bfef wrote:
As a casual runner who hasn't followed T&F much, I can say that shirt-form video and YouTube have made the sport more accessible to me. I find myself watching meets quite a bit these days just because they show up in my feed.
I mean not whole meets, but event highlights for the longer events.
Horse racing is dying too. It used to be a major sport, not anymore.
It's much easier for the general population to go outside, throw a football around for a few minutes, come back in and eat a bunch of crap and fantasize about being a pro football player while they're watching the game of the week.
Track isn’t boring, TV doesn’t know how to present track. Swimming is boring, you can’t even see their faces, just splashes in the water. But swimming has an announcer who makes it exciting, he is screaming about every race. Track announcers are getting better, but they make the races less exciting than they actually are. They are still telling back-stories during the most exciting parts of a distance race and barely even notice the movement in the race. Then the camera only goes to the winner, we don’t even see the incredible fights to the finish.
Track is flourishing right now with great performances and great athletes, but TV doesn’t know which races to follow.
Whatever network finds a way to package track and present it with a little flair, will gain viewers and show the world how exciting it actually is.
Because it's hard, uninteresting, and there's no regional or other kind of attachment to the athletes except them being from the US which is why the only time anyone slightly cares is during the Olympics. I'd also argue that the fact that football, basketball players etc. have the advantage of being much more able to have a unique playstyle or that "X" factor that captures peoples' imaginations. The only recent track athletes I can think of that possess this are Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. There's not much to racing, there's pretty much only two or three tactics involved and the potential for upsets is lower than in other sports. None of this is to dump on track as I enjoy watching it, but I can understand why it's not that popular.
nike shill wrote:
Because it's hard, uninteresting to those not "in the know", and there's no regional or other kind of attachment to the athletes except them being from the US which is why the only time anyone slightly cares is during the Olympics. I'd also argue that the fact that football, basketball players etc. have the advantage of being much more able to have a unique playstyle or that "X" factor that captures peoples' imaginations. The only recent track athletes I can think of that possess this are Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt. There's not much to racing, there's pretty much only two or three tactics involved and the potential for upsets is lower than in other sports. None of this is to dump on track as I enjoy watching it, but I can understand why it's not that popular.
Fixed a mistake
If distance running ended in close finishes, people would care more. But, the fact that we are living in a "tik-tok" world where we want it short and now, good luck trying to get people to care about a marathon.
I love track, but I have to admit that it's boring to watch.
Cross country is better. Maybe because of the team aspect or because the course are interesting. Things like runner location/pace tracking and dynamic team leader board help. Track often suffers from lack of action or lead changes until the final lap or so. Or once runner gets a big lead, the field is not going to close the gap. Etc.
Cycling is 100x longer, and it's much more interesting to me that watching track. Maybe it *is* the presentation, I don't know.
Marketing- or lack of it.
If golf and nascar can be popular so can distance running.
I also think that the fact that distance runners aren't in the public eye often enough is a reason.
Most major sports they compete weekly or close to it.
F1- every week for a long season
Football 18 weeks then the playoffs
NBA, MLB, PGA- daily, weekly
Pro marathoners- twice a year? Many other races are tune ups so they're not taken seriously- it's ok to lose a 1/2 marathon when your goal is the marathon a month later.
The general population doesn't care about distance running for the same reason they don't care about other things they don't care about. They have no reason to care about it. They don't do it. They didn't used to do it. And they have no desire to do it or watch it.
And that's fine with me. I love that running is niche. I enjoy it. I do it. I don't need Billy Bob and Susy Jones to give a lick about it, or appreciate how hard I worked for my PR, or what it means. My enjoyment of it would be no greater if all of a sudden the general population cared about Grant Fischer and what's-her-name. In fact, I kind of like that its a little unique, a little weird and a little unusual. I have no desire to blend in to the masses, follow trends and be average.
We are what we are.
runn wrote:
Marketing- or lack of it.
If golf and nascar can be popular so can distance running.
If marketing was the issue, smart, greedy people would've figured it out by now. Golf is slow, but there are lots of different aspects - drives, chips, putts, hazards. You can watch each player and see their score change and how they are placed in the field. Players can make mistakes and recover on the next hole. There is a leader board.
Nascar has crashes, pit stops, mechanical issues, drafting, bumping, yellow flag, green flag, etc. Both have lots of changing scenarios that make you pay attention or recapture your attention if you're getting bored.
