Rating the Athlete Transfers

Nick Cornell takes a look at recent athlete signings and makes a solid attempt in giving each transfer a rating.

It is an exciting time of year, the January athlete shuffle! There will be winners and there will be losers. It is exciting to see how and where brands are investing their capital. I’ve decided to grade some of these more noteworthy moves.

A quick side note here: it makes me laugh that some folks replied to Francesco Puppi’s comment that the media isn’t picking up his Nike departure with “maybe we don’t really care”, when in fact, the trail media cares, and hangs on every athlete announcement like it’s some revelation and debates every detail until the cows come home.

But the main reason I wanted to share Nick’s attempt at a rating here is at it reminded me of The Athletic’s transfer rating they are doing for pro soccer players. I’m new to all this sports punditry, so this might be an old hat for you, but I found the way they were breaking things down and arriving at their points awarded fascinating. Of course, in pro soccer we have WAY more data, thus breaking things out the way The Athletic does, by ‘injury record’, ‘market value’, ‘contract rationale’, ‘recent form’, ‘gap-filling’, ‘excitement factor’, ‘future-proofing’, ‘rival impact’, ‘marketability’ is probably overkill for trail running (at this point in time) but it gives a good insight into how someone arrives at a certain number or rating.

I gives Nick’s rating attempt a solid C+.