It's Contract Season - Let's Talk Athletes.

An interview with an anonymous agent/athlete manager about the contract process for pro runners particularly in trail, ultra and outdoor.

This week I chat with a friend and agent/athlete manager in the running/outdoor space about what they are seeing so far in these crucial final months of the year. We recorded our conversation and I turned the transcript into this article. Aside from hypothetical info I’ve stripped away any/all identifiable information.

I learned SO much from this conversation. Like what is a rollover clause? Really great stuff. My goal is for all of us to normalize this dialogue as much as possible so that all stakeholders can improve the process across the board. Let me know what you think of the format! As always, let’s learn from each other in the comments.

A couple quick things first:

1. I’ll be at TRE next week and would love to meet with you to chat about all of the marketing/storytelling/creative topics in running. Maybe you’re stuck on something while planning for next year. Hit me up! I’m creating a different type of post around TRE and would be happy to tell you about that as well. Hit reply.

2. I started a lifestyle running brand here in Boulder called Auteur Sportif. We are launching our first two t-shirts bringing our product total to three! I’d really appreciate if you checked them out. Our next film is coming late next week so jump on the email list and stay tuned.
   I hate modeling so much but such is startup life. My 13 year-old daughter took these photos which was a lot of fun for us to do together. She told me I need to pay her!

   

Enough shameless plugs, here’s the interview:

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Matt: Hi [Guest]! Thanks for being so agreeable to my new/crazy ideas for these posts. I hope these conversations can be as public as possible without disclosing information that brands or people would be uncomfortable with but the more we can anonymously make available, I think it helps everybody. It helps brands to know what's happening and it helps the athletes know what to expect and how to go about the process.

Guest: That's a big help because on my end brand athlete managers have been like, how do I navigate this? Or if I have this idea, is that something that has been done before? I'm like, well, just because it hasn't been done doesn't mean you shouldn’t do it. There's something powerful in individualizing every contract. And it's that's really important.

I have an athlete, a skier, I've been working with. She doesn't want to work with Patagonia, she doesn't want to work with Protect Our Winters. She's very, very focused on what she wants. I'm here for that because it's the best way for me to learn. But it also helps when she does say yes to a partner because she will be all-in.

Matt: What's her reason for not wanting to work with these partners that seemingly would align with where she's coming from?

Guest: That's the the big question, right? She feels like it's all whitewashing. And then behind the scenes, she's like, I don't stand by what they say or they stand for. But she is interested in a couple of other brands who very clearly do stand for that when you really research them. So it's up to what she wants.

But the women in general have conviction like that. I'm watching the women's contracts because they're telling me what they want and then waiting patiently.

Matt: So let's back out a little bit to gather a starting context. We know it’s the end of that year and that means its contract season for athletes. What role do you play? And which sports/areas do you work within?

Guest: So I would say in a nutshell, it's management. And then underneath that falls the contract once we get to the contract stage. But it's finding the partnerships and creating a portfolio of partners that really speak to who that athlete is as a human being.

Men, women, road, trail, snow sports. My love is in the outdoors so I gravitate to athletes that play in the dirt and on the trail, whether it's skiing or, trail running or snowboarding. The bulk of my clients are women.

There's some coaching involved too. Another athlete I was working with is in this in-between stage of his sport and trying to decide on what kind of partnership he's looking for next. Like what brands fit for him. But the first thing I really noticed is he’s really emotionally and mentally beat up. Let's get him with a team that can help him there first and then as confidence grows we can get him some media training to help him understand how to come to the table or just be in the world before he lines back up at a starting line. And it's been a really pretty awesome to watch him right now. Not attached to any brand, and he's actually enjoying running for the first time in a long time.

So it depends on what that athlete is looking for. The end goal is always like let's get you a contract so you can be paid more but you're helping to work them up to that point so they can be in a situation to get the most beneficial contract to them personally.

So if I have an athlete I’m working with, I don't help them navigate a contract of less than 20 grand because I want them to learn how to do that on their own. I'll coach them, but I'm not going to take 10% of a $10,000 contract, they should get that for themselves. So it feels smart to me to help them in the long run, help they navigate those smaller contracts so that by the time they’re ready for a main brand they've had these smaller sized contracts that they've worked on. Now they're confident and they know what to ask.

Matt: So as you’re navigating this contract season what are you seeing as far as what brands are looking for?

Guest: I'll tell you one thing that's been great is the the brands are not thirsty to just take the hottest athlete. They know what they want, and I know you probably appreciate that as well.

