U.S. runner left off team for failing to wear Nike gear

Nick Symmonds opposes the USATF Nike tradition

Nick Symmonds, the U.S. national champion at 800 metres, was left off the United States team for the world track and field championships in a dispute involving athletes’ individual endorsements and requirements to wear official team gear.

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Symmonds has refused to sign a document that requires U.S. athletes to wear gear made by Nike at official team functions at the world championships, which begin Aug. 22 in Beijing. Nike is the official sponsor of USA Track & Field.

Symmonds, 31, who is sponsored by Brooks Running, called the document vague and overreaching. He said he was willing to wear Team USA gear during competition and official news conferences and at any awards ceremony. But he said that a request by USATF to bring no gear other than Nike gear — except for shoes, sunglasses and watches — violated his contract with Brooks.

In an interview Monday, Symmonds said he had an appointment scheduled this week with a lawyer in Seattle to explore his legal options. “I feel I’ve been wronged here, and there have been some significant damages to my business,” Symmonds said. “I want to try to recover some of those damages.”

On the other hand, Symmonds said, he wants to work with USATF so that athletes can better understand their obligations. He also said he was reluctant to be involved in litigation as he trained for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

 

Symmonds said he wants to work with USATF so that athletes can better understand their obligations. Symmonds won a silver medal in the 800 at the 2013 outdoor world track championships in Moscow. He finished fifth at the 2012 London Olympics in his career-best time of 1 minute 42.95 seconds and has won six outdoor national titles in the 800.

He has also been outspoken about what he considers to be USATF’s restrictive approach to allowing athletes to display their corporate sponsorships. Symmonds said that at the 2014 world indoor championships in Poland, he was asked by U.S. officials to remove his Brooks gear while drinking coffee in a team hotel.
In a blog entry published Monday on The Huffington Post, Symmonds said there was a large discrepancy between revenue sharing involving track and field athletes and that for professional athletes in other sports. In track, athletes are not unionized and do not have a collective bargaining agreement. They are essentially independent contractors.

Symmonds cited a study by Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College, who estimated that USATF would share 8.06 percent of its expected 2015 revenue of $42.92 million with its athletes. That is compared with revenue sharing of 25 to 35 percent in other individual pro sports and 45 to 55 percent in pro team sports, the study said.

“It’s insulting how little comes to the athletes,” Symmonds said in an interview.

Jill Geer, a spokeswoman for USA Track & Field, disputed those figures, saying that the federation would share about 50 percent of its 2015 budget of $30 million with athletes in the form of prize money; training, travel and coaching stipends; health insurance; and television production costs.

Geer said that the federation had been working with athletes for more than a year to specify their obligations and that any changes would have to be made at an annual convention in December.

Symmonds said that he hoped his stance would eventually help improve athletes’ rights and would be “a small sacrifice for the greater good.”