I wrote:
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Similarly, for coverage of the race itself, USATF could/should spring for someone (or more than one person) experienced to do race commentary. Pay a good production company to edit the race video, and actively shop it around to ESPN, Fox Sports, etc .
JimG replied:
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Birmingham had Rod DeHaven doing color commentary, Toni Reavis was in St. Louis, both did great jobs, but only the local TV outlets picked up the broadcast (Rod's commentary was "hijacked" for webcast, however, with some knowledge of the producers).
-> Well great, then! That means we have good footage of both races with good commentary. So how about my other idea, to which Jim did not reply: produce a DVD of those races. It can't be that expensive to put together a well-produced DVD with both races, interviews with "cast members", background information on the trials, etc. There are a ton of college students on this board: anyone a media major who'd care to do this as a thesis project?
Then it could be distributed, as I also suggested, through various existing outlets. Giving it as race awards would be one. Including it in the goodie bag of major marathons would be another. Including it with every copy of RW would be another still. I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, and last year I got several DVDs of new shows that way (the DVD comes in a little tear-open plastic sleeve that's simply glued to a page in the magazine). If you think your show (in our case, the OT marathon) might face an uphill battle to generate public interest, you go the extra mile in promotion. Simple as that.
I seriously doubt this would be prohibitively expensive. And I bet the organizers of the next OT marathon would be happy to pony up some of the funds, as it would generate more interest in their events. Especially if they could add some preview information for their events on the DVD.