To me if it is still going in 5 years then it would be a success. If success is being broadcast on a major network live then I am skeptical.
I just don't think people care about track (outside of the Olympics where the ratings are often amongst the best in the US).
1) I do not think it will be successful but I hope I'm wrong.
2) IF it it successful, I hope it's not at the expense of the great meets we currently have like Monaco, Welklasse, Pre, etc
3) If it it's successful, I'l almost certain it will not the track and field as we currently know it, meaning the odds that is has all of the events is close to zero.
Right now, instead of having Pre, you could have a very successful match race between Kerr and Ingebrigtsen. So one off things like that could be promoted just like MJ vs Donovan bailey at 150m was big when I was a kid.
But track spends a lot of time and effort on things that are expensive and has little interest (many field events, wheelchair races, many lane fillers in track events, etc. - IF it's a 400h race, does anyone care about anyone who isn't one of the Big 3-4?)
I was talking to my brother and Jonathan about this the other day and I was complaining a bit about the for profit angle of this. I was like, "Many track athletes are struggling to get buy? Why should some rich investor get rich off of track (it's what drives me nuts about the flotrack business model)?"
Weldon helped point out that only a for profit entity would have the guts to make painful changes for the sport - like axing half the events, or half the competitors.
And Americans and people like celebrity. I finally had a talk with my ex-Cornell runner Barry Kahn who is looking into doing sprint match races and his idea is certainly not track and field as we know it - it would be a tv series but not what you and I envision as a normal track meet.
But your last sentence is one I have to agree with the most:
samcallan wrote:
I just don't think people care about track (outside of the Olympics where the ratings are often amongst the best in the US).
As I said to a buddy the other day who stopped by on a run. "Do you swimming people sit around and think, "If only presented the sport better , it would be super popular all the time? I have no interest in watching swimming except at the Olympics and I feel like that's largely true for sports fans regarding track."
Well, there was a time when track meets filled the largest stadiums in Europe. I think it still does pretty well. Swimming has never had a following even approaching that. So maybe Michael Johnson is not too far off. Keep in mind he has built a pretty successful business with his training centers. At least they appear to still be around.
I wish he'd focus on the live experience instead of TV, I think you could potentially get great attendance a couple times a year in Boston and New York for starters. See NB Grand Prix and Millrose.
No, but it won’t change the sport. Diamond league is already / has already been great for track and field, Europe has the largest fan base in the world for track and field. The fans pay the sport to run. The problem is that there isn’t enough funding from rich donors who like track and field. That’s why the first place prize pool is maybe 10k at most for the top events. If the tickets are expensive enough , people won’t go no matter what story there is about a top athlete potentially breaking a record. They’ll just watch on tv. However other sports can have tickets that are in the thousands of dollars for the best seats. I see no way how this new league will change these limiting factors in track and field unless Johnson has some rich friends who are willing to throw more cash for winners, which might as well just be done in Diamond Leagues anyways.
I've always felt that a successful way to get some more attention and name recognition would be to have a 100m match race during halftime at the Superbowl.
It's hard to say without knowing the format. The trouble with athletics right now is that nothing matters other than Olympics, worlds, and maybe national trials (definitely in the US, less so in most other countries). It doesn't matter at all if an athlete loses every single race during the season, they could finish DFL in every race, but they can still end up as the Olympic/world champion if they get through two rounds then win a single race. Athletes know that and so do fans, which means that if you go to a meet, the stakes are almost non-existent. So that's MJs biggest challenge: convince everyone that individual meets have consequences.
The next biggest challenge is getting athletes and meet organisers to behave like professionals. Commit to meets well in advance and actually show up, and do so regularly so fans can follow them, get invested. None of this only signing up to a race a few days beforehand or signing up and dropping out on a whim. ATP and WTA players don't get to treat tournaments like crap, they respect the organisers and the fans. Going hand-in-hand with that is decent performance pay for athletes - yes, if they turn up and finish DFL, they still deserve a decent payday and to be paid quickly.
