I believe that BU has stated this is difficult to do because of the building capacity - they already operate at capacity during their larger meets. The building would not be able to accommodate the rush. If they were outdoors, it would be more feasible.
Who's going to go to a dual meet? The fan interest isn't there and the athletes don't like running in dual meets.
From my experience, the dorms were across the street from the track at Tennessee but no one just casually came over to watch a free track meet unless they had a friend competing. Those were big meets like the Sea Ray Relays.
Why would spectator interest increase just because it's a UT vs Kentucky or UT vs Florida dual meet?
The Oregon State\Oregon meet usually sold out. Washington \ Washington State, USC/UCLA, heck, most PAC dual meets drew big crowds.
That ship has sailed. No one's going to say, "Hey, a dual meet! Let me clear my schedule!"
I ran college track way back in the day, so I'm about as warm a prospect as possible, and I have no interest. None.
The building Valby/Tuohy collegiate battle was epic, being the biggest collegiate dual in decades. Their 2nd cross-country matchup was a bit of a let-down when Tuohy had some sickness, and then she left college shortly thereafter, so we didn’t get to see the showdown on the track.
Valby puts butts in the seats. If this stupid “sport” targets her with way more drug tests than Schweizer Houliban, Cranny, etc. , then that’s it.
-Conferences must meet twice prior to the conference championships
-Half the conference meets at one host institution, and the other half meets at another. These hosts rotate. The next meeting all new teams face each other, so everyone competes against each team once.
-These must be run on the same day.
-The combined finishes of teams in these two meets, as well as the conference championship, are counted towards overall score.
-The conference championship team finish is worth double.
-All individual conference champions auto-qualify to regionals. The rest are filled in by time.
idk just thinking. Yeh, it’s possible to win the conference championship meet but lose overall. Basketball has that with regular season champions vs tournament champions.
It's a good point. The last meets I was at that there was real excitement for were probably not even rivalry matches in college but high school dual meets in which my school was going for the league championship against our rivals. They were so afraid of a brawl after the mile relay, thanks to certain shenanigans of the rival high school, that they forbade any victory laps or celebrations. That atmosphere was electric.
It is interesting that track has always had a hard time showcasing itself. They need to think about packaging the distance events better and also adding the 3k back into the mix. It is easier to watch than the 5k because its shorter. The irony of all of this is that American Football is one of the truly awful spectator experiences out there, but has been package just for TV. I went to a pro game not long ago and the amount of interruptions and breaks in the game were stunning. At home these are commercials, but live they are excruciating to see. No one ever envisioned that the sport would be played that way. Huge opportunity in track at the moment with such an elite class of distance runners competing.
It all comes down to marketing. Track has the best athletes in the world at so many different disciplines and there are some great personalities. USATF has to market them.
The meet experience has to be marketed and meet directors have to keep the meet moving along at a quick pace.
It's popular in Europe and it can be popular here (it used to be popular here).
I always refer people to the 1971 Dream Mile in Philadelphia between Ryan and Liquari:
The stadium was full and the announcers CALLED THE RACE and didn't blather on with useless informatiom.
The Oregon State\Oregon meet usually sold out. Washington \ Washington State, USC/UCLA, heck, most PAC dual meets drew big crowds.
That ship has sailed. No one's going to say, "Hey, a dual meet! Let me clear my schedule!"
I ran college track way back in the day, so I'm about as warm a prospect as possible, and I have no interest. None.
Yep, I'm right with you in the same boat. We're long past the days when it was 3-4 channels on 30" CRT TVs. All the meets that the local P4 State U twenty minutes down the road hosts are invites and classics. Just long days (they split events into different days) of regional schools' athletes trying to make the travel squad or get a mark for conference meet seeding. No scores and you wouldn't know who is racing. They may try to hype things up with a couple "spotlight miles" with the Roman candles during intros and all, but it just isn't compelling. They cancelled their traditional home XC meet years ago. They are actively telling local fans to not bother caring.
They could hold a dual meet with the other large state school an hour away or tri meet to also include a major institution a couple hours away and that would be genuinely interesting. Especially if you kept it to something like 10 events. Plenty of local high schoolers would show up to see that.
The only way to make dual meets viable is to radically restructure the sport at the college level. You'd have to make dual meets count for something other than college pride. What's worse than a big invite with no team score? A dual meet where the coaches and athletes don't care who wins. Then you get just get a crappy meet. Athletes in secondary events (or resting), spotty competition in most events, a 2-team 4x400 with one team 8 seconds ahead of the other...
You can think of ways to remake the incentive structure and make dual meets matter. But they all kind of suck. For example, it might be workable to make the conference team champions be based on head to head records in dual/tri/quad meets. That would make everyone care about the dual meet score and bring excitement to the regular season. But there's more downsides than upsides. The worst downside is killing the one team event that actually still works--the conference championship meet.
