Wow! Crazy, but telling, that Lynch couldn't name last year's winner. All those ideas you proposed to jazz things up, resonate with me, a hardcore fan of the sport, but if I float those same ideas past my wife, ….."meh"
Wow! Crazy, but telling, that Lynch couldn't name last year's winner. All those ideas you proposed to jazz things up, resonate with me, a hardcore fan of the sport, but if I float those same ideas past my wife, ….."meh"
You have thousands and thousands of HS kids who love the sport, but they don't understand what a "2:09 guy" leading Dubai means. Soccer is soccer on all levels. Same with basketball, football, hockey. I know that running is running, but a high school miler isn't going to understand what 2:04 pace in the marathon means. On TV it just looks like this guy is running. Mile splits help, but it is still hard for these younger fans to understand. I think this is a big problem with the marathon for fans.
Correction: Pat Lynch was the elite athlete coordinator for the Boston Marathon (through John Hancock) through 2013, not 2002. Mary Kate Shea worked with Pat for years before becoming the stand-along EAC.
I have the misformtune to love two most boring spectator sports on earth - running and rock climbing. Both are great fun to practice but not much of a spectacle.
Unless you have been there and know exactly how hard it is to make a certain move, rock climbing competition is just a bunch of guys going through the same routine and falling mostly at the same place.
Likewise, unless you can appreciate what it means that a split was 14:20 as opposed to 14:40 or whatever (most people can't); or notice slight changes in running form and understand what the racer is going through; a marathon is basically just some guys running for two hours and then in the last 15 minutes some of them slow down.
Snooker is positively thrilling spectacle compared to running, and I do not see it changing any time soon, no matter how you try to spice it up.
The major reason for the rapid decline in the popularity of elite distance running among potential fans in the past 40 years, is due to one thing and one thing only....racism. Once the East African started to dominate the sport and take all of the prize money, people started to lose interest. You can observe that this is clearly the case.
Baseball, golf, NASCAR and others are boring sports to watch, in my opinion, but the coverage is extremely analytical. Spectators/fans are bombarded with stats before, during and after in mainstream news. They have huge marketing budgets and professional coverage. They promote the sport even when there are no events then contrive ways to make boring events exciting.
The last televised running event I watched was the NYC Marathon. It took me 15 min. to figure out it wasn't televised in my area. Then it took a few more minutes to find a link online to watch it. I could have run a 5k in less time than it took me to just find where to watch it. And I'm not that fast. The coverage was low level amateur. Their audio and video was sketchy and low quality with both failing outright at times. Some might argue that this was one of the biggest running industry events of the year in the US. Other big events are not even covered live to my knowledge.
Watching XC is a freakin hoot but the NCAA video coverage I watched was embarrassing.
We are also an international sport. It's not just the US, not just the marathon, and not just the stupid ass relays. There is more happening outside the us than inside. Where can I watch international track and field events?
I believe 100% that marketing is a big part of our sports malaise.
End of rant
As much as it pains me to say it, people (Americans) want the feel-good stories that we see every four year at the Olympics. The 40-year old mother of sixteen who made the swim team, the gymnast who fought through mid-western stereotypes and practices the rings before dawn in his parent's ramshackle barn, the champion ping pong player from Alabama who was given the medal of honor in Vietnam and went on to start a giant shrimp company using only one boat, and the list goes on...
Ironman Triathlon has this down - again, much to the chagrin of many - when they televise Kona. These are the things that people are paying attention to, not the fact that, say, Paula Newby-Frasier could routinely complete the event under 9 hours - even that is overlooked unless she set a new course record...
People eat this stuff up. They could care less about the middle stages of a "long" race, (you know, like a steeplechase...) That's what commercials are for, right? They prefer to watch the touchy-feely story and then catch the last 2 laps / 800m on the road.
This isn't new - the less people understand the complexities of anything, the less they enjoy it.
My wife hates football because she hasn't ever taken the time to learn the down system. My friends all see soccer as a boring ball bouncing around because they know neither the intricacies of strategy nor the bios of players.
The more people learn about wine the more they drink it.
If you want people to like track, they have to understand it. That means knowing both the historical contexts, the people, the strategies inherent in each event, etc.
Track does a crap job of educating people, even in OIympic years. The cover the human interest stories, but when was the last time you saw an infographic piece on 5k pacing strategies?
I think that saying racism is the cause is a rather simple minded thought process. I don't think the average fan can relate to an East African name (nor a White Russian) or understand as they speak.
There is a reason Pre was popular. Charisma.
Try to use the brain a little instead of the tired, misinterpreted use of the term racism.
The real reason wrote:
The major reason for the rapid decline in the popularity of elite distance running among potential fans in the past 40 years, is due to one thing and one thing only....racism. Once the East African started to dominate the sport and take all of the prize money, people started to lose interest. You can observe that this is clearly the case.
Complete and total BS. Try to unhinge your PC brainwashed mind for a second and thing about any sport any where, where the fans cheer for a team or individual that is not from their home country, region, city etc..
American born black athletes have and do earn fantastic salaries and get large endorsement deals throughout all of sports and all of the USA. IF there were an American born black distance runner that became dominant I am sure he could be popular (as popular as distance runners get.)
The complete and total domination by the East Africans has been terrible for the sport. They do not make for good tv, interviews, pre or post race press conferences. They are not from here, there is no shared experience that a typical American can get from pulling for someone from Kenya.
I don't fault any American for pulling for American distance runners just like I would not expect someone from LA to pull for the NY Yankees in baseball.
