QUOTE:
Do you think Weightlifting, Cycling, Football, Swimming etc have less drug cheats than track and field. No those sports have more drug cheats yet they punish their athletes alot less and with less publicity then track and field. So you can punish your athletes but you can do so without turning the whole world off of your sport!
END QUOTE
Yeah, you never hear about cyclists and doping and punishments.
Wow, you are dense. The most watched event on television *means* it's entertaining. Do you think people have a gun pointed to their head to watch soccer on TV?Please refrain from posting or discussing soccer ever. You are making me ashamed to be American.
soccer wrote:
I don't care if the highest rated event ever seen on television was a chihuahua humping a doorknob, doesn't mean its entertaining.
Firstly, the coverage of track in the US is abysmal. Secondly, the big names do not race that often. They are always "hurt." Thirdly, there are no teams to follow. Yea there are certainly individual matchups to follow, but no New York vs LA or Atlanta is coming to Philly this weekend. There are just what amounts to random meets to the casual observer.
Is track losing popularity in the US?
The Washington Post didn't think so in May.
Webbster8 wrote:
Why does track need to be more popular? I enjoy the meets just fine as they are, I am not sure why it needs to be more popular.
It needs more popularity so we can advance our sport. Do you want ESPN buying sole coverage of a meet just to cut away to Baseball Tonight? More popularity means more accessible meets, more money for the pros, and more of the best athletes in the world competing.
say what ? wrote:
say what ? So Cal is where 1/3rd of USA T&F's WC medalists & Olympic medalists prepped. Many great preps went on to have great NCAA and int'l careers: Ryan Hall, Brianna Glenn, Lashnina, Deena, Meb, John Smith, Joanna, Fleshman, Acosta, Flo Jo, Blood, Billy Nelson, Torrence, Shaunte, Matusak, Carmelita, Johnny Gray, Don Babbitt, Ramona,... we have had thousands of T&F greats come out of So Cal high schools.
I wasn't arguing that socal doesn't have some of the world's greatest athletes. If you actually read my post, it says that they don't receive the proportional amount of MEDIA coverage, and thus, they are not as widely known among the MANY fans of the sport in socal.
I was arguing that highschool athletes, and pretty much everybody else, know more about top local high school athletes, rather than the local pros, which hurts our sport.
Forcing track on others is wrong. The reason I like track is because I ran it in high school, and I don't expect people who didn't to be able to relate, especially to distance running. What could be more boring than watching people run circles around a track if it wasn't personally meaningful to you?
VIPAM wrote:
There are a SEVERAL reasons why track and field is losing popularity among the general population (non die hard fans); however, two something that diehard fans can take credit.
1. TRY TO GET OTHERS INTERESTED in T&F
How many of us can truly say in the last two - three years that when a major track meet comes within 200 miles of us that we make an effort to go and take others with us?
So many true fans rather stay home and watch it online or catch it a day later on television- no wonder the numbers at our meets keep falling.
How many of us even try to talk track and field with our friends (non diehard T&F fans) who may not be diehard fans and educating them? (Surely your friends are not so jaded they wouldn't want to learn about another sport.)
Tell your friends to check out T&F when it airs on television and talk about it during or after?
2. PUNISHMENT DON'T HAVE TO BE YELLED FROM MOUNTAIN TOP
Besides marketabilty the main thing ruining our sport is taking down our super-stars who HAVE fallen and made the mistake of using drugs. I'm not saying don't punish them but does it have to be like a witch hunt (you can have the same punishment without highlighting it and screaming it from the top of a mountain). We have allowed our governing bodies to go on a witch hunt- without displaying our concerns- that is destroying our sport.
Do you think Weightlifting, Cycling, Football, Swimming etc have less drug cheats than track and field. No those sports have more drug cheats yet they punish their athletes alot less and with less publicity then track and field. So you can punish your athletes but you can do so without turning the whole world off of your sport!
While these won't fix track and field it certainly would be a start. Yes I have voiced my concern with appropiate governing bodies that all drug accusations and punishments don't need to yelled form the highest mountain.