I have one athlete who's a true hiker/ultrarunner that I'm working with right now. He/She had an exceptional year, but it's been building to that. It is now very clear how brands see them. He/She’s almost pigeonholed themselves as a hiker which is really unfortunate because they’ve had some great results in races and want to race.

I've had a handful of brands say, “We don't want a through-hiker. We think that what they did was amazing, but that's not what we want.” And I’m thinking didn’t you read the rest of their resume?

Then I have another brand who was like, we don't want a Courtney Dauwalter. We want a female athlete who IS a through hiker. They know exactly what they want.

Matt: So would you say you're seeing more demand for women? How would you describe the market right now?

Guest: You know, there's one brand in particular out of China that's big into mountain sports - mountain running, ultra running. They're very specifically looking to build their team around 2 to 3 core women. They're specifically looking for women in mountain trail ultra.

Matt: So are they starting from scratch and looking to lead primarily with women?

Guest: They are starting from scratch but aren’t a new brand. For the first time ever they actually have an athlete manager. It’s been really cool to have them reach out and ask like, hey, can you help us find people for this?

There's another small apparel brand or two that are specifically looking for a diverse team. So people of color, women, non-binary, and they really want to build around that.

Then when I look at our kind of A, B and C typical shoe brands, they want a little bit of everything. They want that clutch road runner, that clutch middle distance ultrarunner (50 to 100K) and then they want that 100 miler. And then under those blankets and they want male/female.

There's another really great shoe company out there that is mostly road and track that has dabbled a bit in trail, but their sales are less than 10% from trail. So their trail team is really like dissolving.

Matt: So you reached out to me really excited about this one big female contract you had negotiated. I want to give you a chance to include that here. Can you tell me as much as you're able?

Guest: So [Athlete A] and [Brand X]. You and I have worked with Brand X for the better part of a decade so we've seen a lot of iterations of their marketing team and their athlete managers. This was by far their strongest and most driven team. Their VPs were that this meeting. Like everyone showed up. [Athlete X] was like, I don't even know these people. And I'm like, you're going to! They're here because of you! So from a very high level people came out and showed up.

Matt: What a show of faith, right?

Guest: [Athlete A] and I had met previously like a week or two before to send them our ask, which was well into six figures with a bonus roll over schedule - which [Brand X] had never done before. Then there was a stipend for PT, coaching and body work, another stipend for gear allowance and then one for travel, race entry, that sort of thing. It was twice as much as they originally offered. A couple months before that he/she was like, this is what they told me they could give me - it was around $60,000. I knew when we sent this that their athlete manager was probably going to have a heart attack.

The entire team that we met with is all women and one man. We get to the meeting, they gush over [Athlete A] and then they dig into the nuts and bolts of the contract.

At this point, [Athlete A] had already sat down with me and we went through every single line on that contract. He/She was ready and prepped for it.

They went through everything and then we immediately jumped into “What's your marketing plan for the next year? We want [Athlete A] to be the face of the company. How do you plan on incorporating [Athlete A] into this?” And they showed up! They were like we're gonna do all this each month. We love his/her YouTube presence and social - not just the race efforts but who he/she is as a person. We want to be at the top of the sport and push this brand forward. And we want [Athlete A] to be the fresh face of it.

[Athlete A] is aware that he/she can’t just take the money and going out to train, he/she is fully aware and on board and the brand knows that he/she's here and fully on board to be a marketing face for them. This is the biggest contract the brand has EVER signed. It's great that they’re investing heavily but they need to know that their athlete is invested in them as well.

Matt: Can you go through some of the sections or the topics of the contract, the first one being this rollover concept. Is that fairly new to these athlete contracts?

Guest: I think it's become more standard in the past 2 to 3 years but some brands don't do it at all. Then when they hear about it they're like holy smokes, what is that?!?! Then there are other brands that do it as standard practice.

It starts with the bonus and defining the races that qualify for a bonus. And if you're on the podium or in these different places, this is what the bonus looks like. I'll also add that the bonus structure and schedule is different depending on the athlete. Like Jim Walmsley or Courtney Dauwalter have a different bonus structure than a brand new athlete or anyone else on their team, as they should.

So the brand can say, hey, we can't go any higher for annual base salary right now because we just can't afford it but we can offer a bonus and rollover schedule and this is how it works. Let's say you get first place at Western States, and your bonus for that win is $10,000. Your annual base salary for that year is $40k. You get that bonus this year and then next year, your annual base salary is now starting at 50 grand because that bonus value also rolls over into your base salary.