1) I do not think it will be successful but I hope I'm wrong.
2) IF it it successful, I hope it's not at the expense of the great meets we currently have like Monaco, Welklasse, Pre, etc
3) If it it's successful, I'l almost certain it will not the track and field as we currently know it, meaning the odds that is has all of the events is close to zero.
Right now, instead of having Pre, you could have a very successful match race between Kerr and Ingebrigtsen. So one off things like that could be promoted just like MJ vs Donovan bailey at 150m was big when I was a kid.
But track spends a lot of time and effort on things that are expensive and has little interest (many field events, wheelchair races, many lane fillers in track events, etc. - IF it's a 400h race, does anyone care about anyone who isn't one of the Big 3-4?)
I was talking to my brother and Jonathan about this the other day and I was complaining a bit about the for profit angle of this. I was like, "Many track athletes are struggling to get buy? Why should some rich investor get rich off of track (it's what drives me nuts about the flotrack business model)?"
Weldon helped point out that only a for profit entity would have the guts to make painful changes for the sport - like axing half the events, or half the competitors.
And Americans and people like celebrity. I finally had a talk with my ex-Cornell runner Barry Kahn who is looking into doing sprint match races and his idea is certainly not track and field as we know it - it would be a tv series but not what you and I envision as a normal track meet.
But your last sentence is one I have to agree with the most:
As I said to a buddy the other day who stopped by on a run. "Do you swimming people sit around and think, "If only presented the sport better , it would be super popular all the time? I have no interest in watching swimming except at the Olympics and I feel like that's largely true for sports fans regarding track."
Well, there was a time when track meets filled the largest stadiums in Europe. I think it still does pretty well. Swimming has never had a following even approaching that. So maybe Michael Johnson is not too far off. Keep in mind he has built a pretty successful business with his training centers. At least they appear to still be around.
I'm always telling people on here to watch the 1971 Dream Mile in Philadelphia between Ryan and Liquari. Packed stadium on TV in the USA. Track WAS popular in this country.
It could be again. It's all about marketing. It doesn't have to be a team sport- tennis and golf. It just has to be marketed to sell the athletes. And take the focus off of the time and put it on the race.
How can anyone say this will flop without even knowing a single detail about the league?
The biggest problem with T&F is that the top competitors never race each other and you need a PHD to figure out where and when to watch it when they do. If this league can get athletes to actually commit to a schedule beforehand and put it somewhere you don't need to pay $30 a month to watch, it will be more successful than the Diamond League
20 million people watched a 2 minute horse race yesterday in the US because it was on NBC with good presentation and the ability to bet. If they put it on FloHorses.com it would have gotten 2,000 viewers just like T&F
If track is on free tv I watch it. Pass on shot, pass on steeple, pass on pacing lights, and > mile. dual discus and javelin would be cool. Drone shots would be cool. Oh, super happy vaulters, even when they break world records, are irritating. Matter of fact, world records aren't all that exciting and any type of pacing is mega lame.
How can anyone say this will flop without even knowing a single detail about the league?
The biggest problem with T&F is that the top competitors never race each other and you need a PHD to figure out where and when to watch it when they do. If this league can get athletes to actually commit to a schedule beforehand and put it somewhere you don't need to pay $30 a month to watch, it will be more successful than the Diamond League
20 million people watched a 2 minute horse race yesterday in the US because it was on NBC with good presentation and the ability to bet. If they put it on FloHorses.com it would have gotten 2,000 viewers just like T&F
For track or a sub-category of track(sprints) to be more successful in the US it has to be packaged differently unfortunately. NBA and NFL are successful because a huge fan base who will SPEND MONEY to view these events. We complain about spending $30 a month for flotrack but the average fan who may go see one or two NBA games a year will easily spend more than a whole year of flotrack especially if they’re taking their spouse or child. They will spend more money on food!