What have you done to improve the sport you proclaim to love?
This is so immature. You're acting like 2008 Ron Paul for Prez grassroots activists. This is of very little concern to me because I really don't care if track and field is popular. Just let it go. Track and field isn't going anywhere. It's all in your head.
I wasn\'t arguing that socal doesn\'t have some of the world\'s greatest athletes. If you actually read my post, it says that they don\'t receive the proportional amount of MEDIA coverage, and thus, they are not as widely known among the MANY fans of the sport in socal.
I was arguing that highschool athletes, and pretty much everybody else, know more about top local high school athletes, rather than the local pros, which hurts our sport.
the title of this thread \"TRACK AND FIELD: why is it still losing popularity, look in the mirror\" is about T&F in general and not about Elite T&F for TV.
If you want professional track and field to greatly increase in popularity, take it down the same path as professional wrestling. Many people will identify/associate themselves with extreme personalities (even if manufactured) or with teams. Track and field has neither and I'm not interested in the WWTF.
Track and field at the scholastic level ramains hugely popular with participants, and I don't think it ever was with spectators.
We debase our sport when the focus for judging the quality of an event is the winning time, distance, or height. The heart of our sport is competition. There are no trick plays. Luck plays a minor role. Coaches have a minor, if any role, during a competition. The athletes lay themselves bare on that altar - in a given competition, either they were better than another or not that day. It's best when the athletes admit that without excuse and simply look forward to preparing themselves and competing again.
All of that isn't going to translate into great TV ratings and I don't care. Vipam, you can create the WWTF but I won't be watching.
This is a bit off topic, but in its own promotional literature the Mt SAC Relays cites 13,000 as the number of participants. This is not even as much as Penn individually, let alone their combined total of Penn, Drake, and Texas.
I recall Mt Sac has various relays, 4 day meets, and XC carnivals all year as large as the April Relays. Add JHS, Jr College, HS XC, JHS Xc, College. The press also adds Pomona, Long Beach, APU meet numbers which are held in conjunction with the main April Mt Sac relays.
fast times debase the sport??? what planet are you on?
I hesitate to respond to what appears to be a troll. Go back and read what I wrote. I never stated fast times debase the sport.
Webbster8 wrote:
fast times debase the sport??? what planet are you on?
READING COMPREHENSION.
The FOCUS on fast times debases the sport. That has to do with the attitude of the fans, not the actual athletes, who are the ones competing and not sitting on their asses like some armchair race tactician who also has an agenda of making the race more "fun" for people like himself.
The best way to immediately increase the popularity of track and field is to make it a national team sport at the Olympics and World Championship. Yeah, for some that breaks "tradition," but let us get real here. After witnessing the wild international popularity of the FIFA World Cup, its obvious that people across the world would become much more impassioned about ATHLETICS if it were nation against nation. And this is a reasonable solution just look at NCAA track and field, its exciting because it is a team affair. The excitability of professional track and field is severly limited to mega-stars like Bolt, and the potential breaking of world records. Perhaps swimming could adopt the same system. We in America should start calling our sport ATHLETICS so that dweebs on ESPN can't get away with shrewd comments like "The only thing more boring than track, is field." The IAAF should make ATHLETICS a national team sport with a point system at each major championship. This draws much more attention and fan interest in the outcomes of events like javelin, decathlon, shot, disc, hammer, and every event for that matter. Nations who want a medal will need to field solid athletes in every event, for example Kenya starts trying their luck at seriously training more sprinters, jumpers, and throwers. Other nations would do the same, every event would be equally important, and the excitement comes not only from the thrill of a spectacular performance or witnessing a mega-star, but from national pride. There would be not flops or let-downs in hype if no athletes broke a world record or did anything spectacular during the championship. Award medals only to those individuals who scored for their team. You cannot tell me that people across the world wouldn't going nuts during the 4x400 on last day when its close for a medal between a handful of countries and the outcome of last race is the deciding factor. People would be going absolutely insane as the race unfolded. Wild celebrations would follow, sports heroes would be remembered for amazing performances that led to a team victory.