Well, over the last two years Meb has overcome injuries to come back and run the best marathon times of his career:
-2:09:21 for 9th at 2009 London (beat nike sponsored ritz)
-2:09:15 for the win at 2009 NYC (beat Hall, Abdi only other Nike elite)
-2:09:46 for 5th at Boston (overcome injury during buildup, beaten by Hall, Rohatinsky DNF for nike)
-2:11:38 for 6th at NYC (beating Ritz again)
There's no arguing that Meb, despite getting older, has been one of our more consistent and top performing marathon runners over the last two years. You can really only place Ryan Hall in this arguement, regarding performances.
Now, kudos for Nike for supporting Salazars and Schumachers group, but are you telling me you rather spend more money on underwater treadmills, alter-g treadmills, cryosauna, teenage mutant ninja turtle shreeder masks, than spend less on the crappy extras and a few more dollars in salary on a guy who is getting you better perfomances sitting in a creek for ice baths. In the end, they don't spend as much on Meb.
So, is Nike getting the most out of their buck with the money they dump on salazar or could they really getting more out of their buck for Meb.
Any way you slice it, Meb's performed better than any other Nike sponsored marathoner hands down.
Just sayin'.