Dear LetsRun, You're wrong there will be people watching Galen Rupp's american record attempts.

1. The same people go to the meets at both places. Both have great enthusiastic crowds.

2. Of course people watch it. ESPN wouldn't televise it otherwise. They're not stupid.

3. Ok

4. For some events yes, others no.

5. See #1 above.

mister p wrote:

1. The same people go to the meets at both places. Both have great enthusiastic crowds.

2. Of course people watch it. ESPN wouldn't televise it otherwise. They're not stupid.

3. Ok

4. For some events yes, others no.

5. See #1 above.

1. A ticket to the Indoor games costs as much $66. The BU meet tonight is $10. It's economically very unlikely that the same people go to both meets. And from my personal experience, a large crowd from my club will go to the BU meet tonight and also the upcoming meets, whereas very few people historically go to the NB Indoor games.

2. Actually the NB indoor games, pays ESPN to televise their event. Given how poorly T&F is run, it's not safe to assume that they are "not stupid" or put in behavioral economic terms are rational actors. They very well may be making a negative NPV decision by televising their meet on TV.

4. Definitely faster for distance events.

5. See 1 above.

I'm not paying $10 to watch Rupp time-trial the 5k, deuce or mile.

He won the genetic lottery. Good for him.

I'd rather go for a run myself.

1. I've never paid a cent any of the times I've attended the NB games.

2. Your going to have to provide some proof, if you expect me to believe that.

4. Which track has more distance records?

I agree with you heyyo. Rupp and Salazar think they have a better chance at the AR at a certain venue. The Brojos say how impolite of them.

To be fair to the Brojos, I don't know how many American Records they set in their running careers, but I'm sure they went out of their way to maximize media coverage for T&F even if it made attaining the AR harder.

1. Good for you, but ticket prices range from $22 to $66 dollars for this years event. You're an exception not the rule. AND YOURE GOING TO HAVE TO PROVIDE SOME PROOF IF YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT.

2. As of now there is no proof that ESPN is even televising the NBIGP.

4. That's a terrible argument for why one track might be faster. I'm not even go dive into your broken logic as your level of intelligence is below mine. Instead I'm going to attack you personally and assume that you live in the area but you've never actually run on either track either because you aren't man or woman enough to run indoor track. If you actually had run on both you'd know which was faster.

i need to get a run in too.... but i think we should support T&F as a spectator sport, in general, and think this will be something to behold. how about this, i'll race you there, or back (or both).you can get a run in, have some fun and watch the race.

*&$@! wrote:

I'm not paying $10 to watch Rupp time-trial the 5k, deuce or mile.

He won the genetic lottery. Good for him.

I'd rather go for a run myself.

DeerYou must be new here.

1. Actually there are quite of few comps at the NB games. There are quite a few hs teams that get in for nada.

2. So you say NB pays ESPN to televise the meet, but now you say it might not be televised? Come back when you get your facts straight.

4. You validate my argument with your inability to form a coherent counter-argument. And I'm fairly confident that I've been on the tracks at Reggie and BU far more than you have. They're both great and we're lucky to have them.

You're argument was incoherent and barely qualified as argument and was more of a single statement that really shouldn't be acknowledged. Sigh, without going into to much detail:

An analysis of "track speed" that merely looks at which track has had more records set on it is flawed because it fails to control for a myriad of other factors (such as # of record attempts, age of track, # of professional races a year, quality of races on that track, etc.) that would affect # of records set at the track and say little about how fast the track is.

Correlation is not causation.

I don't want to interfere your cat fight because I don't really care.

However, I wanted to point out that picking the most expensive ticket price at NBIG and comparing it to the cheapest entry fee tonight is weak. You should've used 22 vs 10 and you know it.

heyyo wrote:

You're argument was incoherent and barely qualified as argument and was more of a single statement that really shouldn't be acknowledged. Sigh, without going into to much detail:

An analysis of "track speed" that merely looks at which track has had more records set on it is flawed because it fails to control for a myriad of other factors (such as # of record attempts, age of track, # of professional races a year, quality of races on that track, etc.) that would affect # of records set at the track and say little about how fast the track is.

