing process and you
told them to choose this foamand not that foam?
Or did you just wear it for 10runs and say I like this foam
and that foam?

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
That's kind of like where I'm getting at and where I
think like sometimes we needsome like navigation guidance.
Yeah, that's a goodconversation and I've also seen
the frustration on the eyes ofthe shoe designer when they read
posts like that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
And they're like no, they didn't.
We sent them two colorways.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
They chose a specific shoelace or that, they wanted
boa, and then they chose this,this is my shoe though yeah, and
I'm like dude, I'm so sorrylike I feel that, as a chef, I
feel that so, yeah, there's alot of, there's a lot of layers
to that but needless to say likebeing honest with delivery.

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
Yeah, I guess, like, where would you come at it with,
like you're going to be your?
Now that's part of yourbusiness, right?
This is you going to be helpingathletes like navigate this
kind of like part of it andthere's not, like it's not
explicitly drawn out, and I'mjust wondering where you would
come at it from an advicestandpoint in terms of how
athletes should be communicatingwhat that testing process looks

(01:32:01):
like.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
I think if you're going to put the post out there
and communicate with, be asdirect as you can and your
involvement and is clear onevery step.
If you're going, go in, yeah,yeah, because, like you said,
then there's no room forscrutiny.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
Yeah, exactly, or there's no room for
miscommunication right If youjust like say how you
authentically used it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
I think that's the big or I don't know, man, I
wasn't there.
The shoes made in Germany, butI had a lot of conversations
with the team and this.
These are the things Ispecifically did help with.

Speaker 1 (01:32:36):
Yeah, we.
So I've told the story a fewtimes.
Many years ago we were partnerswith Goo Energy Labs and it was
when their Roctane energy drink, when they were formulating it
essentially, and they sent uslike a gazillion cans of it to
our office.
And at the time we were runninglots and lots of camps and so

(01:32:57):
we had a high use case for usingthis product with athletes in
real time under like reallyintense conditions, cause
they're doing a training campwhere they're like tripling or
you've seen those training camps, kelly, they're like tripling
or quadrupling their volume andso it became a good like
incubator for goo to kind oflike, test their like, test
their their drink mix out andthe the overwhelming piece that

(01:33:18):
I'm going to synopsize this asconcisely as I can the
overwhelming feedback was wereally like the way this product
works.
It tastes terribly, but that wasour extent and this is my point
.
That was our extent being amarketing employee of goo at the
time.
We had a relationship with themand things like that.
That was part of their, thatwas part of that was a part of
their deal and we told thatstory.

(01:33:40):
In that way.
We got in some of the earlycases of goo rock tang.
We gave them to our hundreds ofathletes that were coming
through our camp product.
This was their feedback andthey changed the flavor
formulation for their finalrelease.
What we didn't say was wehelped to goo formulate this
product because we didn't.
We just gave it to our athletes.

(01:34:05):
That's all we did.
And I use those stories alittle bit as a little bit of a
parallel, because that happensall the time in product
development, where you're usingyour partners, you're using
athletes, you're using peoplethat are your marketing
employees as part of thatproduct as part of that product
development cycle and then alsoto tell the story of how the
product kind of came to life,comes to life and how it gets
used in real time.

Speaker 2 (01:34:24):
Yeah, that's a great parallel, but you know there's a
difference between I helpedcreate or I was part of the
testing program.
I've tested this for months,sort of thing I'll use, let's
say, like Adidas and Tom Evans afew years ago.
He very specifically put a lotof time in working on a shoe
with them and they promoted theshoe as his shoe.
That is a very legitimate trueproduct partnership right.

(01:34:46):
But it's not like you know.
They sent that shoe to everyoneelse in the team and it wasn't
like Corinne Malcolm, who was onthe team, was like I helped
create the shoe.
She didn't.
She tested it a few times butshe would never have said I
helped create this shoe.

Speaker 1 (01:35:00):
Exactly.
There's actually a researchpaper, a case study, on part of
that entire process where theylooked at his running economy
across different grades, and Iabsolutely agree with you that
that's an authentic use case towhere the athlete is so involved
in it they can say, listen,they literally did, they made it
for them.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
I still have that shoe.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
I don't know if you were a fan, but I liked it.
Yeah, I liked it a lot.
I have a lot of Adidas shoesthat I'm rotating through.
I've worked with them.
I'm sure you do as well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
Same Coop same.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
All right, all right, kelly, this has been wonderful.
I hope the audience and theathletes out there, both that
you work with you're peelingback the curtain a little bit on
your business model.
The athletes that you arestarting to work with directly,
but also the athletes that arenavigating the process, can
learn something from.
Is there anything you want toleave, particularly the elite

(01:35:50):
athletes that are listening tothis?
Is there anything that you wantto leave them with that's kind
of universal, whenever you havethese touch points with them
that we can all kind of learnand grow from?