We can’t be cheap fans and expect it all to be free, if it’s free then theirs no money going to the athletes. You want them to get fairly compensated then the money comes from US. How do you think other sports pay their athletes? Show deals are a small portion of an NBA or NFL players salary. They’re a big portion of a “good” WNBA player, and good track athletes get a lucrative deal. But the average pro track and wnba player gets paid peanuts but it all goes back to revenue generation.
If MJ’s league will be successful it can’t be a free event. $50 admission at least, $5 cokes, $8 beer and $10-$15 food items. If you can spend $100 to attend a fun track meet or $30 to watch it at home with friend you can support a possible successful league. I don’t think over-saturation will work at first it needs to just be 2-3 high caliber meets and some excitement to them. Have 8-10 prime time events(not every event needs to be broadcasted: get over it!) they can still contest the other events to support the athletes, but let’s make it a fun viewer experience. Pull out all the stops, have some pre-recorded videos for between event set-up so the common viewer learns about who they’re watching. It has to be fun and exciting to get it on tv.
whether you like it or not sprinting is where we can become a bigger sport in the USA. Look how big it was when DK ran that 100m. The NFL is connected to USA sprinting whether you like it or not, you purist need to get over it. Once we have household names in our sport like a Usain Bolt(due to them racing NFL players/etc) we can branch out on our own.
they need to tie the NFL into the sport in a fun way… maybe they create a way to where one of the sprinters win an opportunity to try out for an NFL team, or they do a 100m heat with all NFL players and call it “the fastest man in the NFL”
you need something to draw attention then from there you feed off of it.
For track or a sub-category of track(sprints) to be more successful in the US it has to be packaged differently unfortunately. NBA and NFL are successful because a huge fan base who will SPEND MONEY to view these events. We complain about spending $30 a month for flotrack but the average fan who may go see one or two NBA games a year will easily spend more than a whole year of flotrack especially if they’re taking their spouse or child. They will spend more money on food!
We can’t be cheap fans and expect it all to be free, if it’s free then theirs no money going to the athletes. You want them to get fairly compensated then the money comes from US. How do you think other sports pay their athletes? Show deals are a small portion of an NBA or NFL players salary. They’re a big portion of a “good” WNBA player, and good track athletes get a lucrative deal. But the average pro track and wnba player gets paid peanuts but it all goes back to revenue generation.
If MJ’s league will be successful it can’t be a free event. $50 admission at least, $5 cokes, $8 beer and $10-$15 food items. If you can spend $100 to attend a fun track meet or $30 to watch it at home with friend you can support a possible successful league. I don’t think over-saturation will work at first it needs to just be 2-3 high caliber meets and some excitement to them. Have 8-10 prime time events(not every event needs to be broadcasted: get over it!) they can still contest the other events to support the athletes, but let’s make it a fun viewer experience. Pull out all the stops, have some pre-recorded videos for between event set-up so the common viewer learns about who they’re watching. It has to be fun and exciting to get it on tv.
whether you like it or not sprinting is where we can become a bigger sport in the USA. Look how big it was when DK ran that 100m. The NFL is connected to USA sprinting whether you like it or not, you purist need to get over it. Once we have household names in our sport like a Usain Bolt(due to them racing NFL players/etc) we can branch out on our own.
they need to tie the NFL into the sport in a fun way… maybe they create a way to where one of the sprinters win an opportunity to try out for an NFL team, or they do a 100m heat with all NFL players and call it “the fastest man in the NFL”
you need something to draw attention then from there you feed off of it.
I think admission can be cheaper- get them in the stadium and have them spend more on food and souvenirs- shirts, hats, etc.
They'll be turned off by the high ticket price but if you can get a family in the parents will nickel and dime on the other stuff.
And I agree that other major sports fans pay- they pay for apps/cable channels and merchandise.
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