titananatit wrote:
New York has an INTERNATIONAL audience on a pretty amazing course. Chicago is a flat snoozefest with what, 300 spectators, total? GTFO.
New York & Boston are everything-- and New York is better / harder, with a larger audience in (for better or worse) the media capital etc.
Chicago has OK pizza and hotdogs, its marathon is garbage.
New York doesn't have an INTERNATIONAL audience any more than Chicago does. You think in Europe they cover the NYC Marathon but not Chicago? Nope. It's just like over here Berlin and London are given the same treatment. If you follow distance running, you watch both races. If you don't, you watch neither. Personally I don't know anyone who says, "I definitely have to catch New York, but I'm not at all interested in Chicago." For the common man (or woman), I can see how the appeal of RUNNING New York is greater, but nobody bases their racing schedule on what an elite does, besides other elite athletes.
I love distance running. I recognize that Rupp running or not running a certain race isn't going to change the stature of the sport. I watched Sportscenter the night Meb won Boston. It was mentioned, almost in passing, at the end of the show. NYC takes place on a football Sunday. There's no way Rupp winning it would get anything other than the exact same treatment.