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Amy Yoder Begley

(File)

Olympic distance runner Amy Yoder Begley didn't begin running professionally to get rich, and it's a good thing.

After winning three individual NCAA titles at Arkansas, Begley says she signed a deal with Asics in 2001 worth approximately $6,000.

"If not for my parents and my husband, I would have been done a long time ago," she says.

Elite discus throwers Liz Podominick and Jared Schuurmans train in Portland with former world record-holder Mac Wilkins. Podominick made the U.S. team to this summer's IAAF World Track & Field Championships.

But it's a stretch to call either a professional.

Podominick and Schuurmans subsidize their own training with outside jobs.

"I'd say they try to get by on $1,200 a month," Wilkins says. "That covers everything. Rent, food, gas, insurance -- everything."

For every Allyson Felix or Galen Rupp, who make a comfortable living from track and field, there are dozens of athletes living on the margins, near poverty or in debt, or bankrolled by relatives.

Olympic dream? This is more like a nightmare. Some in the sport contend the only way to fix it is to take it completely apart and put it back together again.

"My personal view is that we need to make some structural changes to how the sport is presented," says Adam Nelson, 2004 Olympic gold medalist in the shot and president of the Track & Field Athletes Association.

Nelson is talking about something that fits neatly into a two-hour television window, with clear storylines, obvious winners and losers, so that the uninitiated can tune into and immediately pick up on what is happening.

In other words, everything the sport currently is not.

U.S. track and field is half metric and half non-metric. It includes events such as the javelin, hammer and steeplechase -- of which Joe Six Pack might or might not be aware -- and the 10,000 meters, which is a mind-numbing 25 laps around a 400-meter track that takes about a half hour to complete.

In the sprints, which are easy to follow and understand, star sprinters Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin and LaShawn Merritt have failed drug tests, casting a shadow of doubt over every outstanding performance. Positive tests can be triggered by a bewildering number of performance-enhancing drugs or substances, some available over the counter.

The sport is numbers-driven and record-obsessed, with allowances for wind readings and adjustments for altitude that only insiders seem to understand. The meets are a blend of confusion, in which everything seems to happen at once.

"You have die-hard fans of the sport who revel in the three-ring circus, but that doesn't translate to the casual fan or to TV," Nelson says. "The casual fan struggles to follow a track meet."

Nick Symmonds, the brash, Eugene-based two-time Olympic 800-meter runner, has a solution.

Symmonds would shorten meets, install parimutuel betting windows at the U.S. tracks and bring in beer vendors to create immediate rooting interests and a festival atmosphere.

He says some European meets already operate successfully that way.

"Zurich is the greatest non-championship meeting in the world," Symmonds says. "Let's replicate it."

It's an outside-the-box concept for a sport in which much of what fan base remains is hamstrung by tradition and edging toward retirement homes.

"We're never going to be Major League Baseball, or the NFL or the NBA," Symmonds says. "We should compare ourselves to surfing, bull riding and the X Games. We could learn a lot from those sports."

Being leaner, hipper and more tailored to easily distracted Millennials is one way to try to grow the fan base. In theory, having more fans would increase sponsorship and endorsement opportunities for athletes that at the moment are tied almost exclusively to major sports apparel companies such as Nike, Adidas, Asics, New Balance and Brooks.

The three most successful Oregon-based training groups -- the Nike Oregon Project, Team Schumacher and Oregon Track Club Elite -- all are sponsored by Nike.

Nike is one of eight official USA Track & Field sponsors. Nike's deal is worth more than $10 million to the USATF, which has a 2013 operating budget of $19.4 million.

Detractors suggest Nike's omnipresence in the sport is unhealthy. Sally Bergesen is founder and CEO of Oiselle, a sports apparel company for women that sponsors some track and field athletes. She believes Nike manipulates the situation to its own advantage.

"There needs to be a separation of state and Swoosh," Bergesen says. "You can't expect the governing body to offer a level playing field for investors when it's locked up with one brand. Some people say the USATF couldn't exist without Nike money. Honestly, the USATF should be blown up and reconstructed."

Oiselle put a humorous but pointed 3-minute video on the web last year about the six attempts the company made to create a singlet for the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials that met USATF and International Olympic Committee specifications.

In essence, the design that finally received USATF approval made it impossible for anyone in the stands at Hayward Field to know that Kate Grace was running as an Oiselle-sponsored athlete.

"It was ridiculous," says Bergesen, who notes that Nike also heavily subsidized the 10-day Olympic trials.

In response to an interview request for this story, Nike spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi wrote in an email: "Thanks for the invite, but unfortunately an interview isn't possible."

At the London Olympics, a number of track and field athletes, including Symmonds and sprint star Sanya Richards-Ross, protested IOC rules that forbid display of secondary sponsorship logos on competitors' uniforms during the Games.

The IOC contended that companies (Nike in the case of Team USA)paid for the rights to be the exclusive logo on team uniforms. The athletes point out that the money went to the Olympic committees, and not the competitors.

USATF chief public affairs officer Jill Geer says her organization has to comply with IOC and USOC rules in Olympic qualifying events. She says the USATF is much less restrictive at meets it controls, but notes the apparel companies provide the financial muscle that keeps track and field alive.