Matt: Okay. So the bonus is paid out this year and you get a raise next year?

Guest: Absolutely. You get the bonus and the raise. And if your contract does not say that, then you need to restructure your contract that way.

So let's say Courtney Dauwalter wins Western States, then she wins Hardrock and she wins UTMB. She gets ten grand for each of those so she gets $30,000 in bonuses. And then the next year, she now increases her annual base by 30 grand, which is how top athletes like Courtney find themselves deeper into six figure salaries.

So when I hear athletes say “I should be making this and this because so-and-so is” I tell them it's like anything else where if you work for a company for ten years your raises get you to the next level by the time you're a tenured employee. That's the rollover bonus.

Matt: That’s such a good way to not only reward them for that success in the moment, but also reflect the added value that they bring going forward as a result of that success.

What other topics do you see discussed in these contract negotiations?

Guest: And I've spoken to you about this but try to include a clause about being a model in photo/video shoots. You want to have that option.

Matt: So I've worked with a lot of athletes on a lot of shoots. And I know one of the things the athlete manager is sometimes juggling is the amount of time athletes have to shoot that day, or the amount of shoot days that they have in their contract throughout the year.

Especially the bigger athletes, they're super concerned with, well, so-and-so has in their contract that no shoot should last longer than three hours. So we only have like three hours. And we have to shoot all of this within that time before we lose them for the day. I've seen it so often.

And so they're calculating how long to have athletes on shoots and which shoots to include them in based on those things. Is that part of, what you have been discussing?

Guest: Yeah. There's usually a base stated in the contract and then the athlete moves that up and down. I can assure you that if there's a three hour maximum on an athlete, that was because the athlete or their agent added it into the contract.

Matt: I've also seen it the other way where athletes did not have this clause. Many shoots, especially in the summer, start at sunrise and you're shooting until sunset. You’re looking at potentially a 16 hour day if you’re up before sunrise then after sunset. An athlete can be running in various locations throughout the day for a lot of that time. I’ve had them come over to me during a down moment and say “I’m struggling over here. I’ve run like 14 miles so far. Can you help me out? This is killing my training and I’m fighting an injury.” And I've had to go to bat for them with the agency that hired me like “Hey, we need to really trim this schedule down. What do we really need going forward the rest of the day?” The agency doesn’t always like that but I’ve done it.

Guest: We have the conversation and I do a whole separate page on how many hours constitute a day vs a half day. And, if you want anything more than that their time is doubled. That's one of those things that athletes are like, oh my God, I had no idea I could do that!

There's a few athletes that I've helped on and off that are like, hey, I don't know if I want to be sponsored anymore, but I'd love to do fitness model work. I'm like, great, let's do the contract for you. So I send that information to a talent agency and I'm like, look, here's the deal. They're like, well, we can't do this and that. And I’ve had to say well then you can't work with this athlete. It's almost like just helping educate the employees at agencies that might be new to it. Just because it has always been done this way does not mean it needs to continue.

Matt: Yeah. That's right. There isn't always some right or wrong way to do a lot of this. You just need to be creative, empathetic and nimble given the situation.

I have a couple other questions. We talked at one point about the athlete's personal brand and creating content for their own YouTube channel. How does that fit in here?

Guest: It depends on the athlete. There's a couple athletes that I'm working with right now that I know would rather die than do a YouTube channel. It's not who they are. And then there are others that are like, I really like this and I need help growing it. So that's where I will be like “What do you want to do with that? What's your intention?” And then within that we go to the brand and we're asking how can we partner with this.

Matt: So have you had that included in the contract? Are there funds allocated for athletes to create their own content? Are you often able to get them dollars and or resources to help them grow their personal brand?

Guest: Absolutely. One of the coolest athletes I've seen out there has a really unique story and a big finish on his resume. He has a stipend in his contract for $20,000 from his main brand partnership to use specifically to make a film and tell his story.

The conversation started with, hey, do you have a YouTube channel? And he said, I don't, and he's pretty reserved and quiet guy. It wouldn't make sense for him to do a YouTube channel if he's not comfortable with it. So they were willing to give that money to him for this film. That was his request.

Matt: I've had athletes reach out to me upset about the NDA clauses that they have to sign around these contracts because they want to have conversations with other athletes and they're just not allowed to. Can you speak to how to handle those NDAs?

