Five is the magic number wrote:
It's the outdated "three per nation" rule that is the problem. Maybe it made sense back in the day when travelling to champs to weeks and were costly for smaller nations. It has far outlived that by now.
EVERYONE that has gone sub 27 this year should be in the WC 10000. Imagine if the Superbowl had a "three players per US state max" rule. The IAAF is killing T&A.
Killing the sport? Imagine if the IAAF just allowed the top performers to compete at the Olympics or World's, you would have had pretty much zero distance event athletes from outside of Eth/Ken/Mor from the late 80's to the 2010's. And it would have been a US/Jam monopoly of the sprints. So you think that limiting the track portion of the Olympic/World schedule to pretty much 5 or 6 countries would grow the event or the number of people watching?
The African dominance of the the distance events is often brought up here when people talk about the lack of interest in the distance events. Having someone to root for that is your nationality is what drives interest in the sport for the casual viewer bar a few outliers ala Bolt. No one wants to watch a bunch of Africans run around a track but the Africans and a very niche of nerds that post on a message board, if they did, the Diamond league would be wayyy bigger. Just like no one would want to watch 7 or 8 Americans run the 200 at the Olympics or World's bar Americans or track nerds. Doing so would absolutely destroy any remaining interest in the sport.
By having more countries involved, you increase the casual fanbase massively. It reminds me of when Floyd Mayweather used to get pressed on why he chose to fight Marquez or Hatton over Mosley etc, and he'd simply tell the press that they have whole Countries behind them which would massively inflate PPV buys compared to fighting Mosley.
And these World or Olympic events were never intended to be absolute zenith of pure competition, the Olympic Creed itself being
"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well"
If you believe making the two biggest track events an even more globally niche event will make it attractive to viewers, You are deluded. There is a very very small hard-core fanbase when compared to the casual fans who tune in.