Both have regular competitors that fans can watch every week and get invested in cheering for.
Are there similar things in track?
It's not on TV as much as other sports because it's boring. If we had track on TV every day, I really don't think interest would increase very much.
The general population cares about football, some basketball and baseball. All other sports after that are niche sports.
The US public struggles with international competition. If we have a decade where all the major golfers are from Asian countries, the viewership will fall of a cliff.
The very best runners are all from East Africa, and they just are not marketable. Shy, quite and speaking broken English isn't what Madison Ave is looking for.
I can't remember who it is but someone talked about soccer (football outside of the US), and said something that hit me :
" Football is very often disappointing, you might play beautifully and still lose in the end, you might be winning and suddenly a mistake, a lack of luck, makes it that you lose. And this is exactly like in life. And this is why, it is the number 1 sport in the world ".
And I think it's similar with other ball sports. The luck, the moment of reversal, the moment where you think everything is lost and the situation is reversed, or the opposite. This happens way more often in ball sports. In running it's much more rare.
On its own (without a top 3 placing or medal in a major comp), it needs to be a world record for that kind of attention.
yes and the reason is the tribe factor. We are animals.
Starno wrote:
I can't remember who it is but someone talked about soccer (football outside of the US), and said something that hit me :
" Football is very often disappointing, you might play beautifully and still lose in the end, you might be winning and suddenly a mistake, a lack of luck, makes it that you lose. And this is exactly like in life. And this is why, it is the number 1 sport in the world ".
And I think it's similar with other ball sports. The luck, the moment of reversal, the moment where you think everything is lost and the situation is reversed, or the opposite. This happens way more often in ball sports. In running it's much more rare.
Yep, it's relatable in more ways than one. Everybody threw the football and shot basketball as kids, and everybody has experienced those quick and unpredictable changes in life.
Runningart2004 wrote:
They only care about whats on TV. Preferably live TV.
If Track had people with loads of money behind it and could get a TV deal then people would care.
There are also no teams in Track to root for.
Track is the sport football players do in the offseason to stay in shape....
Alan
I've always wondered about how to get Track relatively close to even the level of Golf and Tennis, which are individual sports. Those sports have the Majors, which if you step back adds an almost artificial prestige to 4 individual tournaments. Obviously we have the Olympics and WCs, but I wonder if we had something called "The US Open," how would that affect the perception? The Boston Marathon is the closest thing we have to it, imho.
89 steps wrote:
Track announcers are getting better, but they make the races less exciting than they actually are. They are still telling back-stories during the most exciting parts of a distance race and barely even notice the movement in the race. Then the camera only goes to the winner, we don’t even see the incredible fights to the finish.
Track is flourishing right now with great performances and great athletes, but TV doesn’t know which races to follow.
This is true, especially in the marathon. It seems like every single major race is decided while they are covering the wheelchair finish (always a blowout), or some PR piece about a 5 hour marathoner. They have 2+ hours to show that, but they inevitably do it at mile 22 in every single race. It drives me insane. I don't think they realize that the most exciting part of a marathon is from miles 22-25, not necessarially the finish line. They always cover mile 25-26.2, but the race is usually decided by then.
Same thing happens for the track 10k. They wait till there's 4 laps to go, then go on a two minute commercial break.
Running isn't all that exciting for a few reasons.
Its easy to duck competition in the marathon. UFC fighters and boxers want to face the best, that's how they get paid the most. They want that shot. There's too many marathons and its easy for the greats to duck each other. Think of how many Bekele vs Kipchoge matchups there has been. Not many, and they have dozens of opportunities each year. Nike doesn't want them going head to head, because they lose out on advertising benefit. That's lame.
They all know each other, they're all happy for the winner all the time. Its annoying. Every post race interview contains "so and so had a great race today and I'm so happy for them" That's nice and all, but its ok to be angry you didn't win.
Running could definitely use some more rivalry. They should race each other more often and talk more trash. They should call each other out for BS race tactics. When's the last time you heard someone say "he/she sat on my heels the whole race like a b*tch"? Think about if you did, you bet people would be interested in the next race. Even cyclists will talk trash before/after a race. They even fight sometimes.
The drama of the race itself is hard to understand for the general population. We need more passion, specially passion that can be understood by the non-running world.
It’s a boring sport. Solved that brain buster for you.