Guest: First I will say I would absolutely not advise an athlete to sign a singular-sided NDA. I would come back to them with your mutual NDA. Or if they don't like your mutual NDA, then you can give them the option of turning their single sided NDA into a mutual.

And the second thing is, have representation, whether it's constant representation meaning you've hired an agent or a manager for a year or even a month. Gosh, half the people that I've been speaking to this year just hired me on a quarterly basis to help through this moment.

So absolutely have your management look at that NDA. And, you know, especially if you haven't signed anything yet, you can absolutely talk to someone about your contract now and again but always be professional or discreet about it.

Matt: You're going to shoot yourself in the foot if you if you don't handle it with care regardless of an NDA.

Guest: Yeah, exactly. But you can have those conversations with the right people and also cover your own ass by doing a mutual NDA.

Matt: It's a tough spot because it sort of creates this gatekeeping situation on all of this contract information. But, I don't really have any ideas or ways off the top of my head to remedy that.

Guest: Yeah. I would also say that one really important question to ask the brand athlete manager is, “Who can I consult with on this?”. They should be able to have an answer for that. And if their answer is nobody then nobody should be signing a contract without understanding it.

So you may need to quickly decide who your athlete management is and you’ll need to scramble. This is a business transaction. You wouldn't buy a house and sign your life away to a huge contract without having someone to walk you through this.

Matt: Can you speak to where you think we're at or where we're going big picture with athlete contracts in our sport? I know that's a big question.

Guest: I definitely can. This has been a hard year for a lot of brands even though outwardly it probably doesn't look like it. So what I'm hearing is a lot of athletes are really frustrated and and are taking things very personally when it's not about them. It's about the overall health of a company that's really struggling. But that said, you know, it's an election year and we've got all these wars going globally.

Matt: So you see macro factors start to play into it.

Guest: Yes, exactly. But overall, I do see an uptick of the size of the monetary investment and contracts that athletes are getting in trail and, and mountain running. I don't work quite as much with road and track athletes, but the contracts I've seen there don't feel as flexible. And maybe that's because they’ve had an established contract structure so much longer than the trail and mountain athletes so nobody asks them to change things. With trail and ultrarunning and mountain, just outdoor sports, snow sports, money is absolutely a factor but the numbers are slowly moving up. I also love the pattern of seeing athletes, athlete managers and brand managers individualizing contracts.

Matt: So as opposed to templatizing those contracts, they're really working with athletes individually to craft the best situation.

Guest: Yeah. That's what's so important for athletes to remember. Just because the contract is there doesn't mean that it's not adjustable.

Matt: Anything else you want to talk about and include?

Guest: Yeah, I'll tell you one big thing. I have one big client that is extremely loyal. I appreciate her/him so much. If she/he is with a brand they want to stay with them forever.

We're looking at adding Airbnb, Vrbo, Duolingo and a candy company. Big brands outside of running. She/He fully admits that they don’t know how to approach a brand outside our world and they’re not comfortable doing it. They also have a very strict starting line. If it's under X amount of money, it's just not worth their time.

Matt: And juggling a lot of sponsors is really difficult. That's something a lot of athletes should probably have in mind, right? I know I've worked with athletes before that have several sponsors, and it can drive them insane trying to keep everyone happy. They all want so much.

Guest: Yes. So that comes back to the second part of the conversation I had with her/him. Would you be interested in just doing a campaign with some of these brands and not going full on partnership? Because honestly Matt, as you know, there's plenty of money in marketing dollars for singular campaigns.

Matt: Absolutely. We haven't really seen it at all in trail running. That's sort of a new thing that she/he could open the sport up to. You see it every Olympic cycle. Where an athlete makes the Olympic team and does a campaign with Gillette or someone unrelated to their sport. They're not a Gillette athlete. It’s just a one time campaign to coincide with the Olympics. I think that's a great direction to go.

Guest: There's less stress, like you said, trying to juggle everything. You do the campaign and you're out in a month, done. But if you could make, you know, $50,000 doing that then it’s great.

Matt: Well that's brilliant. I hope we see more of that for not just for the athletes sake, but for the sport. It bridges the sport with a whole new subset of brands that are advertising on mainstream channels and reaching people that maybe know nothing about ultra trail running. That’s really great advocacy for the sport as well. It raises the tide.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely. And that's this athlete’s biggest goal - to tell the story of this sport.

Matt: I think that's about all I have. Is there anything else you want to add?

Guest: No, but this has been great. Thank you.

Matt: No, thank you! We'll talk soon.