Left Hanging?? Running media coverage is the reason the sport has no appeal

There's no money in niche sports. I would interview distance runners but since I am not a distance runner I do not cover the distances and would not know where to begin. I was a DI athlete in another sport, I ran the 800 in high school, but I never made the XC/T&F team at the public DI I went to. I do video, sound, edit.

Dude, the media has nothing to report. In the last 5 weeks of his life, Pre ran a race every week (April/May 1975). We're lucky if one of our top guys runs 5 races the whole year. This was a non-Olympic, non-WC year, yet guys like Teg, Rupp, Solinsky, Ritz, Hall, Meb raced barely a handful of times this year. When Webb ran his series of races, everyone was glued to the net. His races weren't particularly fast but it brought attention to the sport. It was at least something to report.

I suppose the elite guys already have their sponsorship money in the bank, so why bother jumping in some more races "for the fans". On the other hand, I don't see why a guy like Rupp can't show up at a major road race, and just say he was using it for training. It would show that Rupp and Nike care about promoting running in the US. Instead you have Ritz flying up and down the coast for training sessions. For practice!

It's ironic that runners are better taken care of financially than in the AAU/TAC days, yet the sport seems less popular. Perhaps back then, the athlete actually had to help promote the sport/event so he could get additional under the table money from the meet/race director.

I'm not a journalist. I'm a fan.

Perfect. The fanboy websites are staffed by rich kids who don't need a real job. They do us all a great service since they are avid track fans who contribute back to the sport they love in a volunteer media role capacity. It's better than becoming a Jesus Nazi or a Nascar redneck ;-)