When the starting gun fires at Hayward Field this Thursday for the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships, over 40 athletes will step onto the line not in Nike, Adidas, or New Balance kits, but in minimalist, unbranded black-and-white racing gear provided by a small Brooklyn brand with a big mission.
Bandit Running’s Unsponsored Project is back for its third year, and this time it’s bigger, louder, and more urgent than ever.
Launched in 2023 as a counterpunch to the traditional sponsorship model in track and field, the initiative aims to support athletes who are training and competing at the highest level of the sport, but doing so without any financial backing that most people assume comes with being “pro.”
Each of the athletes in the 2025 program receives a 10-day contract that includes $1,500 in cash, two unbranded racing kits, a $1,000 Bandit gift card, and full freedom to walk away if a traditional sponsorship offer comes along.
No exclusivity, no fine print, no brand obligations. Just support, in the simplest possible form.
“We built this project to shine a light on the athletes who are stuck in the gap between amateur and pro, the ones who are living like pros, training like pros, but not getting paid like them,” said Joe Andrews, Bandit’s VP of Marketing. “We wanted to flip the model on its head.”
That model, long criticized for being opaque, restrictive, and in many cases exploitative, has been a sore spot in the sport for decades. Only a small percentage of professional runners have access to full-salary contracts. Many others grind through Olympic cycles without consistent income, relying on part-time jobs, Venmo links, and GoFundMe pages to keep their careers afloat.
Bandit’s answer is refreshingly unpolished.
The kits are clean and logo-free, marked only by strips of black tape, a visual callback to Nick Symmonds’ 2012 protest at the London Olympics, when he covered up a sponsor logo to protest branding restrictions.
That symbol, Bandit says, represents a broader history of resistance in track and field, from Steve Prefontaine’s fights with the AAU in the 1970s to modern athletes pushing back against a system they view as broken.
This year’s USATF Championships, held July 31 to August 3 in Eugene, Oregon, serve as the selection meet for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo. The top three in each event, provided they hit the World Athletics standards, will represent Team USA in September.
For many of the Unsponsored athletes, the next four days are about more than just qualifying, it’s about being seen, getting a shot, and keeping a dream alive.
And for some, the Unsponsored Project has already made a difference. Last year, four alumni of the program signed traditional sponsorship deals, including 400m hurdler Trevor Bassitt, who went on to make the U.S. Olympic team.
Bandit hopes that number will grow this year, especially with expanded storytelling around the project. They’re publishing a daily newsletter, distributing a printed zine called The Bandit Times, and even bringing in five emerging creatives to document the week on the ground in Eugene.
“We’re trying to do for storytelling what we’re doing for support, hand the mic to the people living it,” said Tim Rossi, Bandit’s Head of Brand.
Bandit’s approach isn’t the first of its kind, Tracksmith’s Amateur Support Program and On’s athlete initiatives also aim to support runners outside the traditional contract structure, but it’s among the most flexible.
The built-in release clause allows any athlete to leave the program the second a brand deal comes along. As Bandit puts it, “Both parties will thank one another if applicable.”
The company itself is a relatively new face in the sport. Founded in 2021 with a line of performance socks, Bandit has since expanded into full head-to-toe collections and built a reputation for irreverent storytelling and community-first branding.
But with the Unsponsored Project, they’re staking a claim on a larger issue and hoping to change the sport, not just sell gear.
Whether any of the Unsponsored athletes make it to Tokyo remains to be seen. But for now, they’ll have the support they need to race on their own terms, and that might be the bigger win.
