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Bloomberg Radio Rule forty. Uh. Just another way if you read a lot of the information we read a day ahead of this interview, just one more way in which the International Olympic Committee gains and many of the athletes who go to the Olympics, having spent most of their lives getting ready for them, don't joining us now. As a man who is very close to this in in key ways, Jim Webber is the CEO of Brooks Running.
It's a Berkshire Hathaway company founded in nineteen fourteen in Philadelphia, headquartered in Seattle, now for more than twenty years, running shoes of all kinds, unique designs. You can buy them online in stores. But Jim's here to talk about the Olympics, where his company is sponsoring twelve athletes. Twelve Olympic athletes, Jim, welcome back to the show. Thanks, it's great to be here. So how did you get in? I mean obvious, I guess it's an obvious thing to do to sponsor athletes
if you make running shoes. Well, it's interesting because running is actually really unique among all sports because the soul of running is the sport. But but what's interesting is it becomes more than that. For us. It's a fitness, healthy, well lifestyle activity. So running transcends the sport. So we invest in the sport um really to inspire literally high school kids and younger runners to compete and begin moving because frankly, we know they'll they'll keep running on into
old age. So the sport, I would say, is the soul of what we do. It's not the core of our business, but it's an investment um really in the sport and future runners. Now, I just want to mention that it doesn't involve you directly, but it does involve this issue of rule forty in the Olympics. Right Michael Phelps, who is I guess he's like the crown jewel of under armos Olympic athletes. Do you know that in the cover on the cover of the latest Sports Illustory magazine,
do you know that he's wearing Nike sweatpants. And the reason that he's wearing Nike sweatpants is because Nike is the sponsor of the US team Team USA, and as part of the legal agreement, they are required as an Olympian to wear Nike for the sponsors. Now, the US Olympic Committee didn't really have a comment about this, but can you just explain what is going on here that
athletes are sponsored by one company? The Olympic Committee might say, no, you've got to wear this because the team is sponsored by someone else. Explained the details. So there's there's a lot of history here too, right, because the Olympics started with amateur athletes and only in the last few decades has professionalism come into it. And that's a whole another topic.
But in essence, there's no question or ambiguity at all that the Olympic Movement, the IOC and the U s o C owns the image and name of the athlete while they're on the team, the national team and competing, and so, uh, Michael Phelps does not have any rights to his image or his name during this period of the Olympics. It's it's managed through the U s o C and the IOC and UM. That's what Rule forty
is all about. It restricts other commercial usage of the athletes name and image during this period of time by any of their sponsors or partners, but most importantly by
the athlete themselves. Why why was this rural mate? Because I think the major sponsors at the international level and even at the governing body level for each sport, for USA track and field, for swim, for cycling, um, they have sponsors and those sponsors want exclusivity on these athletes image and name during this period of time, and that has impacts. And that's why you know, we're creating a social media campaign around this topic, really on behalf of athletes, because, um,
this isn't basketball. I'm talking about running USA track and field, and it's not even an n C double a sport where each athlete is getting a two to three hundred thousand dollar education. These people aren't getting paid at all. They have to they have to garner their own support, and most of them don't have a professional outlet as they do in the NBA or tennis or golf to make a living off of this. So for every Hussain Bolt or Michael Phelps, I think five hundred athletes UM
that no one knows their name. They're not going to get on the podium. But this is the biggest moment of their life and UM they're being restricted on UM the use of their name and and and really you know, supporting the people that supported them. What you'll see now in the Olympics is some of the non sponsored athletes by the by the big brand that's sponsoring all of these teams and others. UM is you're going to see
them put the shoes around their neck. Because the only piece of equipment that a track and field athlete has is their shoes. That's not too in swimming, the cap is a piece of equipment. It's not too in cycling, but in running, Uh, they can't say the name of their shoe sponsor, they can't show the brand in a commercial sense, but they can put the equipment around their neck. And that's the only thing they can do. Tell us about this partnership that you've got with Zappos and UM.
Nick Simmons yep so, Nick is probably one of the most prolific voices for athletes right certainly in in track and field, and has been two time Olympian, two time Olympian eight runner and he was he was in fantastic shape and got injured, so unfortunately he couldn't compete at
the trials this year and didn't make the team. But nonetheless he is on a mission to create more balance UM, both in terms of sharing UH the significant revenues at the international UH and and USOC committee levels to the athlete as well giving athletes control over their image UM and being able to put together sponsorship and support UM in their dream and in pursuit of this, of this, of the metal and so he's the biggest voice on that.
So we're supporting him. Essentially, we're supporting him and this rule forty dot com effort was really about supporting his voice. Thanks very much for shutting light on all of this. Jim Webber is the chief executive of Brooks Running Theory Berkshire Hathaway, a company. They're based in Seattle. Thank you for listening to taking stockhm him Fox My co host
Kathleen Hayes. This is Bloomberg coming up. Bloomberg Law. Brought you by Landover Manhattan, where New York goes for luxury, conveniently located at fifty four then to live with Avenue and online at landover Manhattan dot com. Landover Manhattan is at your service,