Why is there ZERO public interest in Track and Field and Marathons except for the Summer Olympics?

Many people got turned off of track when they tried to race other kids on the playground, or ran the mile in gym class, and they realized they were not super fast. So they turned to other sports and act like track is not an important sport, because they could never make it in that sport.

Same reason I am a fan of biathalon every 4 years.

The vast majority of casual runners participating in any major marathon that also includes, say, Rupp or Kipchoge or Bekele, have ZERO idea of who the winner will be nor do they care. The marathon distance is popular as a novel idea, not because casual runners care to follow them, even if they're racing the same race where a world record is broken.

Don't get it twisted- marathons make their money on the 90% of casual/semi serious runner sign ups and donations rather than the 10% sub elite and elite and 'household' names. Huge economy boosters for local hotels and service industries- Rupp isn't hitting the bars after the Chicago marathon and Ubering back to the Hilton, your aunt Sue will.

Who wants to watch a bunch is stick like men an women run?

I don't agree that the reason to watch track is to see the best of the best compete against each other. Yes, that is the ultimate goal, but there has to be a process and build-up before we get there.

Heck, I just saw a college basketball game on TV between two teams with losing records. That wasn't the best of the best, there weren't any future NBA players on the floor and they were just playing to avoid the pigtail game in their conference tournament. But it was competitive and they went at it like rivals should.

Track could outdo that by a long shot. In just one race, you could have eight rivals jockeying for position to improve their team standing. All DI conference meets need to be televised so people see this incredible competition. And the announcers need to stop dissing the teams and runners who don't finish first, maybe they are setting PB's and rising above their expectations, that is where the real appeal of this sport is. The favorite who wins is not as big of a deal as the seventh seed who gets third, and the announcers need to point that out.

The B1G Network has taken to showing field hockey games. Field hockey.

I doubt anyone on the field hockey team could even make the track team, possibly as a pole vaulter. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the track athletes would be stars on the field hockey team with their speed, athleticism and endurance. But the network won't show track and field, they refuse to show the fastest athletes in the conference, just because of their bias towards team sports.

These decisions are made by network people who don't know the appeal of track and field, they only want to push one type of sport because that is what boosters moved to in the beginning of the TV era. They are looking to increase viewers, but field hockey isn't the answer, track and field is the answer.

Track is popular in the Olympics because people have a "team" to root for and can see how their team is doing by looking at the medal count. Someone may not be interested in the shot put but is interested in whether the US can get a medal in it. Track was mildly popular during the Cold War because there were usually international dual meets culminating in the US/USSR one and again, we had a team to be for.

Now meets have no connecting context. They're a series of disconnected events and unless you're a total fan you have to watch a lot of things you don't particularly like or care about to see things you do. When you have fifteen winners you really have none. And if you're there to see a "star" compete you'll spend most of the meet not seeing him or her compete. Bolt was probably the biggest name the sport's had in this century, maybe our LeBron James equivalent, and if you watched a meet wanting to see him compete you'd get to do it for nearly ten whole seconds.

Road racing had some potential for spectator interest. It's not a series of unconnected events and each one had a single clear winner (for each sex.) But spectators still need "names" to follow. When there were a smaller number of runners at a larger number of events that might have happened. Bill Rodgers was a somewhat recognizable figure and drew some interest from the general sports media. Now there are simply too many people at the front of road races for any of them to draw much interest except at something like an Olympics where three of them are part of our team.

There are about 10 people in the world who enjoy watching running races, and nine of them only like watching sprints. Why? Because it's boring to watch. It's boring to even do.

I hear you but that cant be the explanation. People watch other people play cards every single day! When I was young they said americans wouldnt watch pro soccer like they watch, NBA, MLB, NFL until enough kids played soccer--grass roots and all. Back then indeed I knew almost nobody who played (around 1980). Now, there is a soccer field on every corner, almost every kid plays soccer (certainly way more then football, baseball and basketball put together), yet...we still hate to watch soccer! Its complicated. But clearly familiarity is not the answer. Ever watch wrestling (NCAA)? Most dramatic sport you will ever see, so pure, so athletic...like track. Absolutely nobody cares.