I'm not anti-dual meets. I think it would be interesting to see a system where teams have head-to-head 3 hour meets and the coaches and athletes really want to win, although I'd bet you still wouldn't draw fans.
Maybe there are other ways to change the incentives to put more weight on dual meets, but I doubt they'd carry enough weight to actually change behavior. Coaches are rational beings--they're not going to load up a dual meet unless the team gets something significant out of it. Keeping score is not enough. They keep score at NFL preseason games, too.
I believe that BU has stated this is difficult to do because of the building capacity - they already operate at capacity during their larger meets. The building would not be able to accommodate the rush. If they were outdoors, it would be more feasible.
The bigger issue is there’s no financial incentive for them to create a good product. Meets with 100+ sections are huge revenue generators because of entry fees.
They could easily hold the “hot window” a couple hours after the rest of the meet wraps up or on a totally different day.
Reform NCAA qualification so that conference champions get auto bids with any remaining slots filled by top seasonal performers.
More regionally and rivalry focused competition. Oregon vs. Washington. A quad meet of Stanford / Cal / UCLA / USC. Florida vs. Georgia. These pique fan interest and viewing, not trying to catch section 12 of the women’s 800 at the Enormous Pre-National Invitational Relays (Day #3 - Afternoon session) on a Runnerspace+ pay stream.
Get back to racing that means something! Not chasing time qualifiers nor sending split squads to three different meets each weekend.
Yes, he is correct. But the NCAA's current model prioritizes qualification over winning until nats. A dual meet would mean one fewer opportunity for a fast time. Then with roster limits, you could see dual meets with sprint school vs distance school - a meet filled with star athletes, but the most boring you've ever watched.
Another problem with duel meets…. These new roster caps make it really hard to have a full outdoor team. Half the power 5 doesn’t field multi’s, pole vault, or all the outdoor throws. Not every school is good at the same events. USC vs UCLA? Well USC doesn’t don’t 15 outdoor events.
Also, as a former mid major coach those teams don’t have any travel money. The AAC goes from Florida to Philly to Kansas to Texas.
You think my AD is paying to send the whole team to a duel across the country? Nah…. They barely gave us lunch money
Another problem with duel meets…. These new roster caps make it really hard to have a full outdoor team. Half the power 5 doesn’t field multi’s, pole vault, or all the outdoor throws. Not every school is good at the same events. USC vs UCLA? Well USC doesn’t don’t 15 outdoor events.
Also, as a former mid major coach those teams don’t have any travel money. The AAC goes from Florida to Philly to Kansas to Texas.
You think my AD is paying to send the whole team to a duel across the country? Nah…. They barely gave us lunch money
It's not just the roster limits but the ncaa structure allows teams to specialize instead of forcing them to have a well rounded track team.
But mostly, you are right, it's about money or lack thereof.
Unfortunately, track is a dying sport here in the US.
Weirdly, where duals/tris/etc really do well is in D3, where the rosters are deeper and you have a lot of geographical and conference history intact.
I think CMU and Case for example have had an indoor dual meet going back 10-15 years at least, with a trophy that gets sent back and forth and everything.
Another problem with duel meets…. These new roster caps make it really hard to have a full outdoor team. Half the power 5 doesn’t field multi’s, pole vault, or all the outdoor throws. Not every school is good at the same events. USC vs UCLA? Well USC doesn’t don’t 15 outdoor events.
Also, as a former mid major coach those teams don’t have any travel money. The AAC goes from Florida to Philly to Kansas to Texas.
You think my AD is paying to send the whole team to a duel across the country? Nah…. They barely gave us lunch money
It's not just the roster limits but the ncaa structure allows teams to specialize instead of forcing them to have a well rounded track team.
But mostly, you are right, it's about money or lack thereof.
Unfortunately, track is a dying sport here in the US.
It just isn't a spectator sport the way it's been presented, as a rule. Last time I attended a conference championship meet (Big 12, about a decade ago) it was mostly athletes and their families in the stands. And that's for a championship meet of storied programs with most of their best competing with team scores. Same as the previous conference meets I attended decades prior when I was in school. It plays more like a chess tournament than an entertaining sports contest.
Now what would be better? Maybe you could do some serious of races as national qualifiers to make them revelant, but who knows if that would actually be fun to watch.
p.s. I want to be clear, by asking if people go to track meets, I wasn't trying to be judgmental. I am just genuinely curious if people just go to meets to watch...
ive never been to a track meet as a fan, but im thinking about going to philly for GST.
I've gone to help friends.
GST, Diamond League, Championships have a fan friendly enough set up.
INvites are all about setting up comp to chase times.
If weather was more reliable, we wouldn't need so many