GST wanted UK Athletics to take the financial risk of arranging a 3 day meeting in Birmingham or London. UK Athletics who are cash strapped to put it mildly, weren't prepared to take the risk.
This post was edited 14 seconds after it was posted.
He isn’t really approachable nowadays. There was a podcast by Dutch journalist Pim Bijl during the World Championships in Eugene. He could talk to anyone, but not Michael Johnson.
If the crowds do not improve over the next two days, he will be pressed with this question more and more. The meet sponsors hope he has a better answer next time.
This sport needs wealthy benefactors, like George Steinbrenner in the 80's with the Florida Clippers track club. It is the best participation sport and -- like with wrestling or swimming or gymnastics -- most do it out of enjoyment of and appreciation for it, but it is not a revenue-generating sport. Unfortunately, guys like Bezos, Gates and Musk were non-athletic nerds with Star Wars, Star Trek and power-mad fantasies that are the focus of their attention and money. I support as I can by subscribing to a magazine and multiple streaming services and being a non-competitive USATF member and spent like a drunken sailor when I attended all 10 days of Oregon22.
Also, I just looked on the London Diamond League tickets page. The meet, which is in July, is 50 per cent sold out already and there are barely any seats in the home straight available. The capacity of the stadium is 80,000. Compare that to last night. Why would British Athletics need to risk a Grand Slam Track event given how successful its Diamond League event is?
This post was edited 38 seconds after it was posted.
UKA lose money in that meet. There stadium doesn’t hold 80,000. It’s 60,000 and installing the track is 3million each meet. So it costs 50 pounds per seat just to install the track.
The British and all Euros will go see any sport in large numbers. They have either weird taste or no taste. It doesn't even have to be a sport, just any event in a stadium, they will go.
personally i can't see any offering of success in this niche low interest sport
now athletics and running has great potential, its recognized as the purest sport, a foundation, to build upon.
if this venture survives the season that is a win.
as a startup you don't make money
MJ is doing a great thing for the sport attempting this. even if it fails, it helps the sport.
i'd like to see some novelty events, like best thrower ... all throws best jumper all jumps,
i'd like to see the top 1500 guys race a 400 or 200m or ....
400 hurdlers vs 800 runners in a 600m
top 100 guys compete in a 400 ...
top hurdler 110 400 and steeple.
i guess i've gone to far by now.
the only way to save track is to embrace the mass-participation aspect with a fair rating system.
Golf is the world's most popular sport because of this. Everyone knows their handicap. That's their bragging rights.
Road racing kind of gets this, when they post the full results and you get to see exactly how close you are to the top. And others see it too. So like golf, everyone gets to win and lose, and have some skin in the game.
The solution is a national track leaderboard. Someone gather all the result from every certified meet everywhere, into one big standard list. And promote it heavily, on world athletics, on a dedicated website. I know their are some low budget sites that already do this, but they don't get everyone, and they don't promote it well, and they don't compile it all into one single list per event.
If I could be the #5000 800m guy out of 50000 names on the list, I'd do it. That would make it worth the training. And that would vastly increase my interest in the elites at the top of the list too.
runbritainrankings.com does this (for Great Britain) for mostly road races but has results for track mile, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000.
My wife keeps using the term "mansplaining" in the wrong context...I'm not sure how to correct her.
It's just another tool of the left to devalue and demean men.. They know that men bring logic and facts to any discussion. Their way to neutralize that is to have a canned pretext in place so that any time a man opens his mouth he's "mansplaining". There. See what she thinks about that.
I hate the term mansplaining but the proper use of it was simply in those annoying situations in which men explain things to women that the women know better.
Fair points, but I thought that it was West Ham FC that paid the conversion costs. The default configuration is athletics, even though the stadium is used more often each year for football/soccer.
The losses made by UK Athletics seem to be more to do with a lack of strong TV and sponsorship deals.
personally i can't see any offering of success in this niche low interest sport
now athletics and running has great potential, its recognized as the purest sport, a foundation, to build upon.
if this venture survives the season that is a win.
as a startup you don't make money
MJ is doing a great thing for the sport attempting this. even if it fails, it helps the sport.
i'd like to see some novelty events, like best thrower ... all throws best jumper all jumps,
i'd like to see the top 1500 guys race a 400 or 200m or ....
400 hurdlers vs 800 runners in a 600m
top 100 guys compete in a 400 ...
top hurdler 110 400 and steeple.
i guess i've gone to far by now.
the only way to save track is to embrace the mass-participation aspect with a fair rating system.
Golf is the world's most popular sport because of this. Everyone knows their handicap. That's their bragging rights.
Road racing kind of gets this, when they post the full results and you get to see exactly how close you are to the top. And others see it too. So like golf, everyone gets to win and lose, and have some skin in the game.
The solution is a national track leaderboard. Someone gather all the result from every certified meet everywhere, into one big standard list. And promote it heavily, on world athletics, on a dedicated website. I know their are some low budget sites that already do this, but they don't get everyone, and they don't promote it well, and they don't compile it all into one single list per event.
If I could be the #5000 800m guy out of 50000 names on the list, I'd do it. That would make it worth the training. And that would vastly increase my interest in the elites at the top of the list too.
Yeah yeah I can see that! Like chess and their elo ratings
Wasn’t one of the main gimmicks of Grand Slam Track “no bib or hip numbers”. Not sure why that was even a selling point, but that sure looks like a bib to me!