Speaker 2 (01:35:58):
Yeah, I think, just be curious and don't get so
caught up, especially for thosethat are first signing your
first contract.
Try not to allow yourself to getso caught up in the sexiness of
being signed as a professionalathlete that you're like five
grand, I'll take it, and you runaway, stop and take a beat and
you have a great story of one ofyour athletes from years ago

(01:36:19):
who was like I'm going to berich, I have my first contract.
It was like $10,000.
But just take a minute and justpause before you sign your life
away, like have someone helpyou with it, before you get
caught up, because inevitablywhat happens is the dozens of
times an athlete athlete it saysto me gosh, I remember how

(01:36:41):
stupid I was when I signed myfirst contract, or that's not a
nice word, but I just didn'tknow and I was so excited to
sign anything that I would havesigned it for free or for a
dollar.
Take a minute and ask yourself,you know, to really dig through
that contract and see what isthere and what is not there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:02):
Kelly, I have to thank you because, to to that
story right there, the wholelandscape has gotten better and
that doesn't happen by accident.
You can take a lot of creditfor that.
You're not the only person thatcan take credit, but you can
take a lot of credit for itbecause you've been such a
staunch advocate for athletes,both informally and now formally
, which I think is really cool.
We're in a much better positionthan that story would indicate

(01:37:25):
Several years ago and if anybodywants to buy me a beer, if
you're at a race, I'll gladlyanonymize that story and tell
you the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
Yeah, I think there's a huge.
We're at a really great pointright now where we have the
opportunity for these muchbigger contracts to come our way
and when I say our, I mean tothis ultra running community.
But it's going to take theathlete and whoever's
representing them, whether it'stheir partner or if they have an

(01:37:53):
agent or just a coach.
It's going to take someone toget them to actually search
those out and demand that.
If we're just sit and wait andcomplain for it to happen, it's
not going to, but we areknocking on that door.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
It's very cool, exciting time yeah, I think it's
cool once again.
I didn't say that 10 years ago,15 years ago, when I first
started to have to encounter allthis, and now I I'm in, now
seeing the progression.
I'm happy with the progress,but I know that there's more to
come and, like I said, I justwant to express how grateful I
am to you and all the athletemanagers out there that are

(01:38:30):
doing it right, that circle ofpeople that has gradually gotten
bigger and bigger to where itused to be one, maybe one, and
now I can say it's gettingbigger and bigger.
So I'm super bullish on thefuture.
I'm bullish on the future foreverybody the brands, the
athletes, the agents now thatyou can call yourself in that
cohort and all our supportservices.

(01:38:52):
Kelly, this has been awesome,thank you.
I'm going to leave links in theshow notes to everything, but
once again, from you to me, I'vealways appreciated you and this
has just been a wonderfulconversation.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
Oh, thanks so much, Coop.
I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
All right people, there you have it, there you go.
Much thanks to Kelly for comingon the podcast today and maybe
demystifying some of thisprocess, but hopefully providing
the elite athletes out there,maybe the brand managers who are
listening and also the publicat large, a little bit of a
toolkit, so to speak, for how tohandle a lot of these contract

(01:39:29):
renegotiations.
We're still in the really earlystages of this.
From a trail and ultra runningperspective, we don't have a lot
of precedent to work with, andthen the fact that a lot of
these contracts are wrapped upin NDAs, unlike some of the
league sports, I do think limitsthe way, or maybe the rate,
that we actually see thesethings progress and the kind of
the sophistication that theyprogress with.

(01:39:51):
Nonetheless, I'm super happywith where we're at and where
we're going.
I do wish all the eliteathletes out there that are
going through this process awhole lot of luck and fortune.
Go out and advocate foryourselves and, as we mentioned
during the podcast, I'mappreciative of the brand
managers starting to take alittle bit more ownership over
this and also treating theathletes a little bit more

(01:40:13):
fairly within these contractnegotiations.
That is it for today, folks, ifyou like this podcast, feel free
to share it with your friendsand your training partners.
You found it entertaining.
You found it informative.
That is it for today, folks, ifyou like this podcast, feel
free to share it with yourfriends and your training
partners.
You found it entertaining.
You found it informative.
That is the best way that youcan spread the love of this
podcast.
As always, it is not monetizedin any way, shape or form
through advertisements andsponsorships.

(01:40:34):
I went through that during thecourse of this podcast.
Is my audience, my constituents, are athletes.
They are not the brands,although I do love them, but the
people that I am primarilylooking out for are athletes and
my commitment to those athletesis not to take on any
sponsorships to potentiallyadulterate the content that is
within this podcast.
So if you find it informative,just spread the love and share

(01:40:56):
it with people.
That is the absolute best thingthat you can do.
All right, folks, that is itfor today and, as always, we
will see you out on the trails.

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Elite Athlete Contracts with Kelly Newlon #236

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