Drop these events to create mass appeal for T&F

This is why always putting the our sport in the hands of distance runners is bad.

Dropping the 800 is possibly the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.

dropping the 800 meter distance race is not a good idea. In fact, it is quite bad.

Condense races over two laps to just two laps.

Marathons are a huge, boring waste of time on TV. The start and the finish are alls of interest. SHould be no more than a 30 minute show.

Of all the posts started here about how to change track and field events, this is by few the worst. Some of these suggestions are so nonsensical as to achieve idiocy, and possibly genuine insanity.

Mass appeal of track and field is NEVER going to happen. People have too many channels these days.

Yeah, drop the 800m - the only athletics event in which every continent can compete in and which is still the most successful for white Americans and European runners.

The other suggestions are sound though. I wouldn't even object so much to the 800 being dropped if they replaced it with the 1K and scrapped the 1500. It would force all the middle-distance runners to compete as they used to (by doubling up).

Are you on crack?

The decathlon drop it now

Disagree, mostly.

Keep:

* 100m

* 200m (95% of spectators only care about watching sprints. Maybe add another, like the 300m)

* 110m hurdles

* 400m

* 800m (questionable existence though ...)

* Mile

Remove:

* 3000m

* 3000m SC

* 400m hurdles

* 2 mile

* 5000m (see Additional Changes section)

* 10000m

* 1500m

* "High school" distances like 1600m, 3200m

* "Odd" distances like 600m, 1000m, 2000m, etc.

Additional Changes:

* 5000m should be on road except for WR attempts

* XC should always be 10k distance on and always on tough courses

* Women have to run the same distances as men. No 6k XC.

* No indoor racing. We don't need to see out-of-shape pros running around a half-sized track.

Get rid of most field events . On TV each field event gets 5 seconds of taped coverage of the winn8ng jump with Dwight Stones. Keep the long jump but put a hedge between the board and the pit. High jump, no more three attempts , rather have 1 minute to clear it. Drop the 10K, in relays, you can hit opponents with Baton, in hurdles the hurdles would be at random heights and set at random distances , in steeple, water barrier continuously goes up and down to make it tough to jump, put an obstacle course in infield.

consider this wrote:

Mass appeal of track and field is NEVER going to happen. People have too many channels these days.

Would you need mass appeal of track and field if most athletes who did track became fans? From looking at these boards even a lot of the most dedicated track fans are too cheap to think about paying to see track. If you cant make track worth it to people who already like the sport, of course the general public will never find it appealing.

Make the 10k a game. Have everyone vote before the race for option A (actually run at WR pace for as long as they can and once they fall off they are disqualified for lying), or option B (just have a 2 lap race since they all they do now anyways. They just jog for 23.5 laps then sprint the last 1.5 laps). This solves the 10k issue. Since realistically if they are running at WR pace it's actually enjoyable. It's when they start running 75+ second laps that it gets to be boring and lame because any random Joe (by random Joe I mean sub-elites) can run 5 minute pace.

The 200m is more exciting than the 100m because 1) you reach a higher top speed and 2) there's time for an actual race to happen. I'd prefer to drop the 100m since with very few exceptions (Bolt) the start decides the race.

Track doesn't need mass appeal. There are thousands of entertainment options for people to choose from; they don't need another one.

So keep all the events and keep track as a participant sport. We actually need more of those.

The so-called "Elite Meets" in the US are scams full of filler HS, College, and Sub-Ellite races, plus many mandate that sponsored athletes race even if they aren't in peak shape ruining their careers and making for a boring, dull meet.

TV exec Quebec CA. wrote:

Drop ; High Jump

Ummm, one of the hottest social media sport topics, is jumping, and more precisely, jumping high. The HJ is one of the events that the average person has the biggest "wow" factor.

200 meters, 400 meters and 800 meters are compromises to Brits and their imperial measurements: one furlong (220 yards), two furlongs (440 yards) and four furlongs (880 yards). I wouldn't mind getting rid of 200m, 400m & 800m if we were to add: 50m, 500m and 1000m. There are shorter fast guys whom are unable to earn Olympic or W.C. medals in 100m. 50m would give us a chance to truly see the fastest men and women on earth. 400m is too easy of a transition for 100m & 200m guys/gals. 500m may be better. 500m with a one turn stagger would be more interesting than a two turn stagger 400m. 1000m instead of 800m could mean a tear drop start instead of one turn stagger for 800m.

+1