Yes - one more time it's about the suit:
Here is a comparison to 2004 and what it took to make top 16 (top 8 for the 400) over the first 7 events:
2004 listed first then 2008 then the approx. % drop
400 IM - 4:24.8 to 4:21.0 1.5%
100 Fly - 1:01.29 to 59.97 2%
400 Free - 3:55.0 to 3:51.4 1.6%
400 IM - 4:49.57 to 4:43.2 2.3%
100 Br - 1:04.0 to 1:02.36 2.5%
100 Bk - 1:04.12 to 1:02.31 2.6%
200 Free - 1:51.1 to 1:48.76 2.2%
Ok - to be fair, people are getting faster, but I would guess at least a 1.5% drop across the board for the suit -- that is net time !
Parents
Former Member
I don't think you can assert they are overpriced. You can assert they are expensive but Speedo shouldn't be expected to sell them at a loss. Part of me wonders if the cost isn't a significant part of the controversy. If this suit was $50 would folks complain so much?
yeah, speedo has to make up a ton on development and marketing costs. no one seems to complain about computers being overpriced, but the production costs, at least on the parts that I am involved in designing, are less than a tenth of what you all pay for. why? because companies have to pay all of us engineers salaries over the years it takes to develop the products, and then all of the marketing campaigns to convince you to buy the product. i'm sure that the lzr must cost less than 50 dollars to produce (20 dollars wouldn't surprise me, these are made in china right??) but they have to pay all of their athletes, engineers, as well as market the product and provide 2500 free suits to athletes at trials! so they have to make this all back somehow. and if the market will bear the cost, that's what the price is. it's like intel producing 1000 chips on the same wafer, and the ones on the outside run at 2 ghz so they get sold for a couple hundred, and the ones at the center that cost the same to produce but can run slightly faster get marked up to $1000 when they first come out. and people pay those prices when they come out. why? i do a lot of high performance computing, but i don't need to pay 80% more for a 5% speed improvement, especially when the price will come down a lot in a couple months.
similarly, i don't need to spend 10-20x the price for a lzr compared to my speedo when it will likely only improve my speed by a couple tenths. but phelps? sure! and if i was competing at a higher level and had the disposable income, sure i might consider it.
what is most surprising to me is that you see so many kids at high school championships in the fs-pro bodysuits at like 300 a pop. a complete waste of their parents' money, especially when you consider jimmy broke the high school record wearing a speedo brief.
I don't think you can assert they are overpriced. You can assert they are expensive but Speedo shouldn't be expected to sell them at a loss. Part of me wonders if the cost isn't a significant part of the controversy. If this suit was $50 would folks complain so much?
yeah, speedo has to make up a ton on development and marketing costs. no one seems to complain about computers being overpriced, but the production costs, at least on the parts that I am involved in designing, are less than a tenth of what you all pay for. why? because companies have to pay all of us engineers salaries over the years it takes to develop the products, and then all of the marketing campaigns to convince you to buy the product. i'm sure that the lzr must cost less than 50 dollars to produce (20 dollars wouldn't surprise me, these are made in china right??) but they have to pay all of their athletes, engineers, as well as market the product and provide 2500 free suits to athletes at trials! so they have to make this all back somehow. and if the market will bear the cost, that's what the price is. it's like intel producing 1000 chips on the same wafer, and the ones on the outside run at 2 ghz so they get sold for a couple hundred, and the ones at the center that cost the same to produce but can run slightly faster get marked up to $1000 when they first come out. and people pay those prices when they come out. why? i do a lot of high performance computing, but i don't need to pay 80% more for a 5% speed improvement, especially when the price will come down a lot in a couple months.
similarly, i don't need to spend 10-20x the price for a lzr compared to my speedo when it will likely only improve my speed by a couple tenths. but phelps? sure! and if i was competing at a higher level and had the disposable income, sure i might consider it.
what is most surprising to me is that you see so many kids at high school championships in the fs-pro bodysuits at like 300 a pop. a complete waste of their parents' money, especially when you consider jimmy broke the high school record wearing a speedo brief.
