"No reason to bash Nike, we called them out & they got better" - Allyson Felix’s agent on Olympian’s ordeal with sponsorship issues during pregnancy

Allyson Felix’s agent and brother, Wes, has credited American sportswear giant Nike for correcting their policy around pregnant clients, despite them having to go through an ordeal around the same issue.

Felix's Nike contract expired in December 2017, and she was pregnant while negotiating to renew the deal. However, she has always maintained that Nike asked her to take a 70% pay cut, which eventually led to her parting ways with the company in 2019.

As Felix left Nike, she wrote an op-ed in the New York Times detailing her fight with Nike. It was a move overseen by her brother-cum-agent Wes, who recently stated that he is satisfied to know that the company, along with many others, has since changed its policies to be more accommodating of female athletes who embrace motherhood while being active in their respective sports.

“There's no reason to bash Nike because we called them out. We said ‘hey, you need to get better here’ and they got better, and they really did and it meant we needed to leave but to hear that was like the easiest conversation for you guys means they made the change. And it was real,” he said while speaking on the latest episode of the Mountaintop Conversations by Saysh podcast.

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“Men don't have to deal with like the repercussions of pregnancies” - Allyson Felix’s agent and brother, Wes

Allyson Felix is a seven-time Olympic champion.

Wes Felix, Allyson Felix’s agent and brother, stated that male athletes do have to face any repercussions when they are expecting to embrace fatherhood. When they prepare to become fathers, they do not have to worry about having to deal with sponsors, the impact it might have on their professional careers, or anything else.

He further said that for female athletes, pregnancies are viewed with the same trepidation that surrounds an injury. He disclosed that he never gave these things a thought until his sister, Allyson Felix, announced her pregnancy.

“The men don't have to deal with like the repercussions of it and I feel like pregnancy in the corporate world, sports world, sponsorship world, for men it's just kind of, like, whatever. But I feel like for women, when we were going through this, the words used were like injury, you know? Or we were hearing someone talk this weekend and they were talking about how like a lot of times maternity leave is viewed as a disability,” he opined.

“And these things that I think, as a guy, I never had to think about. Never crossed my mind until I started going through it with Allison. I think because of our working relationship and then also being siblings, it became this thing where I was like ‘this is so horrible, this can't be how it is, this cannot be how this actually works’,” he added.