Correlation is not causation.

There's no doubt that the number of records at the Reggie is because of the quantity and quality of the race(r)s there. Now ask yourself why that is.

heyyo wrote:

A couple of a counter point from your article on the front page:

2) Why does it matter if the NB Indoor games is on ESPN? No one watches it. If a something is on television and no one actually watches it, IS IT ACTUALLY ON TELEVISION?????

3) I know you don't like flotrack, but all of the records will be televised there.

A few points. None of these are valid if this years New Balance meet isn't on TV.

People do watch ESPN and ESPN2 and they watch track and field on it. They do not watch track and field online especially when you have to pay. It is about attracting the casual visitor on ESPN not the super track geek.

Two years ago we did a story on the indoor meets on TV and their viewership:

Feb26, 2012 USATF Indoors ESPN 586,000

Feb12, 2012 USATF Classic In Arkansas ESPN2 459,000

Jan29, 2012 US Open @ Madison Square Garden ESPN2 447,000

For reference ESPN2 averages 244,000 viewers so track looks pretty good to me.

NCAA XC or some really huge track event online that is free gets maybe 10,000 viewers max. I think the Stanford meets when free got a few thousand like 2-3000 live visitors. Let's be generous and say its 5000. That was when it was free. So 100x less people will watch online free vs ESPN2.

Now throw in a fee of $19.99 to watch and your numbers are going to drop tremendously.

For the sport to grow we have to reach casual fans.

We don't do that by preaching to the choir.

Maybe we should just give up and accept track is a super niche sport. My wife laughs when I compare track to major sports.

An average indoor lacrosse game will have way more people than at BU tonight or at Millrose Games in NYC.

"They very well may be making a negative NPV decision by televising their meet on TV."

Just curious, but how did you calculate the NPV for a one-time event ? When you plugged the numbers into your DCF model what time frame did you use for the discounting period ? 1 minute ? 30 seconds ? What discount rate did you use ? Way to throw around terms you don't know the meaning of ! kudos !

It's been around longer? There's an annual meet held there called the NBIGP? It's faster? I dont know there are a lot of reasons.

It's stupid to make inferences about the speed of the track based on other statistics when you can just run on it and find out. Apparently Salazar agrees that BU is faster as well. WHAT DOES HE KNOW?

Actually I made it clear that the most expensive was $66 dollars and also later mentioned the $22 price.

Enough of this nonsense. It's not even clear what the dude above is trying to say. He hasn't even outright said that having the record attempts at BU is bad.

There's no reason to believe that racing at BU rather than the NB meet is bad thing. And there are plenty of reasons to believe BU is a better venue for it. I wouldn't have thought anything about it or argued that BU was better if the brojos hadn't gone out there way to post an article on the front page criticizing the decision. They are the ultimate trolls, filled with dribble, I guess I took the bait.

See you losers later. I'm off to watch a track meet and AR.

Interesting stats. I have a hard time believe televised indoor track meets get 2x the average viewers of ESPN2, but maybe. Regardless, I'd argue that track's problem is a marketing pull issue not a marketing reach.

Most of the recent good writings on why T&F and running aren't popular seem to agree along these lines as well.

heyyo wrote:

Interesting stats. I have a hard time believe televised indoor track meets get 2x the average viewers of ESPN2, but maybe. Regardless, I'd argue that track's problem is a marketing pull issue not a marketing reach.

Most of the recent good writings on why T&F and running aren't popular seem to agree along these lines as well.

The average includes 4 am on Tuesday I believe so it's not that hard to believe.

I've got no problem with Rupp racing tonight at BU. If he's going after 3 records they all can't be at TV Meets.

I just wish he'd do his mile AR attempt on national TV (assuming the NB meet is on TV).