I would imagine elite professionals in the US would know a lot about their potential competition and have a good sense of who could be on the starting line. I doubt they're clueless, you need to know what kind of race you're going to run based on your competition

Do people really enjoy sports though, that's my question. Or is just something that has been built into how we socialize. My favorite league the NFL can get very boring for me at times. And I follow less and less sports as I get older. I don't really understand the crazy fan, it seems kind of sad in a way

This I agree with. Just whatever is on the screen and gets a lot of buzz and there will be hoardes of mindless attention. Add some alcohol and now you have something that people can kick back to and blabber about

There's even less interest in swimming outside the Olympics. Like there's none.

Beyond competitors themselves and maybe some of their family members, the general public has no concept of the distances involved or relative times. I don't think the average person on the street could tell you how many miles a marathon is within a factor of 10 nor whether a 2 hour marathon is a good time or not. Other than maybe the 4 minute mile and 10 second 100 meters, all other races rank about as high as curling on the interest level of American TV viewers.

Track needs to promote the high intensity and pure athleticism of every event. I see NFL and NBA games where the players can coast for a while, then make a great play or get a lucky bounce and be the hero of the game. If you coast for a moment in track, you fall back and lose the race, every time.

Also there is little creativity in track. You can't change things up and start playing a different style or trick the other team with a clever play. You can't negotiate with the ref over what is a penalty or what isn't. Teamwork is an amazing intangible of team sports that track doesn't have, even though track teammates are valuable in training and support.

But what track lacks in creativity and teamwork, it more than makes up for in heart and guts. It takes years of hard training just to be able to compete. You have to keep rising above your previous level and need to develop incredible intensity to perform against athletes just as fast or faster than you.

In team sports, people can argue all day that their team should have won, but the other team got a referee call or a lucky bounce, or the coach made a mistake, etc. That's just gossip, not true competition. In track, the only reason you didn't win is because someone else got to the line before you did, or threw the discus farther. But maybe you had a PB, or are improving and have a chance to win a medal. We don't want people to gossip about track the way they do about other sports. We need to talk about track for what it is: the fastest people, best jumpers, and best throwers, involved in pure, primal competition. Talk about the up-and-comers, the greats, the veterans trying to hold on or come back, the successes, the failures, sharing training stories, racing stories ... there is plenty of drama in every single race, the sport just needs knowledgeable people to bring it out.

Swimming should be considered the most boring sport. You can't even see the faces of the swimmers, just splashes in the water. But the Americans win a lot of medals and the Olympic swimming announcer is so exuberant about every single race, even the heats. It's like every race is a momentous battle between giants, which it is at the Olympic level. Track needs someone like that, who can describe the grandeur of every race, and showcase all the great athletes competing neck and neck, toe to toe, heart to heart.

honestly, it's boring to watch

In my opinion, the lack of coverage is a part of the explanation. It's very difficult to know who is running where until the race happens. In cycling, the riders communicate about their schedule at the beginning of the year, I don't get why the runners don't do this.

There were about 8 runners jockeying for position in the 1500m at Rio and I don’t believe anyone was concerned about team standing. You believe your average sports fan cares whether Stanford can beat Oregon at the Pac 12(still?) conference meet? I’m a distance running fan and I couldn’t care less.

I’ve wanted watched a lot of T&F on T.V. and don’t recall a single time where a commentator dissed someone.

“Setting PBs and rising above expectations” is kind of boring compared to the battle for the win and I can look at the results later. Some of you believe commentators being excited about the sport makes a difference but I tune in to watch the competition and I considered a cheerleader like Romo to be irritating and if I’m attending a game the last thing I would do is listen to him with my earbuds.

Unless someone has competed in distance running, they aren’t going to know anything about pacing during a race or how fast a 3:50 mile is. I assume people that post here have competed in XC and Track and if many of them find distance running to be boring, I doubt of enthusiastic announcing or nail biting team competition is going to attract the average sports fans.