"The shoe companies put the most money into the sport globally," Geer says. "If they feel their interests aren't being protected and take their money out of the sport, that doesn't help."

The fact is, most athletes, sponsored or not, aren't seeing much of that money. Begley is on the six-member TFAA board of directors. In a recent blog post, she broke down the different levels of apparel company sponsorship this way.

A gear contract, in which with the company supplies the athlete with shoes and clothing in which to train and compete.

A gear and bonus contract, in which the athlete receives gear plus performance bonuses.

A gear, bonus and travel stipend contract, in which the company also picks up some travel and medical expenses.

A full contract, in which the athlete gets all of the above, plus a salary.

Athletes can supplement their income with prize money, but there is precious little of that.

For athletes in the first three categories and those with no sponsors, coming up with the money for fulltime training, eating and putting a roof overhead is an iffy proposition. On top of that, apparel companies frequently prohibit a sponsored athlete from displaying secondary sponsorship advertising on their uniforms in competition.

From 2007 to 2011, Begley was a member of the Oregon Project, perhaps the Cadillac of U.S. professional mid-distance and distance training groups. Coached by Alberto Salazar, the Oregon Project wants for nothing.

"I had free chiropractic care, free massage," Begley said. "They paid for bloodwork. I got my ferritin levels checked regularly. Before, I was having to make decisions about when, or if, I could do that.

"I was ranked from sixth to 10th when I was on my own. When I had all of those resources, I broke into the top level."

Oregon Project runners have altitude chambers, access to anti-gravity treadmills that reduce wear on joints, and train regularly at altitude camps, all on Nike's dime. They have free strength and conditioning training, and a team psychologist. Salazar, one of the best running coaches in the business, comes as part of the package.

It's expensive. Begley figures to approximate the training aids the Oregon Project runners receive as part of their contracts would cost an unsponsored or minimally sponsored athlete at least $9,000 per year on top of living expenses.

Most post-collegiate athletes are unsponsored or minimally sponsored.

This is why athletes are pressing for the right to display secondary sponsorship logos on their uniforms -- or even on their bodies -- during races. The theory is, if track athletes went to a NASCAR-type model, they could be human billboards for a number of companies or products. That would broaden their revenue streams and allow them to move out of poverty.

Symmonds auctioned off space on his shoulder last year for a temporary tattoo. The space was purchased by Hanson Dodge Creative, a brand design and advertising company. To comply with his Nike contract and IOC rules, Symmonds covered the tattoo with tape while competing.

The taped-over tattoo became a story, and certainly worth more in advertising for Hanson Dodge Creative than had the tattoo remained uncovered.

Symmonds is one of a handful of athletes, including Richards-Ross, hurdler Lolo Jones and distance runner Lauren Fleshman, who have been able to creatively market themselves outside the apparel company umbrella.

Jones has nearly 400,000 Twitter followers. She adroitly uses social media to keep her name in the headlines, often to the thinly disguised annoyance of fellow competitors, some more accomplished at the Olympic level and less accomplished at attracting attention.

The charismatic Richards-Ross has a celebrity marriage to NFL football player Aaron Ross and her own reality television show, "Sanya's Glam & Gold," which debuts on WE tv on July 25.

Fleshman helped found the gluten-free energy bar company "Picky Bars." She has used her no-holds-barred blog and Twitter to create a personal following that Oiselle found so valuable, it lured her away from Nike it exchange for an ownership share of the company.

"Internally within the track world, those four people are either loved or hated," Nelson says. "There is a strong line between the two. Not everybody can do the same things those people do."

But making an attempt now is a necessary part of the landscape. When Oiselle signed hammer thrower Britney Henry to a contract this summer, the deal came with the proviso that Henry blog regularly.

Until the sport finds a way to grow the fan base at the ground level, ability isn't enough. To have value for a sponsor, athletes must bring something marketable besides their accomplishments in the arena.

Currently, apparel companies largely gravitate to sprinters, mid-distance and distance runners, who compete indoors and outdoors throughout the year. Distance runners have three separate seasons: fall cross country, indoor and outdoor. Distance runners also can run year-around in road races.

More visibility equals more marketability, although there are strings attached. Adidas wasted no time in suspending its sponsorship of Gay after news of his recent failed drug test.

In addition, there are a lot of recreational joggers to whom apparel companies market shirts, shorts and shoes. It's a different story for Wilkins' discus throwers, who compete only outdoors. When was the last time you saw a recreational thrower?

It's not impossible for throwers to increase their visibility. Henry, Oregon's school record-holder, and javelin thrower Kara Patterson, a two-time Olympian who prepped at Vancouver's Skyview High School, have turned to social media to create their own brands. They have had to. There isn't an overarching organization doing it for them.

"The federations aren't fully equipped at the international or national level to build a sustainable profession," Nelson says. "That's not what they were built to do."

The USATF, for instance, oversees everything from youth sports to masters competitions. Its main purpose at the elite level is to stage national championships and pick national teams.

Begley says the TFAA surveyed athletes at the recent USA Championships to gather data about the state of post-collegiate competitors.

The guess here is the responses won't be happy reading, but the conclusions will be clear.

This sport has big problems. To survive, athletes must find their own solutions.

-- Ken Goe