Rojo -
first: per the article, he was elite director through 2012 (not 2002). I'm assuming that was one of your usual typos.
second: regarding your first point on "context:" why didn't the title of the thread reference the fact that he NO LONGER is the the coordinator and its not his job to know who won? like "Former Boston Marathon elite coordinator admits he couldn't tell you who won Boston last year"
third: this was the highlight of the article, as we look towards the future and what needs to happen in our sport:
"“The first generation of running leaders is gone,†concludes Pat Lynch. “What has risen up in their place is the bureaucracy beneath them, and multiple boards of directors. What’s been lost is true creative leadership. The original running boom leaders had to be creative just to get noticed, consider the five-borough New York City Marathon in 1976. The current crowd doesn’t have to be creative. They just keep repeating the same old story over and over again. Everyone is satisfied with the status quo. There’s no electricity in the racing anymore. It’s just reshuffling the deck every year. There’s no impact, no juice."
rojo wrote:
I couldn’t tell you who won Boston last year.
Lets face it, because of his honesty, deep religious believes and good looks, more people will remember Ryan Hall's AR in 2011 than who won that year.
And that is not a bad thing.
aquafina wrote:
Complete and total BS. Try to unhinge your PC brainwashed mind for a second and thing about any sport any where, where the fans cheer for a team or individual that is not from their home country, region, city etc.
...
The complete and total domination by the East Africans has been terrible for the sport. They do not make for good tv, interviews, pre or post race press conferences. They are not from here
hmmmm
Not from here does not equal racism. Are you people really that freakin stupid.
Most Americans have no idea who Dathan Ritzenhein is.
Yes, I know I should have put a question mark.
That overused term racism really waters down how ugly and ignorant real racism is. The problem is that most people call nearly everything racism with no regard to the consequences.
This is just on the men's side....
A lot of the Kenyan runners are nice people - but many (and Americans are the same) are socially awkward, shy, they're not camera people. They can't sell.
There's a reason you know who Nick Symmonds is. He's as outspoken as he is talented. But you will show up to watch him run. Haile mastered that art as well. He was as charismatic and electrifying as he was talented and fast.
With the exception of Meb, there really aren't many others out there who generate the buzz. Farah/Rupp if you are a huge fan of running of course. Particularly in Europe for Farah. But I'm talking just mainstream public here in the states.
And - the prize money is pathetic. $150K to win a marathon? That's it? That's less than a year's salary, or just over. But it isn't an eye-popping number. And in days when the lottery is amassing 1.5 billion dollar jackpots, professional athletes regularly sign 10, 20, 30 million dollar annual contracts, $150K is chump change. Who gives a crap about a measley $150K, I'd rather watch the guy who just signed his 7 year 217 million dollar deal with the Red Sox.
If races were smarter, they would cut out some of the appearance money, and put it all toward the prizes. None of the races publicly announce that Ritz was paid say $250K just to toe the NY Marathon line to make his debut....or whatever. All of this under the table crap kills a chance of publicity.
And Reavis is spot on (Or Lynch is) about the beuraucracy of these organizations. The NYRR, BAA, whatever- they're multimillion dollar organizations who seem to lack the initiative to try something different. "Oh we created the World Marathon Majors ......" Yup - no one really cares that much. No one knows about it. And now that Tokyo is going to complete the next series .... who in their right mind (outside of the die hard fans) is going to wake up to watch the Tokyo Marathon to see who the big winner was. I don't even know if it's available on american television.......
So this April, we'll watch a group of African runners who no one can identify with because we won't know their personal stories and we won't really hear from them on television or whatever because they're all locked away in some mountainous terrain to train. And one of these runners will win. And no one is going to care. LetsRun will post about how London had a stacked field of fast runners. No one is really going to care much about that either. Becuase it'll be the same thing they had every other year. The LetsRun masses will look to see how Bekele did, because we know who he is. They'll look to see perhaps which of the top guys ended up winning. But really, that's it. This has become a bit boring............
When the marathon pop fizzles because people are tired of raising $5 to $10K for charities, and the Americans have 0 chance again of winning (and that's going to happen once Ritz hangs it up. Rupp will be competitive someday... but he seems more determined to run 10Ks on the track) these organizations will be looking at a large opportunity, wasted. A missed opportunity to create something bigger.
In the short term - they should end appearance fees, focus on the prize money. And do a better job of promoting the runners, and even create classes/training sessions with the runners to grill into their brains that THEY NEED TO CREATE SOME OF THEIR OWN BUZZ......be controversial, speak your mind, create an identity. Don't just run 2x a day and lament that you don't make any money, you are tired, sore, whatever.......
Long term, work to change these dumb IAAF regulations about # of sponsors on the singlets. Let the runners make some money that way.
Super long term - there needs to be a road racing series that doesn't just involve marathons. It should include 5K, 10K, the summer 7 milers, Half marathons .... and award points based on a combination of finishing time or place. At the conclusion, there could be a "top 10" for prize money .... and get someone to really sponsor it with a lot of money. And make it a million dollars. The winners become millionaires. That opens eyes too.
I believe wrote:
Not from here does not equal racism. Are you people really that freakin stupid.
That's not the entirety of what was said. And the language people use to describe the current state of the marathon _does_ seem to support actual racism.
Here's a quote from the source:
They bring in a bunch of anonymous athletes, shoot the gun and let them run.
But they're _not_ actually anonymous, are they? Just because their "stories" and "personalities" aren't easily understood by someone in a different culture doesn't mean they're invalid. It's not like there is wave after wave of faceless, anonymous runners making the top ranks. The elites _can_ be followed and their stories _can_ be understood.
The East African domination by the faceless nameless "Kenyan of the Week" does nothing to help the cause. Toss in some doping allegations, and you have a real mess.
Until we have some charismatic (i.e. tv friendly) winner of some big races, then yes the interest in the racing aspect will suffer.
Honestly, II have no idea who won Boston and I'm sure I looked at the results, possibly followed the mile by mile.